Ben hurried over his explanation. "I were watchin' over Ann, like Edward had told me to do--it's Edward I've been workin' for this spring, not Coats Penniman. I had found out that Garvin was meeting Ann, an' Edward had told me not to let Garvin come near Ann again. Edward knowed that Ann were safe if I watched over her. This afternoon Edward had been talkin' with Ann, down by the Back Road, an' when he went and Ann went up in the woods, I was clost to her. When she went down to the house I went to the Banks. I'd heard shootin' there, but that's always goin' on about here, I didn't think nothin' of that, but I was scart by things I seen when I got to the Banks, an' I looked about. I found him, Miss Judith, he's lyin' like one gone peaceful to sleep--the little thing what killed him done its work quick." "You mean--he's been shot--to death--?" Judith whispered with pauses. "Yes." Ben looked down at the flower-bed. "By whom?" She had straightened, flung back her head. Ben was silent. Judith went to him, laid her steel grip on his shoulder. "You tell me!... There's only one man in the world would do that.... You know who did it--tell me this instant what you know!" Ben looked at her, a glance that dropped away from the fire in her eyes. "It weren't the man you think. Coats Penniman's knowed nothin' of what's been goin' on. An' I don't know nothin' either--that's my answer to any who may ask, an' always will be," he said doggedly, "but there's things I'll tell you an' no one else.... Edward loved Ann, Miss Judith. He loved her very dear, an' he's seen her pretty constant. An' Garvin, he were mad over her, like it's in him to be. Edward made him keep away from Ann--there were hard feelin' between them because of it. But Edward didn't tell Garvin about Ann and hisself. 'Tain't a thing Edward would confide to Garvin--there ain't many things you or Edward ever has trusted to Garvin. I think Garvin suspicioned Edward to-day--that Edward were seein' Ann--and--" He stopped, then went on. "An' Edward come back by the Banks--" he stopped again. Judith had drawn back as if the sight of him burned her. "You're wrong!" she said passionately. "Garvin was in the city to-day!" Ben looked at her, pity and affection and respect struggling together in his eyes and in his voice. "He were at the Banks, Miss Judith. The traces of him was there. He had hid Black Betty, but I run acrost her, an' up to Crest Cave I foun' the letter Ann had wrote him, sayin' she wouldn't have him. An' he'd been drinkin'--I foun' the bottle. An' then, when I stood up by Crest Cave, I seen Garvin go acrost from the Mine Banks Road to the creek. It scart me the way he went--like he was hidin' hisself. I was so scart I went down to the road an' first I saw Edward's horse, an' then I foun' where he lay." Judith's hand had covered her lips, as if to smother a shriek; over it her eyes stared at him.