A frown was gathering on Taft's face. He no longer had the incentive to self-command which the welfare of a plot requires. His plot was shattered; the event was out of his control, at the uncovenanted mercy of the future. It was almost sheerly from the force of curiosity that he pressed the question:-- "How _did_ ye know, ennyhow?" Perhaps he might not have been enlightened save for Larrabee's relish for detailing the circumstances, in the paucity of incident and interest in their underground career. "Waal," he began in a narrative tone, and they all composed themselves to listen. Even the elderly drudge decanted a jug of doublings into a keg with marked speed of manner, and shuffled up into the circle, where he seated himself on a broken-backed chair, which, since he could not lean backward, rendered him fain to lean forward, his elbows on his knees,--"waal, this evenin', it bein' sorter lonesome down hyar,--I knowed 'twar goin' ter rain,--I felt sorter like 'twould be toler'ble pleasant ter read in my book." He paused in pride; the respect of the others for this accomplishment was visible on their faces; it might be said to be almost tangible. "I couldn't find it, though, nowhar; an' I s'arched an' s'arched. An' suddint I 'membered I hed lef' it on the counter in the store. So knowin' 'twar nigh dark, an' nobody likely ter be stirrin', I went up inter the suller an' listened; an' ez I hearn nuthin', I went up the ladder inter the room. Ye know I felt plumb safe, fur I thunk the door war locked on the outside." "Waal, warn't it?" asked Taft, with a swift look of alarm. "_It warn't locked at all_; fur, ez I stood thar,--I hed jes' by accident shet the door o' the counter up an' the suller,--the door of the room opened." Taft's breath was fast. He had himself unlocked the door before he came down to the still. He could have sworn it. "The door opened, an' a leetle gal kem in," Larrabee went on. Taft's dismayed eyes were fixed unblinkingly upon him. "Ye didn't tell her nuthin'!" he exclaimed, for he recognized the avenging "Sis" without description. Larrabee laughed at the reminiscence of the humors of the situation. "I war fit ter drap down dead with plumb skeer at the sight o' her! But I sorter held up by the counter, an' I say, 'I kem ter see 'Renzo Taft,--yer dad, I reckon.' An' she owned up ter it. An' I say, 'I 'lowed he kep' the door o' the sto' locked.' An' she say, 'He do. I think 'twar locked.' 'I reckon not,' I say, 'fur I couldn't hev walked in ef he hed locked it.' An' she say, 'I couldn't hev locked it _good_, agin. I _onlocked_ it this evenin' with my grandmam's key what I brung from her house.'" Lorenzo Taft gasped. The idea of old Mrs. Jiniway's keys unlocking his helpless doors gave him a sense of the futility of concealment from the prying feminine eye which nothing else could so adequately compass.