erhaps to my
embarrassment--this meeting, your kindness, the beauty of the day, and
the feeling these all call forth. Well, I may be pardoned if my tones
are not quite true in discussing other topics. My thoughts were with the
one I addressed."

"Then that tone of doubt was all the more misplaced," I retorted. "I am
so frank, I cannot bear innuendo in others. Besides, Mr. Trohm, the
worst folly of this home was laid bare yesterday in a way to set at rest
all darker suspicions. You knew that William indulged in vivisection.
Well, that is bad, but it cannot be called criminal. Let us do him
justice, then, and, for his sisters' sake, see how we can re-establish
him in the good graces of the community."

But Mr. Trohm, who for all our short acquaintance was not without a very
decided appreciation for certain points in my character, shook his head
and with a smiling air returned:

"You are asking the impossible not only of the community, but yourself.
William can never re-establish himself. He is of too rude a make. The
girls may recover the esteem they seem to have lost, but William--Why,
if the cause of those disappearances was found to-day, and found at the
remotest end of this road or even up in the mountains, where no one
seems to have looked for it, William would still be known throughout the
county as a rough and cruel man. I have tried to stand his friend, but
it's been against odds, Miss Butterworth. Even his sisters recognize
this, and show their lack of confidence in our friendship. But I would
like to oblige you."

I knew he ought to go. I knew that if he had simply lingered the five
minutes which common courtesy allowed, that curious eyes would be
looking from Loreen's window, and that at any minute I might expect some
interference from Lucetta, who had read through this man's forbearance
toward William the very natural distrust he could not but feel toward so
uncertain a character. Yet with such an opportunity at my command, how
could I let him go without another question?

"Mr. Trohm," said I, "you have the kindest heart and the closest lips,
but have you ever thought that Deacon Spear----"

He stopped me with a really horrified look. "Deacon Spear's house was
thoroughly examined yesterday," said he, "as mine will be to-day. Don't
insinuate anything against him! Leave that for foolish William." Then
with the most charming return to his old manner, for I felt myself in a
measure rebuked, he lifted his ha