k eyes and the chain between his wrists
filled all my mind. Who could he be? The sense of warmth that had
come with his smile, and that very curious sensation I had had when he
had come up close to the bar and spoken to me, were with me yet. His
voice had been pleading and deferential, surely nothing in it to
resent. The memory of his face made me forget the chain between his
wrists; as if he himself had been greater than any of the people around
him.

We had reached our own door, but before father could put his key in the
lock, the door opened from within, and there in the hall stood Hallie
Ferguson, her new blue bonnet on one side, her face crimson with haste
and excitement.

"Oh, Ellie," she gasped, "have you heard? I've been waiting the
longest time for you. Isn't it awful? Johnny Montgomery has shot
Martin Rood, and they say it's about the Spanish Woman."

CHAPTER III

THE RUMORS

Hallie's facts dashed so coldly and so suddenly upon the warm fancies
which had been taking possession of my mind, that for the moment I
could only stupidly gaze at her. Then, without any reason that I could
account for, I burst into tears.

I cried all the while father carried me upstairs. I cried convulsively
while Abby was getting me to bed, and, wound up in the sheets with my
face hidden in the pillow, I cried inconsolably for a long time. That
aching sensation in my throat would not wash away with tears. Vaguely
I heard the doctor explaining to father how my present condition was
due "to severe nervous strain, and the subconscious effort of the
constitution to combat it." I knew it was nothing of the sort, but
just the plain fact that Johnny Montgomery, seen once dancing at a
ball, and ever after to me the model of all romantic heroes, was a
murderer. It was dreadful to think that it was through me he had been
taken, because I had remembered so well his beautiful black eyebrows,
and the little white scar near his mouth; but nothing that had followed
had been so terrible as that first sight of him, when he rushed out of
the door, with all the horror of what had just happened, in his face;
or so cruel as the thought that he could have done such a thing. But
why did his look, both then and later, come back to me accusing and
reproachful? How could I help what I had done? I had had to tell the
truth, and surely he must know that nothing but good ever comes of
that, no matter how hard it seems. I agonized th