As I did so I
caught a final glimpse of the pictured face I had found it so hard to
understand a couple of hours before. I understood it now.

A surprise awaited us as we turned toward the gate. The mist had lifted,
and a keen but not unpleasant wind was driving from the north. Borne on
it we heard voices. The village had emptied itself, probably at the
alarm given by the lawyer, and it was these good men and women whose
approach we heard. As we had nothing to fear from them we went forward
to meet them. As we did so three crouching figures rose from some bushes
we passed and ran scurrying before us through the gateway. They were the
late-comers who had shown such despair at being shut out from this fatal
house, and who probably were not yet acquainted with the doom they had
escaped.

* * * * *

There were lanterns in the hands of some of the men who now approached.
As we stopped before them these lanterns were held up, and by the light
they gave we saw, first, the lawyer's frightened face, then the visages
of two men who seemed to be persons of some authority.

"What news?" faltered the lawyer, seeing by our faces that we knew the
worst.

"Bad," I returned; "the poison had lost none of its virulence by being
mixed so long with the wine."

"How many?" asked the man on his right anxiously.

"Eight," was my solemn reply.

"There were but eight," faltered the lawyer; "that means, then, all?"

"All," I repeated.

A murmur of horror rose, swelled, then died out in tumult as the crowd
swept on past us.

For a moment we stood watching these people; saw them pause before the
door we had left open behind us, then rush in, leaving a wail of terror
on the shuddering midnight air. When all was quiet again, Eunice laid
her hand upon my arm.

"Where shall we go?" she asked despairingly. "I do not know of a house
that will open to me."

The answer to her question came from other lips than mine.

"I do not know one that will _not_," spoke up a voice behind our backs.
"Your withdrawal from the circle of heirs did not take from you your
rightful claim to an inheritance which, according to your uncle's will,
could be forfeited only by a failure to arrive at the place of
distribution within the hour set by the testator. As I see the matter
now, this appeal to the honesty of the persons so collected was a test
by which my unhappy client strove to save from the general fate such
members of hi