character I had some respect, I should have been glad to see the last
of them. But as soon as the influence of his sister was removed,
Jeremy became wilder and madder than ever. I could see him on
moonlight nights creeping about among the lily clumps, digging here and
scraping there, his hands and feet bare and earth-stained. Then,
seated tailorwise among the mould, he would play strange music on his
violin, and laugh. On dark nights it was not much better. I could not
see him, it is true. But I could hear him digging and panting like a
wild beast, or laughing to himself, and then stopping suddenly to
croon, 'Down Among the Dead Men!'"

* * * * *

"This," said Mr. Fiscal McMath, "is the last entry in what purports to
be a narrative or diary." He turned to another leaf left behind in the
house and recovered by the searchers.

"Ah," he said, "here is yet another paragraph. It is dated 'February
10, morning," and runs as follows: "'Came home to an empty house.
Jeremy madder than ever, playing and laughing about the house--nothing
to eat. Dined with Ball at the bailiff's cottage. I did not like the
way Jeremy looked at me when I refused him money. But it is he or I
for the mastery. In case of anything happening, the lines which follow
contain my last will and testament: I die at peace with all men, and I
leave everything of which I die possessed to my granddaughter, Elsie
Stennis!

"(Signed)
"HOWARD (sometimes called Hobby) STENNIS."

"The wretch! The villain! The robber!" cried Aphra Orrin, for a
moment forgetting her role of penitent--"to take from us who earned in
order to give all to a stranger!"

"Elsie will never touch a penny of it!" I shouted, but my voice was
lost in the universal howl.

"The woman stands fully committed--take her away!" cried the sheriff.

He had glanced at his watch. It was in fact, long past his dinner
hour! As if moved by his hand policemen rapidly displaced the two
clergymen, and Aphra disappeared down a flight of stairs to the cells
below.

But, curiously enough, the mob had no thought of her. The reading of
Hobby Stennis' confession--so ghastly, perverted, cold-blooded, dead to
all moral sense, even triumphant, ending with the will which gave
everything to Elsie--had so incensed the people that there was a rush
when a kind of crack-witted preaching man from Bewick shouted, "Make an
end, ye people, make an end! Let none of the viper