Outside the cool evening breeze came from the sea through his open window and blew across his face. The tide was coming in, and there was something soothing in the sound of the waves breaking on the shore a few rods away, and as he listened he grew more calm and began to put things together and recall the incidents of the last few hours. He remembered how glad he was to be coming home and how pleasant the Bluff and Heights had looked with their handsome villas and grounds sloping to the water. The roof of the Ralston House, with its cupola and look-out, he had saluted with a thought of his mother, of whom he was very proud, and who would probably be at the wharf to meet him and Clarice. He had put his arm around the latter as they drew near the landing and saw the crowd of people, who, she said, had come to meet them. With an exclamation of disgust he recalled his satisfaction and pride as he thought she was right,—that because of her misfortune and his the people were sorry and were showing it in that way. They _had_ come out to meet them, or him, not to do him honor, but on the contrary to arrest him,—to drag him to prison for a crime he never committed. Tom’s face, which he had not noticed at the time, came back to him now, with Max Allen’s stammering words of greeting and request to speak with him, and Clarice’s angry exclamation as her dress was stepped on. The drive to the cottage, his parting with the weeping girl, who clung to him just as she had never done before when he said good-bye,—the drive back to the church, where Max and a portion of the crowd were waiting for him, were all plainly outlined before him, and then——! He could feel again the chill, followed by a sensation as if hot lead were being poured through every vein and scorching every nerve, when Max said: “I’ve got to arrest you.” The words were sounding in his ears, as he continued his recollections of all that passed after they were spoken. He had a faint remembrance of sitting on the church steps with a lot of boys staring at him, and Max saying occasionally a word of sympathy and encouragement. Then the black horses came dashing up, flecked with white foam, and his father was beside him, pale and hatless. This struck him now as it had not at the time, and he said, aloud: “He was bare-headed, wasn’t he? Yes, he was. Where was his hat, I wonder? I don’t think he had it on at all. It must have blown off, and he didn’t stop to pick it up.”