“Hon’r bright, ye’ll never say a word to nao livin’ soul?” They asseverated solemnly, honor bright, and Samantha had a doughnut as well as another cup of cider. ***** The tiresome butter came at last, and the dough passed into a higher form of existence through the fiery ordeal of the oven; supper was laid and silently eaten; two neighbors, volunteers for the night-watch with the dead, came, and were ushered into the gloomy parlor; while apples, cheese, doughnuts and a pitcher of cider were placed on the table outside, for their refreshment in the small hours. Night fell upon the farm. ***** Melissa Lawton stole out-doors as soon as Alvira retired to her room, and made her way through the darkness to the barns. As Albert had done on the fatal previous evening, she opened the sliding door of the big stable, and called up the stairs to Milton. There was no response, and investigation showed that he was not in his room, although the lamp was burning dimly. The girl stopped long enough to look over the familiar coarse pictures on the walls and the shelf, and then crept down the steep stairs again. As she groped her way through the blackness to the stable door she came suddenly in contact with a person entering, and felt herself rudely seized and pushed back at arms’ length. “Who’s here? What d’yeh want?” demanded a harsh voice, which seemed despite its gruffness to betray great trepidation. “It’s me--M’lissy!” “Come along aout here into the light, so I kin see yeh. What a’ yeh doin’ here, praowlin’ ’raoun’ ’n th’ dark, skeerin’ people fur?” The Lawton girl’s native assurance all came back to her as she confronted Milton in the dim starlight outside--which was radiance by contrast with the stable’s total darkness--and she grinned satirically at him. “You’ve got a nerve on you like a maouse, I swaow! You trembled all over when yeh tuk holt o’ me, in there. What was yeh skeert abaout? I wouldn’t hurt yeh!” “I wa’n’t skeert,” the man replied, sullenly. “What was yeh after in there?” “I was lookin’ fur you.” “What fur?” The tone was still uneasily suspicious. “I got somethin’ to tell yeh.” “Well?” “D’yeh knaow, I more’n half b’lieve this thing wa’n’t an accident at all. What’d yeh say ’f it sh’d turn aout to be a murder?” Even in this faint light Melissa could see that Milton was much taken aback by the suggestion. He thrust his hands into his pockets, pulled them out again, shuffled his feet, stammered, and betrayed by other signs general among rustics his surprise. “Pshaw--git aout!” he said at last; “what nonsense! Of caourse ’t was ’n accident. Didn’t th’ Cor’ner say sao? Daon’t ev’rybody knaow it?” “Annie Fairchile don’t say sao. _She_ don’t knaow it.” The girl went on to relate the substance of Samantha’s revelations, adding unconsciously sundry embellishments which tended to throw a clearer light upon Seth as the chief figure in the mystery.