t to the Coast because of the murder of
Gabriel Warden, the newspaper men sensed instantly in it the
possibility of some greater sensation not yet bared.

Harriet was again summoned. A man--a stranger--was awaiting her in the
hall; he was the precursor of those who would sit that day upon Wallace
Blatchford's death and try to determine, formally, whose was the hand
that had done it--the coroner's man. He too, she saw, was already
convinced what hand it had been--Eaton's. She took him to the study,
then to the room above where Wallace Blatchford lay dead. She stood by
while he made his brief, conventional examination. She looked down at
the dead man's face. Poor Cousin Wallace! he had destroyed his own
life long before, when he had destroyed her father's sight; from that
time on he had lived only to recompense her father for his blindness.
Cousin Wallace's life had been a pitiable, hopeless, loving
perpetuation of his penance; he had let himself hold nothing of his own
in life; he had died, as she knew he would have wished to die, giving
his life in service to his cousin; she was not unduly grieving over him.

She answered the man's questions, calmly and collectedly; but her mind
was not upon what she was saying. Her mind was upon only one
thing--even of that she could not think connectedly. Some years ago,
something--she did not know what--had happened to Hugh; to-night, in
some strange way unknown to her, it had culminated in her father's
study. He had fought some one; he had rushed away to follow some one.
Whom? Had he heard that some one in the study and gone down? Had he
been fighting their battle--her father's and hers? She knew that was
not so. Hugh had been fully dressed. What did it mean that he had
said to her that these events would either destroy him or would send
him back to her as--as something different? Her thought supplied no
answer.

But whatever he had done, whatever he might be, she knew his fate was
hers now; for she had given herself to him utterly. She had told that
to herself as she fled and pursued with him that night; she had told it
to him; she later had told it--though she had not meant to yet--to her
father. She could only pray now that out of the events of this night
might not come a grief to her too great for her to bear.

She went to the rooms that had been Eaton's. The police, in stripping
them of his possessions, had overlooked his cap; she found the bit of
gray clo