“The Coroner is here,” he said, “with some medical gentlemen, and there are also your late husband’s partner, Mr. Hubbard, who accompanied me from New York last night, and the District Attorney and some others. In a couple of hours or so we expect to be able to tell you what brought us. Meanwhile, we are anxious to spare you any possible intrusion--and also a possible scene. It is for this that I have waited outside for you. If you could prolong your walk for that length of time, going to some friend’s house near by, for instance, without saying that anything unusual was transpiring here----” “Yes, I will go,” she answered. “Will two hours be long enough?” “I hope so,” he said, bowing his thanks. She walked out through the great swing-gate to the turnpike, and idly chose the westward turning, along under the poplars. The curious incident of all these visitors at the house did not excite her attention. Her mind was too busy torturing itself with that marriage which was already spoken of as assured. At the stile by the thorns, the idea of going to the Warren house suddenly occurred to her. It was a bold, purposeless, almost crazy thought; perhaps for those very reasons it commended itself to her mood. She felt herself impelled alike by good and malignant impulses to cross the stile; she walked down the thorn path, scarcely knowing whether her purpose was to bless or to curse. The door was opened by Samantha, whose scared face took on an added expression of anxiety on recognizing the visitor. “Go into the parlor, ’n’ I’ll light the stove fer yeh,” she whispered. “Th’ old lady’s very laow. Soon’s she comes hum from schewl I’ll send Annie in to see yeh.” CHAPTER XXXIII.--THE SHERIFF ASSISTS. While Isabel sat over the stove in the cold, austere parlor of the Warren house, with its ancient furniture, the never failing photograph album, and those huge pink shells on the mantle-shelf without which no rural home used to be complete--waiting for she scarcely knew what--strange things were going forward in the home of the Fairchilds. On the forenoon of this same day, Thursday, there had been a gathering in the office of the Thessaly _Banner of Liberty_. It was the publication day of the paper, but for once it went to press without enlisting even the most careless scrutiny, let alone the solicitude, of its editor-proprietor. He had more serious business on hand. Closeted with him in the little editorial room, whose limited space had rarely before been so taxed, were Beekman, Ansdell, the District Attorney, the Sheriff, and the younger of the dead man’s two New York partners, a shrewd, silent, long-faced man. Seth had desired to be of the party but his brother had sent him off, to return after dinner.