"I never want to see or speak to you again," she repeated, though her eyes quailed before the dumb agony of his. For a moment there was dead silence. Then with one long look in her paling face he said, slowly, almost humbly: "I take you at your word. Life has been hell to me here for a long time, and you--you, whom I loved--have driven me from the only home I ever had." One instant more and he was gone, leaving her sobbing wildly, she hardly knew why. And early next morning came the fearful news that her father lay murdered at the mill. A week of intense excitement followed. Not only in Nemahbin was the mysterious death of old Morrow the one subject of conversation, but all through the surrounding counties people talked of nothing else. By sunset of that beautiful Monday the news had spread far and wide; the reporters of the city journals were already on the spot, and by Tuesday night the verdict of the coroner's jury had gone forth and the officers of the law were in search of the criminal, whose name flashed over the humming wires from one ocean to another. Richard Graham stood accused of the murder of his employer, and Richard Graham had gone, no one knew whither. But there were those who could not and would not believe it of him, and foremost among them was the minister. The evidence against him was mainly circumstantial; the principal accuser was Frost, and the chain of circumstances that linked Graham with the crime were substantially as follows: The boy who worked around the mill-house and slept in the second story of the Graham's cottage testified that about half an hour before sunset Sunday evening he heard old Morrow "cussing and swearing" at somebody down in the mill, while he was going out to drive the cows home; didn't see who it was, but ten minutes afterwards as he came back he saw Graham pitching stones into the stream down below the mill, "looking queer;" called to him twice, but Graham did not answer; supposed he was mad at the old man for cussing him so--they had had lots of trouble for a week; heard the old man tell him he was going to get rid of him if he didn't do different.