ntil the coroner comes, which will hardly be
to-day. I hear the roads are all blocked and impassable. Let everything
remain in the trunk where he can see them.'

Mechanically Mrs. Tracy, who was present, put the different articles
into the trunk, leaving the Bible on the top, and then followed her
husband from the room. She knew there was more affecting him than the
fact that a dead woman was in the house, or that he had not sent John to
the station. But what it was she could not guess, unless, and she, too,
felt faint and giddy for a moment, as a new idea entered her mind.

'Frank,' she said to him when they were alone for a few moments, 'Arthur
had a fancy that Gretchen was coming last night. You do not think this
woman is she?'

'Gretchen? No. Don't be a fool, Dolly. Gretchen is fair and young, and
the woman is old and black as the ace of spades. Gretchen! No, indeed!'

He did not show her the picture he had secreted; he knew she would not
approve of the act, and if she had no suspicion with regard to the woman
and the child he did not care to share his with her, particularly as it
was only a suspicion, and so far as he could judge in his perturbed
state of mind, nothing he could do would ever make things sure. His wife
seemed to have forgotten the child at the cottage, and he would not
bring it to her mind until it was necessary to do so. Just then Charles
came to the room and said that his master was very much excited and
wished to know the reason for so much commotion in the house, and why so
many people were coming and going down and up the avenue.

'I thought it better that you should tell him,' Charles added, and with
a sinking heart Frank started for his brother's room.

He had not seen him before that day, and now as he looked at him it
seemed to him that he had grown older since the previous night, for
there were lines about his mouth, and his face was very thin and pale.
But his eyes were unusually bright, and his voice rang out clear as a
bell as he said:

'What is it, Frank? What has happened that so many people are coming
here, banging doors and talking so loud that I heard them here in my
room, but I could not distinguish what they said. What's the matter? Any
one hurt or dead?'

He put the question direct, and Frank gave a direct reply.

'Yes, a woman was found frozen to death in the Tramp House this morning,
and was brought here. She is lying in the office at the end of the back
hall.'

'A