ow Maggie to use a tablet of
glazed paper she had found in the kitchen table drawer to tie up the
jelly-glasses. It seemed, somehow, horrible to me.

At that time I had no thought of going back five years and trying to
trace the accuracy or falsehood of the confession. I should not have
known how to go about it. Had such a crime been committed, how to
discover it at this late day? Whom in all her sheltered life, could Miss
Emily have murdered? In her small world, who could have fallen out and
left no sign?

It was impossible, and I knew it. And yet--

Miss Emily was ill. The news came through the grocery boy, who came
out every day on a bicycle, and teased the cat and carried away all
the pears as fast as they ripened. Maggie brought me the information at
luncheon.

"She's sick," she said.

There was only one person in both our minds those days.

"Do you mean really ill, or only--"

"The boy says she's breaking up. If you ask me, she caught cold the
night she broke in here and took your Paisley shawl. And if you ask my
advice, Miss Agnes, you'll get it back again before the heirs step in
and claim it. They don't make them shawls nowadays, and she's as like as
not to will it to somebody if you don't go after it."

"Maggie," I said quietly, "how do you know she has that shawl?"

"How did I know that paper was in the telephone-box?" she countered.

And, indeed, by that time Maggie had convinced herself that she had
known all along there was something in the telephone battery-box.

"I've a sort of second sight, Miss Agnes," she added. And, with a
shrewdness I found later was partially correct: "She was snooping around
to see if you'd found that paper, and it came on to rain; so she took
the shawl. I should say," said Maggie, lowering her voice, "that as like
as not she's been in this house every night since we came."

Late that afternoon I cut some of the roses from the arch for Miss
Emily, and wrapping them against the sun, carried them to the village.
At the last I hesitated. It was so much like prying. I turned aside at
the church intending to leave them there for the altar. But I could find
no one in the parish house, and no vessel to hold them.

It was late afternoon. I opened a door and stepped into the old church.
I knelt for a moment, and then sat back and surveyed the quiet building.
It occurred to me that here one could obtain a real conception of the
Benton family, and of Miss Emily. The church had