heriff threw up his hands.

"They wonder whether she was going to quilt it or just knot it!"

There was a laugh for the ways of women, a warming of hands over the
stove, and then the county attorney said briskly:

"Well, let's go right out to the barn and get that cleared up."

"I don't see as there's anything so strange," Mrs. Hale said
resentfully, after the outside door had closed on the three men--"our
taking up our time with little things while we're waiting for them to
get the evidence. I don't see as it's anything to laugh about."

"Of course they've got awful important things on their minds," said the
sheriff's wife apologetically.

They returned to an inspection of the block for the quilt. Mrs. Hale was
looking at the fine, even sewing, and preoccupied with thoughts of the
woman who had done that sewing, when she heard the sheriff's wife say,
in a queer tone:

"Why, look at this one."

She turned to take the block held out to her.

"The sewing," said Mrs. Peters, in a troubled way. "All the rest of them
have been so nice and even--but--this one. Why, it looks as if she
didn't know what she was about!"

Their eyes met--something flashed to life, passed between them; then, as
if with an effort, they seemed to pull away from each other. A moment
Mrs. Hale sat her hands folded over that sewing which was so unlike all
the rest of the sewing. Then she had pulled a knot and drawn the
threads.

"Oh, what are you doing, Mrs. Hale?" asked the sheriff's wife, startled.

"Just pulling out a stitch or two that's not sewed very good," said Mrs.
Hale mildly.

"I don't think we ought to touch things," Mrs. Peters said, a little
helplessly.

"I'll just finish up this end," answered Mrs. Hale, still in that mild,
matter-of-fact fashion.

She threaded a needle and started to replace bad sewing with good. For a
little while she sewed in silence. Then, in that thin, timid voice, she
heard:

"Mrs. Hale!"

"Yes, Mrs. Peters?"

"What do you suppose she was so--nervous about?"

"Oh, _I_ don't know," said Mrs. Hale, as if dismissing a thing not
important enough to spend much time on. "I don't know as she
was--nervous. I sew awful queer sometimes when I'm just tired."

She cut a thread, and out of the corner of her eye looked up at Mrs.
Peters. The small, lean face of the sheriff's wife seemed to have
tightened up. Her eyes had that look of peering into something. But next
moment she moved, and said in her thin