IT was now half-past one. An hour and a half had elapsed since the widow had been laid upon her bed, and to all appearance no change had taken place in her condition. Within the room where she lay were collected the doctor and one or two neighbors of the female sex, who watched every breath she drew, and stood ready to notice the slightest change in the stony face that, dim with the shadow of death, stared upon them from the unruffled pillows. In the sitting-room Lawyer Orcutt conversed in a subdued voice with Mr. Ferris, in regard to such incidents of the widow's life as had come under his notice in the years of their daily companionship, while the crowd about the gate vented their interest in loud exclamations of wrath against the tramp who had been found, and the unknown humpback who had not. Our story leads us into the crowd in front. "I don't think she'll ever come to," said one, who from his dusty coat might have been a miller. "Blows like that haven't much let-up about them." "Doctor says she will die before morning," put in a pert young miss, anxious to have her voice heard. "Then it will be murder and no mistake, and that brute of a tramp will hang as high as Haman." "Don't condemn a man before you've had a chance to hear what he has to say for himself," cried another in a strictly judicial tone. "How do you know as he came to this house at all?" "Miss Perkins says he did, and Mrs. Phillips too; they saw him go into the gate." "And what else did they see? I warrant he wasn't the only beggar that was roaming round this morning." "No; there was a tin peddler in the street, for I saw him my own self, and Mrs. Clemmens standing in the door flourishing her broom at him. She was mighty short with such folks. Wouldn't wonder if some of the unholy wretches killed her out of spite. They're a wicked lot, the whole of them." "Widow Clemmens had a quick temper, but she had a mighty good heart notwithstanding. See how kind she was to them Hubbells." "And how hard she was to that Pratt girl." "Well, I know, but----" And so on and so on, in a hum and a buzz about the head of Mr. Byrd, who, engaged in thought seemingly far removed from the subject in hand, stood leaning against the fence, careless and _insouciant_. Suddenly there was a lull, then a short cry, then a woman's voice rose clear, ringing, and commanding, and Mr. Byrd caught the following words: "What is this I hear? Mrs. Clemmens dead? Struck down by some wandering tramp? Murdered and in her own house?"