write to her myself."

Guilty consciences--even innocent ones--can never leave well alone. The
murderer who has buried his victim must needs hang about the spot to be
sure no one is digging him up. One looks back into the room one lit a
match in, to see that it is not on fire. A diseased wish to clear
herself from any suspicion of knowing anything about her visitor,
impelled Aunt M'riar to say:--"Of course I don't know the name you go
by." Obviously she would have done well to let it alone.

A person who had never borne an _alias_ would have thought nothing of
Aunt M'riar's phrase. The convict instantly detected the speaker's
knowledge of himself. Another thought crossed his mind:--How about that
caution this woman had given to Micky? Why was she so concerned that the
boy should not "split upon" him? "Who the devil are you?" said he
suddenly, half to himself. It was not the form in which he would have
put the question had he reflected.

The exclamation produced a new outcrop of terror or panic in Aunt
M'riar. She found voice to say:--"I've told you all I can, master." Then
she shut the door between them, and sank down white and breathless on
the chair close at hand, and waited, longing to hear his footsteps go.
She seemed to wait for hours.

Probably it was little over a minute when the man outside knocked
again--a loud, sepulchral, single knock, with determination in it. Its
resonance in the empty house was awful to the lonely hearer.

But Aunt M'riar's capacity for mere dread was full to the brim. She was
on the brink of the reaction of fear, which is despair--or, rather,
desperation. Was she to wait for another appalling knock, like that, to
set her heartstrings vibrating anew? To what end? No--settle it now,
under the sting of this one.

She again opened the door as before. "I've told you all I know about
Mrs. Prichard, and it's true. You must just wait till she comes back. I
can't tell you no more."

"I don't want any more about Mrs. Prichard. I want to see side of this
door. Take that * * * chain off, and speak fair. I sent you a civil
message through that young boy. He gave it you?"

"He told me what you said."

"What did he say I said? If he told you any * * * lies, I'll half murder
him! What did he say?"

"He said you was coming to see your mother, and Mrs. Prichard she must
be your mother if she comes from Skillicks. So I told him she come from
Skillicks, three year agone. Then he said you wanted m