, he
left the place without returning to the house.

A half-hour later old Jase Burrell drew rein by the stile and handed
Dorothy a letter.

"I reckon thet's ther one ye've been waitin' fer," he said, "so I
fetched hit over from ther post-office. What's ther matter, gal? Ye
looks like ye'd been seein' hants."

"I hain't seed nothin' else fer days past," she declared, almost
hysterically. "I've done sickened with waitin', Uncle Jase, an' I aimed
ter start out soon termorrer mornin', letter or no letter."

CHAPTER XXVIII

Across in Virginia, Sally Turk, the wife of the dead man and the sister
of the accused, had rocked her anaemic baby to sleep after a long period
of twilight fretfulness and stood looking down into its crib awhile with
a distrait and numbed face of distress. She was leaving it to the care
of another and did not know when she would come back.

"I'm right glad leetle Ken's done tuck ter ther bottle," she said with
forced cheerfulness to the hag-like Mirandy Sloane. "Mebby when I gits
back thar'll be a mite more flesh on them puny leetle bones of his'n."
Her words caught sob-like in her throat as she wheeled resolutely and
caught up her shawl and bonnet.

Out at the tumble-down stable she saddled and mounted a mule that
plodded with a limp through a blackness like a sea of freezing ink, and
she shivered as she sat in the old carpet-cushioned side-saddle and
flapped a long switch monotonously upon the flanks of her
"ridin'-critter."

The journey she was undertaking lay toward the town where her brother
was "hampered" in jail, but she turned at a cross-road two miles short
of that objective and kept to the right until she came to a two-storied
house set in an orchard: a place of substantial and commodious size. Its
windows were shuttered now and it loomed only as a squarish block of
denser shadow against the formless background of night. All shapes were
neutralized under a clouded and gusty sky.

Dogs rushed out barking blatantly as the woman slid from her saddle,
but at the sound of her voice they stilled their clamour--for dogs are
not informed when old friendships turn to enmity.

The front door opened upon her somewhat timid knock, but it opened only
to a slit and the face that peered out was that of a woman who, when she
recognized the outer voice, seemed half minded to slam it again in
refusal of welcome. Curiosity won a minor victory, though, over
hostility, and the mistress of the