e should be certain of its mark, repeated the
vague yet perfectly obvious hints of the preceding evening; and Cap'n
Sproul was thankful for the mystic gloom of the hall that hid his
fury and his shame. He stole out of the place while the lights were
still low. He feared for his self-restraint if he were to remain,
and he realized what a poor figure he would make standing up there
and replying to the malicious farrago of the woman under the veil.

XVI

For the rest of the professor's engagement Cap'n Aaron Sproul and
Hiram Look kept sullenly to their castles, nursing indignant sense
of their wrongs. They got an occasional whiff of the scandal that
was pursuing their names. Though their respective wives strove with
pathetic loyalty to disbelieve all that the seeress had hinted at,
and moved in sad silence about their duties, it was plain that the
seed of evil had been planted deep in their imaginations. Poor human
nature is only what it is, after all!

"Two better women never lived than them of ourn, and two that would
be harder to turn," said Hiram to the Cap'n, "but it wouldn't be human
nature if they didn't wonder sometimes what we'd been up to all them
years before we showed up here, and what that cussed occulter said
has torched 'em on to thinkin' mighty hard. The only thing to do is
to keep a stiff upper lip and wait till the clouds roll by. They'll
come to their senses and be ashamed of themselves, give 'em time and
rope enough."

Second Selectman Batson Reeves busied himself as a sort of master
of ceremonies for Professor Derolli, acted as committee of
investigation when the professor's "stock subject" remained for a
day and night in a shallow trench in the village cemetery, and even
gave them the best that his widower's house could afford at a Sunday
dinner.

In the early flush of an August morning about a week after the
departure of the hypnotic marvel and his companions, a mutual impulse
seemed to actuate Selectman Sproul and Hiram Look at a moment
surprisingly simultaneous. They started out their back doors, took
the path leading over the hill between their farms, and met under
the poplars at a point almost exactly half-way. It would be difficult
to state which face expressed the most of embarrassed concern as they
stood silently gazing at each other.

"I was comin' over to your house," said Hiram.

"I was startin' for yourn," said the Cap'n.

Then both, like automatons pulled by the same st