A great deal of the bustle and the hum of another event had also subsided. It does not linger very long when outward proceedings are over, and sensational adjuncts have ceased; and Mr. Ollivera, at the best, had been but a stranger. The grave where he lay had its visitors still; but his brother and other friends had left for London, carrying his few effects with them. Nothing remained to tell of the fatal act of the past Monday evening; but for that grave, it might have seemed never to have had place in reality. The Reverend Mr. Ollivera had been firm in refusing to admit belief in his brother's guilt. He did not pretend to judge how it might have happened, whether by accident or by some enemy's hand; but he felt convinced the death could not have been deliberately self-inflicted. It was an impossibility, he avowed to Mr. Butterby--and he was looked upon, by that renowned officer, as next door to a lunatic for his pains. There was no more shadow of a doubt on Mr. Butterby's mind that the verdict had been in accordance with the facts, than there was on other people's. Always excepting Alletha Rye's. She had been silent to the public since the avowal at the grave; but, in a dispute with Mrs. Jones, had repeated her assertion and belief. Upon a report of the display coming to Mrs. Jones's ears, that discreet matron--who certainly erred on the side of hard, correct, matter-of-fact propriety, if on any--attacked her sister in no measured terms. There were several years between them, and Mrs. Jones considered she had a right to do it. Much as Mrs. Jones had respected Mr. Ollivera in life, she entertained no doubt whatever on the subject of his death. "My opinion is, you must have been crazy," came the sharp reprimand. "Go off after that tramping tail to the grave! I wish I'd seen you start. A good name is easier lost than regained, Alletha Rye." "I am not afraid of losing mine," was the calm rejoinder. "Folks seldom are till they find it gone," said Mrs. Jones, tartly. "My goodness! not content with trapesing off there in the middle of the night, you must go and make an exhibition of yourself besides!--kneeling down on the damp earth to pray, in the face and eyes of all the people; and then rising to make a proclamation, just as if you had been the town bellman! Jones says it struck him dumb." Alletha Rye was silent. Perhaps she had felt vexed since, that the moment's excitement had led her to the act. "Who are _you_, that you should put yourself up against the verdict?" resumed Mrs. Jones. "Are you cleverer and sharper than the jury, and the coroner, and me, and Mr. Ollivera's friends, and the rest of the world, all of us put together? There can't be a _doubt_ upon the point, girl." "Let it drop," said Alletha, with a shiver. "Drop! I'd like to see it drop. I'd like the remembrance of it to drop out of men's minds, but you've took care that shan't be. What on earth induced you to go and do it?"