“Thar you are!” Dilk said, in a voice that rang with conviction; “but suppose _one_ thing--suppose this. Suppose the provocation wasn't exactly strong enough to quite justify killing. Suppose Dwight, made mad by all he'd heard, drawed an' fired without due warning, and suppose while he was thar in that quiet spot he had time to think it all over and decided that he'd stand a better chance of escape by not bein' known in the matter. A body never can tell. You kin bet your boots if Dwight _did_ kill 'im an' hid the fact, he had ample legal reasons fer not wantin' to be mixed up in it.” The seed was sown, and upon soil well suited to rapid germination and growth. By the next day the noxious weed had its head well above the ground, and, like the crab-grass the farmers knew to be so tenaciously prolific, it was spreading rapidly. CHAPTER XLII. [Illustration: 9369] WEEK went by. Helen Warren had been sitting that warm afternoon in the big bay-window of the parlor. A cooling breeze fanned the old lace curtains inward, bringing the perfume of the the garden and now and then revealing a wealth of color on the rose-bushes near by. She had just read an appealing letter from Sanders in which he had expressed himself as having been so disturbed by her refusal to assure him positively of what his ultimate fate was to be that he had permitted himself to worry considerably. So greatly concerned, indeed, was he that he had confided in his mother, who, he wrote, had made matters worse by asking him flatly if he was absolutely sure that he was loved in the one and only way a man should be loved by the woman he was hoping to win for his wife. He was writing all this to Helen in a straightforward, manly way, putting her sharply on her honor, as it were, and she, poor girl, was worried in her turn. Leaving her chair, she went to the piano and seated herself and began to play. She was thus occupied when Ida Tarpley came in suddenly and unannounced, as she felt privileged to do at any time. “Well, tell me,” the visitor smiled, “what's the matter with your playing? Why, you used to have a good, even touch, but as I came up the walk I declare I thought it was some one tuning the piano. You were dropping enough notes to fill a waste-paper basket.” “Oh, I'm not in the mood for it, I presume!” Helen said, checking a sigh. “I understand.” Miss Tarpley gently pushed back Helen's hair and kissed her brow. “You can't deny it; you were thinking about Carson Dwight and all his troubles.” Helen flushed and dropped her glance to her lap, then she rose from the piano and the two girls moved hand in hand to the window. “The truth is,” Helen admitted, “that I have been wondering if anything has gone wrong with him--any bad news or indications about his election.”