Farther across the meadow she trudged, unconscious of the existence of her physical self. At a little stream which she had to cross on stepping-stones she paused and moaned again. Dead—actually dead! Luke King, the young man whom the whole of his state was praising, had been shot down like a dog. No matter what might be the current report as to the cause of the meeting, young as she was she knew it to be the outcome of Langdon Chester’s passion—the fruition of his mad threat to her. Yes, he had made good his word. Approaching Ann’s house, she entered the gate just as Mrs. Boyd came to the door and stood smiling knowingly at her. "Virginia," she called out, cheerily, "what you reckon I’ve got here? You could make a million guesses and then be wide of the mark." "Oh, Mrs. Boyd!" Virginia groaned, as she tottered to the step and raised her eyes to the old woman’s face, "you haven’t heard the news. Luke is dead!" "Dead?" Ann laughed out impulsively. "Oh no, I reckon not. Come in and take a chair by the fire; you’ve got your feet wet with the dew." "He’s dead, he’s dead, I tell you!" Virginia stood still, her white and rigid face upturned. "Langdon Chester, the contemptible coward, shot him at Darley this morning." "Oh, _that’s_ it, is it?" A knowing look came into Ann Boyd’s face. She stroked an impulsive smile from her facile lips, but Virginia still saw its light in the twinkling eyes above the broad, red hand. "You say he’s dead? Well, well, that accounts for something I was wondering about just now. You know I am not much of a hand to believe in spiritual manifestations like table-raising folks do, but I’ll give you my word, Virginia, that for the last hour and a half I’d ’a’ sworn Luke King _himself_ was right here in the house. Just now I heard something like him walking across the floor. It seemed to me he went out to the shelf and took a drink of water. I’ll bet it’s Luke’s spirit hanging about trying to tell me good-bye—that is, if he really _was_ shot, as you say." Ann smiled again and turned her face towards the inside of the room, and called out: "Say, Ghost of Luke King, if you are in my house right now you’d better lie low and listen. This silly girl is talking so wild the first thing you know she will be saying she don’t love Langdon Chester." "Love him? what’s the matter with you?" Virginia panted. "I hate him. You know I detest him. I’ll kill him. Do you hear me? I’ll kill him as sure as I ever meet him face to face." Ann stared at the girl for a moment, her face oddly beaming, then she looked back into the room again. "Do you hear that, Mr. Ghost? She now says she’ll kill Langdon Chester on sight. She says that after sending _you_ about your business for no reason in the world. You listen good. Maybe she’ll be saying after a while that she loved you."