"Keep Willy King out!" commanded the very old man in a high, peevish voice. "I'm not going to die of it. He's--killed himself? Well; it's my fault. I angered him," He took up his hat, clutching the brim with shaking hands and pulling it fiercely down over his eyes. "Keep Willy off! I'm not--I'm not--" Simmons caught him as he lurched back into a chair, and Dr. Lavendar bent over him, his old face moving with tears. "It was an accident, Benjamin, either of the body or the soul--it doesn't matter which." William King, standing behind the chair that held the forlorn and quivering heap, ventured gently: "Samuel says that Sam was cleaning his pistol, and--" But Dr. Lavendar held up his hand and William was silent. "Hold your tongue;" said Benjamin Wright. "Lavendar knows I don't like lies. Yes; my fault. I've done it again. Second time. Second time. Simmons! Get these--gentlemen some--whiskey." Simmons, his yellow jaws mumbling with terror, looked at Dr. Lavendar, who nodded. But even as the old man got himself together, the brain flagged; William saw the twist come across the mouth, and the eyes blink and fix. It was not a very severe shock, and after the first moments of alarm, the doctor said quietly; "He is not dying." But he was, of course, perfectly helpless and silenced; his miserable eyes seemed to watch them, fixedly, as they carried him to his bed, and did what little could be done; but he could make no demand, and offer no explanation. It was not until late in the afternoon that William King had time to go to the Stuffed Animal House. He had had a gravely absorbing day; not only because of the Wrights' pitiful demands upon his time, but because of the necessary explanations and evasions to Old Chester. To his wife evasions were impossible, he gave her an exact statement of the facts as he knew them. Martha, listening, and wiping her eyes, was shocked into fairness and sympathy. "But, William, she was not to blame!" "That's what I told her." "Poor thing!" said Martha; "why, I feel as if I ought to go right up and comfort her." "No, no; it isn't necessary," William said. "I'll go, on my way to The Top." Mrs. King drew back, coldly, and sympathy wavered into common sense. "Well, perhaps it's just as well you should. I'm afraid I couldn't make her feel that she had no responsibility at all,--as you seem to think. That's one thing about me, I may not be perfect, but I am sincere; I think she ought to have stopped Sam's love-making months ago!--Unless perhaps she returned it?" Martha ended, in a tone that made William redden with silent anger. But he forgot his anger and everything else when he came into the long parlor at the Stuffed Animal House, late that afternoon.