With his mind seething, he stumbled up the two steps to his front door and stopped there with his hand on the knob and a quick glance up the street, thinking he heard some one following. He turned with a sudden terror and tried to open the door, but it was locked. He shook it and pounded on it, and the instant he heard Edith turn the key in the lock he burst in, closed the door frantically after him, and stood pushing against it as if trying to keep some one out. Edith stood quiet, watching his feverish terror. When he finally ceased his violent pushing against the door she spoke. “Tell me,” she said. “Tell you what? Whad’ ye mean? I ain’t got anything to tell!” “You have.” “I have not! I been in a fight, that’s all. A hell of a dirty footpad jumped on me—just over the other side of the railroad—but he didn’t get any money—he only took my gun!” “Your revolver?” “Can’t you hear what I say?” “What had you been doing with it?” “What had——I just had it along. How could I be doing anything when he took it away from me!” The man was almost sobbing. “You ain’t got any right to talk to me like that! You’d ought to help me—that’s what you’d ought to do! I’m going to bed and you tell ’em I was here all this evening! You can do that much for me, I should think. I was here reading a book, that book over there on the stand—that’s all you got to say. What’s the harm o’that? Just tell ’em I was here reading that book?” Edith shook her head. Then followed begging and crying and protesting on his part, but with no response on hers. She didn’t speak again. After Augustus had gone whining upstairs and locked himself in his bedroom, Edith opened the front door and looked out into the dismal night. She was hesitating. If it hadn’t been for leaving little Mildred alone in the house with the crazed brute (who had often threatened to kill the child) she’d have hurried through the dark streets to Torrington Road. She knew from her husband’s behavior that something fearful had happened, yet without an idea of how terrible it was. Finally she sat on a chair in the small living room and waited. There was nothing else to do. * * * * * It was early morning when they came—still dark. Edith heard their feet on the wooden steps and then the heavy knock on the front door. Two men stood there, dressed in ordinary clothes. And she could see a uniformed policeman moving back at the side of the house. It was the patrolman on the beat who’d been phoned from headquarters to keep an eye on the place till the Inspectors got there. Now they’d come and were sending him to cover the rear. The men at the door were roughly polite. They were sorry to disturb her, but was Mr. Findlay at home? “Yes.” “We’d like to see him.” “He’s in his room upstairs. I’ll tell him you’re here.” But as she turned to go the man who’d been speaking called after her: “If it’s all the same to you we’ll go——Which room is it?”