No one will ever know just what took place in that darkened sitting-room, for the story as afterwards related was significantly lacking in details. The light had been extinguished and the doors silently closed by the slayer. The stiffening body of Edward Crown out in the snow was not more silent than the interior of the old farmhouse, apart from the room in which David Windom pleaded with his stricken daughter. And all the while he was begging her to save him from the consequences of his crime, his brain was searching for the means to dispose of the body of Edward Crown and to provide an explanation for the return of Alix without her husband. Circumstances favoured him in a surprising manner. Young Crown and his wife had travelled down from Chicago in a day coach, and they had left the train at a small way station some five miles west of the Windom farm. Crown was penniless. He did not possess the means to engage a vehicle to transport them from the city to the farm, nor the money to secure lodging for the night in the cheapest hotel. Alix's pride stood in the way of an appeal to her husband's father or to any one of his friends for assistance. It was she who insisted that they leave the train at Hawkins station and walk to Windom's house. They had encountered no one who knew them, either on the train or at the station; while on their cold, tortuous journey along the dark highway they did not meet a solitary human being. No one, therefore, was aware of their return. Edward Crown's presence in the neighbourhood was unknown. If David Windom's plan succeeded, the fact that Crown had returned with his wife never would be known. To all inquirers both he and his daughter were to return the flat but evasive answer: "It is something I cannot discuss at present," leaving the world to arrive at the obvious conclusion that Alix's husband had abandoned her. And presently people, from sheer delicacy, would cease to inquire. No one would know that Crown had been ill up in the mountains for weeks, had lost his position, and had spent his last penny in getting his wife back to the house in which she was born,--and where her own child was soon to be born. Windom went about the task of secreting his son-in-law's body in a most systematic, careful manner. He first carried the two "telescopes" into the house and hid them in a closet. Then he put on an old overcoat and cap, his riding boots and gloves. Stealing out to the rear of the house, he found a lantern and secured it to his person by means of a strap. A few minutes later he was ready to start off on his ghastly mission. Alix nodded her head dumbly when he commanded her to remain in the sitting-room and to make no sound that might arouse Maria Bliss. He promised to return in less than an hour. "Your father's life depends on your silence, my child, from this moment on," he whispered in her ear. She started up. "And how about my husband's life?" she moaned. "What of him? Why do you put yourself--"