As he passed into the passageway Calvin Van de Lear ran against a man with a crutch and a wooden leg, who looked at him from under a head of dark-red hair, and in a low voice cursed his awkwardness. The man bent to pick up his crutch, and Calvin observed that he was badly scarred and had one eyebrow higher than the other. "Who are you, fellow?" asked Calvin, surprised. "I'm Dogcatcher!" said the man. "When ye see me coming, take the other side of the street." Calvin felt cowed, not so much at these mysterious words as at a hard, lowering look in the man's face, like especial dislike. Agnes Wilt, still sitting in the parlor, saw the lame servant pass her door, going out, and he looked in and touched his hat, and paused a minute. Something graceful and wistful together seemed to be in his bearing and countenance. "Anything for me?" asked Agnes. "Nothing at all, mum! When there's nobody by to do a job, call on Mike." He still seemed to tarry, and in Agnes's nervous condition a mysterious awe came over her; the man's gaze had a dread fascination that would not let her drop her eyes. As he passed out of sight and shut the street door behind him Agnes felt a fainting feeling, as if an apparition had looked in upon her and vanished--the apparition, if of anything, of him who had lain dead in that very parlor--the stern, enamored master of the house whose fatherhood in a fateful moment had turned to marital desire, and crushed the luck of all the race of Zanes. Duff Salter was sitting at his writing table, with an open snuff-box before him, and, as Calvin Van de Lear entered his room, Duff took a large pinch of snuff and shoved the tablets forward. Calvin wrote on them a short sentence. As Duff Salter read it he started to his feet and sneezed with tremendous energy: "Jeri-cho! Jericho! Jerry-cho-o-o!" He read the sentence again, and whispered very low: "Can't you be mistaken?" "As sure as you sit there!" wrote Calvin Van de Lear. "What is your inference?" wrote Duff Salter. "Seduction!" The two men looked at each other silently a few minutes, Duff Salter in profound astonishment, Calvin Van de Lear with an impudent smile. "And so religious!" wrote Duff Salter. "That is always incidental to the condition," answered Calvin. "It must be a great blow to your affection?" "Not at all," scrawled the minister's son. "It gives me a sure thing." "Explain that!" "I will throw the marriage mantle over her. She will need me now!" "But you would not take a wife out of such a situation?" "Oh! yes. She will be as handsome as ever, and only half as proud." Duff Salter walked up and down the floor and stroked his long beard, and his usually benevolent expression was now dark and ominous, as if with gloom and anger. He spoke in a low tone as if not aware that he was heard, and his voice sounded as if he also did not hear it, and could not, therefore, give it pitch or intonation: