rlor, Mrs. Stannard, Mrs. Truscott, and Miss
Sanford, when he reached the house. Three sadder faces he had never
seen. The first question was as to the verdict of the coroner's jury.
Blake shook his head. "It can only be one thing." Indeed, was not that
what Mrs. Whaling had been there to tell them already, with a simply
maddening array of embellishments?

Mrs. Stannard's blue eyes were red with weeping, and Mrs. Truscott
looked as though she had wept for hours. Indeed, she had been, long
before the shot was fired. Marion Sanford alone was quiet and composed;
her eyes were clear as ever, though deep dark rings had formed beneath
them, and her soft lips were set in constant effort to repress emotion.
Blake briefly told them how calm and brave Ray was, how he had refused
to explain about the pistol, or to give any particulars of his quarrel
with Gleason, merely saying it had been of long standing. There were
many things that he, Blake, must attend to at once, and so, if they
would excuse him, he wished to see Mrs. Truscott a moment, and she
followed him to the piazza falteringly.

"Ray told me to give this note to no one but you, Mrs. Truscott, and I
inferred that he wished you only to see it," said he.

To his surprise, she drew back her hand. Her lips began to quiver, her
eyes to refill. She made no effort to take it. He looked at her
wonderingly.

"Mr. Blake--I--I cannot take it. I cannot explain!" And then, abruptly
turning, she rushed into the house and up the stairs.

Poor Blake stood one moment in dire perplexity and then went back.

"She wouldn't take it, Billy. She said she couldn't; but d--n me if I
can fathom it."

Ray's eyes grew stony. Every vestige of color left his face. He covered
it with his thin white hands, and the man who had braved death and
torture to save his comrades, who had borne uncomplainingly, resolutely,
patiently, the trying ordeal of his examination by a gang of suspicious
men, who had suffered in silence the ignominy of a criminal charge
rather than drag to light a defence that might involve a woman's name,
now quivered and shuddered and turned to the wall with one low moan of
agony, cut to the heart by the fragile hand he would have died to
shield.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE GRASP OF THE LAW.

To a man of Mr. Blake's temperament the next few days were hard to bear.
He was worried half to death, and yet, when Mrs. Turner saw an
opportunity, and with a suggestive glance at his