"Her fears and her avarice. I propose to bring this murder close home to her. If not a principal in it, she is an undoubted accessory after the fact. Andrew Zane paid her a visit the night the dead bodies were discovered in the river." "You are sure of this?" "Perfectly. I have had a detective on his track; too late to arrest the rascal, but the identity of a sailor man who penetrated into the house by the coal-hole is established by the discovery of the clothing he exchanged for that disguise--it was Andrew Zane. Concealment of that fact from the law will make her an accessory." "Jericho! Jericho!" sneezed Duff Salter, but with a pale face, and said: "That fact established would be serious; but it would be a gratuitous and vile act for you, who profess to love her." "It is love that prompts me--love and pain! A divine anger, I may call it. I propose to make myself her rescuer afterward, and establish myself in her gratitude and confidence. You are to help me do this by watching the house from the inside." "Dishonorable!" "You were the friend of William Zane, the murdered man. Every obligation of friendship impels you to discover his murderer. You are rich; lend me money to continue my investigations. I know this is a cool proposition; but it is better than spending it on churches." "Very well," wrote Duff Salter, "as the late Mr. Zane's executor, I will spend any proper sum of money to inflict retribution upon his injurers. I will watch the house." They went home through Palmer Street, on which stood the little brick church--the street said to be occasionally haunted by Governor Anthony Palmer's phantom coach and four, which was pursued by his twenty-one children in plush breeches and Panama hats, crying, "Water lots! water fronts! To let! to lease!" As Duff Salter entered the house he saw the school director indicated by Calvin Van de Lear sitting in the parlor with Podge Byerly. For the first time Duff Salter noticed that they looked both intimate and confused. He tried to reason himself out of this suspicion. "Pshaw," he said; "it was my uncharitable imagination. I'll go back, as if to get something, and look more carefully." As the deaf man reopened the parlor-door he saw the school director making a motion as if to embrace Podge, who was full of blushes and appearing to shrink away. "There's no imagination about that," thought Duff Salter. "If I could only hear well enough my ears might counsel me." He felt dejected, and his suspicions colored everything--a most deplorable state of mind for a gentleman. Agnes, too, looked guilty, as he thought, and hardly addressed a smile to him as he passed up to his room. Duff Salter put on his slippers, lighted his gas, drew the curtains down and set the door ajar, for in the increasing warmth of spring his grate fire was almost an infliction.