Mrs. Lauson replied by a glance which expressed weakness, alarm, and aversion, and which demanded, as plainly as words could say it, “How can you ask _me_?” Then without uttering a syllable, without attempting to render any service or funereal courtesy, bearing herself like one who had been mysteriously absolved from the duties of sympathy and decorum, she turned her back on the body of her step-daughter with a start of disgust, and walked hastily from the room. Of course there was a gathering of the neighbors, a hasty and useless search after the murderer, a medical examination of the victim, and a legal inquest at the earliest practicable moment, the verdict being “death by the hand of some person unknown.” Even the funeral passed, with its mighty crowd and its solemn excitement; and still public suspicion had not dared to single out any one as the criminal. It seemed for a day or two as if the family life might shortly settle into its old tenor, the same narrow routine of quiet discontent or irrational bickerings, with no change but the loss of such inflammation as formerly arose from Aunt Mercy’s well-meant, but irritating sense of duty. The Squire, however, was permanently and greatly changed: not that he had lost the spirit of petty dictation which led him to interfere in every household act, even to the boiling of the pot, but he had acquired a new object in life, and one which seemed to restore all his youthful energy; he was more restlessly and distressingly vital than he had been for years. No Indian was ever more intent on avenging a debt of blood than was he on hunting down the murderer of his daughter. This terrible old man has a strong attraction for us: we feel that we have not thus far done him justice: he imperiously demands further description.