Then going to an upper window, which commanded a view of Oceanside, she saw the hearse and the carriages and a multitude of people following them to the wharf. She heard the last warning bell and watched the boat until it disappeared from view, sending after it a tearful good-bye to the dead man who had loved her, and a prayer for the living man who was more to her than Jack Percy had ever been. Miss Hansford went to the boat with the crowd, impelled by a force she could not resist. Her bones told her she must see and hear all she could, if there was anything to be heard or seen. She did see people whispering to each other and directing glances towards Paul, and while struggling with the crowd she heard the missing revolver mentioned as something which would “prove or disprove,” the man said who was talking of it. With a sinking heart she hurried home to see if it were safe at the bottom of her chest. It was there, and she took it out and looked at it in a kind of terror, as if it were Jack himself, reproving her that all her thought was for Paul and none for him, cut off in his young manhood just as he was trying to reform. “He didn’t mean to do it. He didn’t know you were there. He will explain it when he comes back. He had to go to your funeral first with Clarice,” she said, apostrophizing the pistol as if it were really Jack, and not at first hearing the voice calling to her from below. “Miss Hansford, Miss Hansford, we want to see you.” It was the man who had picked up the revolver, and Miss Hansford’s teeth chattered as she dropped it into the chest, heaped the clothes over it, closed the lid and sat down upon it with a determination that nothing should make her give it up. “Well, what do you want? I’m busy,” she called back. “Want to see you,” and Seth Walker came up the stairs with the bold familiarity of the people of his class. “They’ve got to have that revolver,” he said in a whisper. “Somebody seen me pick it up and give it to you. I never told nobody but my wife, and she told nobody but her mother and sister. It couldn’t of got out that way. They will have the pistol, they say, if they send a constable for it. Better give it up peaceable.” The word constable had a bad sound to Miss Hansford. For one to cross her threshold would be a disgrace, no matter what his errand might be. Her resolve to fight over the murderous weapon began to give way before the dreaded law. She must give it up, and very slowly she opened the chest, lifted the articles in it one by one, took up the revolver, examined it carefully, and poor, half-crazed woman that she was, tried to rub off the “P. R.” with her apron. “They won’t come off,” Seth said, understanding her meaning, “and they are kind-er damagin’, with the other stuff that’s told; but he ain’t guilty. None of us will ever think so. It was a mistake,—manslaughter is the wust they can make of it, if they do anything.”