“Griffin,” he said, after a momentary pause, “there was a queer yarn going around town this morning. A mighty queer one. I didn’t take any stock in it, and I wasn’t going to mention it to you because I thought it was too foolish to bother with. But now, since you won’t answer a question, won’t tell a thing, and from the hints you’ve dropped--I--well, I don’t know.” “Hints! I haven’t dropped any hints.” “Oh, yes, you have. You dropped one or two, without meaning it, I guess--to Esther the morning when you brought Seymour home. She was worried and told me about them. She couldn’t make out why, if, as you said, you were going to get your horse at the livery stable, you went by that stable and up along the main road and found Seymour and the span there. She says when she asked you that you didn’t answer. It made her believe that you didn’t find him by the main road at all, but somewhere down along this road--the lower road. Well, to be honest with you, I shouldn’t wonder if she was right. I don’t believe that span and two-seater could have stood alongside the main road very long, in plain sight, without somebody seeing them. It was after one when Asa Bloomer walked right along that road beyond the stable and _he_ didn’t see them.” He waited for an answer. Bob was silent. “Well,” continued Townsend, “what I should like to know is why Seymour was on this road. I can see why you were here, of course. Where was it you did find him? Come!” Bob stubbornly shook his head. “I have told you--” he began, but the captain interrupted. “You’ve told me nothing,” he snapped, impatiently. “And you won’t tell more; eh?” “No.” “Well, you are foolish. This story that is going around is queer. I don’t know where it comes from, nobody seems to know, but there is talk that you and Seymour were seen down here on this very road that night, long after the show was over, and that you and he were--well, next door to fighting. Having some sort of a row, anyway. Have you heard anything like that?... Humph! No, I guess you haven’t, by the way you look.” Bob’s face was white. The thing that he had dreaded, had feared might possibly happen, had happened. Ever since that fateful morning, amid his imaginings and forebodings had loomed large the figure of the man, whoever he might be, who had passed along that lower road and interrupted the quarrel between Covell and himself. If that man had recognized them--Bob tried to hope he had not done so. In fact, by this time he had begun to believe that the darkness had prevented recognition on both sides of the road. Now-- He fought to regain composure, even attempted a laugh, but it was a poor attempt. “Nonsense!” he cried. “Why--what--who says such a fool thing as that?” “I don’t know who said it first.... There is nothing in it, then?” “It is silly! It is ridiculous.”