omething in the look of the coroner, as he
silently reached forth his hand in salutation, added to the mysterious
impression which had been made upon Mr. Ferris by the manner, if not
words, of Mr. Byrd. Feeling that he was losing his self-command, the
District Attorney grasped the hand that was held out to him, and huskily
inquired if Mr. Orcutt was still alive.

The coroner, who had been standing before him with a troubled brow and
lowered eyes, gravely bowed, and quietly leading the way, ushered him
forward to Mr. Orcutt's bedroom door. There he paused and looked as if
he would like to speak, but hastily changing his mind, opened the door
and motioned the District Attorney in. As he did so, he cast a meaning
and solemn look toward the bed, then drew back, watching with evident
anxiety what the effect of the scene before him would have upon this new
witness.

A stupefying one it seemed, for Mr. Ferris, pausing in his approach,
looked at the cluster of persons about the bed, and then drew his hand
across his eyes like a man in a maze. Suddenly he turned upon Dr.
Tredwell with the same strange look he had himself seen in the eyes of
Byrd, and said, almost as if the words were forced from his lips:

"This is no new sight to us, doctor; we have been spectators of a scene
like this before."

That was it. As nearly as the alteration in circumstances and
surroundings would allow, the spectacle before him was the same as that
which he had encountered months before in a small cottage at the other
end of the town. On the bed a pallid, senseless, but slowly breathing
form, whose features, stamped with the approach of death, stared at
them with marble-like rigidity from beneath the heavy bandages which
proclaimed the injury to be one to the head. At his side the doctor--the
same one who had been called in to attend Mrs. Clemmens--wearing, as he
did then, a look of sombre anticipation which Mr. Ferris expected every
instant to see culminate in the solemn gesture which he had used at the
widow's bedside before she spoke. Even the group of women who clustered
about the foot of the couch wore much the same expression as those who
waited for movement on the part of Mrs. Clemmens; and had it not been
for the sight of Imogene Dare sitting immovable and watchful on the
farther side of the bed, he might almost have imagined he was
transported back to the old scene, and that all this new horror under
which he was laboring was a dream fr