"There was some that never believed he done it, Miz Sykes. If you'd ever known the French doctor--always so sort of soft and gentle in his ways, didn't believe in huntin' rabbits unless for food, used to doctor animals just as if they was folks. He didn't seem the sort of man to make a killer. But there! You never can tell with for'ners. And Kildare wa'n't the sort of man to let his wife go gallivantin' round the country with a lover, that's certain. We was s'prised he stood it long as he did. Oh, I ain't sayin' Dr. Benoix done his killin' in cold blood! He prob'ly done it in self-defense. The gentlest critter'll fight if it's got to. But killin' it certainly was. No axdent about that!" They went toward the back store, still talking, unaware of the white-lipped girl who slipped out from behind the counter and gained the refuge of her buggy with trembling knees. Her knees might tremble, but her lips did not. They were set in a straight, grim line, and her brows met over eyes that had grown almost black. It would have been difficult to recognize in this stricken face the pink-and-white Dresden prettiness that had won her the sobriquet of "Apple Blossom." An old man, fumbling at his cap as she passed, suddenly paused and stared after the buggy, aghast. He thought for the moment that he had seen the ghost of Basil Kildare. She went straight to her mother's office, a small room opening off the great hall. She opened the door without knocking, and closed it after her. "One moment, please, I am busy," murmured Kate, glancing up from her desk in surprise. She was not often interrupted so unceremoniously. But instantly she rose to her feet. She had no need to ask what had happened. The girl's face told her. "Mother!" Jemima's voice was hoarse. "Is it true that--Philip's father--is coming out of the penitentiary?" Kate inclined her head, paling. "And that you are getting him out?" "Philip and I together." "Why?" Kate did not answer. She was struggling to collect her wits for this sudden necessity. Jemima came quite close, searching her face with curious grimness; and Kate saw the resemblance the old man had seen, and shivered. "Mother, that was not the only news I heard at the store. I overheard some women talking. They said--" "Surely we need not concern ourselves with village gossip, my child!" Kate was fighting for time. But the appeal to the girl's pride went for once unheeded. "If they lied," she said tensely, "they must be punished for it. If they did not--Mother, what they said was that my father was not killed by accident. They said the man who killed him was Dr. Benoix. They said--why." Kate moistened her lips. The time had come to speak, to explain what she could, to lie if necessary--anything to wipe out of her child's face that look of frozen horror.