They had all been drinking; the verdict brought in was manslaughter, the sentence ten years' imprisonment. No sooner was the trial over than the creditors came flocking like vultures. Judge Peters--young Lawyer Peters, he was then,--who had charge of the estate, paid and paid and paid; debts of honor, so called, contracted in dishonor; bills for horses, for carriages, for rich wines and costly jewelry: he set his teeth and paid them all. The last bill took practically the last dollar; the house was closed, and for many a day Russell Gaylord's name was spoken no more in Cyrus. It must have been soon after his release from prison that Kitty and Tom saw him. It began to be whispered about, not among the gossips, but quietly, among those who had been friends of the family, that Russell had been back; that Marshall Mallow had seen him and spoken with him; that he was a wreck of his former self, his one idea to forget his troubles in drink. Mrs. Sharpe never heard this, though she knew something was going on. She knew that one night Judge Peters was out till midnight, _no one knew where_; she saw him come home and she _thought_ he didn't put his latch key in any too easy: and that she had met Marsh Mallow and Very Jordano at _ten o'clock_, when she was hastening home to her bed, having taken some gruel to those Jessups who were never thankful for anything, and she met those two men walking in the street, with their faces turned _away from their homes_, they best knew why. This was all she knew: she made the most of it, and succeeded in impressing Mrs. Scatter and Mrs. Wibird with a sense of impending calamity; but when the latter went to her brother with a face of woe, and "Oh, Marshall! what _is_ going on in Cyrus Village? Is Satan abroad in our midst, think? I do feel a trembling like in my inside!" she was met with a calm, "Take a dose of rhubarb, Marshy! that'll drive Satan out if he _has_ got into your cistern!" Mr. Mallow meant "system" presumably: anyhow he was pleased with his remark, and repeated it to Mrs. Wibird's indignant back as she left the room. "The idea!" he said to the fire-irons. "Nine o'clock bell's a good thing, and I allus stand for it; but a man might stay up till half past or so once in a while, you'd think, 'thout every woman in the place gettin' all frustrated up!" All this was ten years ago, be it remembered. The whispers had died away; silence had spread and deepened about the deserted house; all was as it had been.