I went to the spring to get a bucket of fresh water, and when I returned Alf was nowhere to be found. I went out and shouted his name, but no answer came back. I went out into the woods, walked up and down the road, but could see nothing of him. The shadows fell short and the old people and Guinea and Chyd returned from church, and the noon-tide meal was spread, but Alf came not. But save with me there was no anxiety, as he was wont to poke about alone they said. Evening, bed-time came. Chyd went home, and I went up to my room. I heard the old man locking the smoke-house door--heard his wife singing a hymn, heard Guinea's faint foot-steps as she returned from the gate, whither she went to bid her lover good-night, and her little feet fell not upon the path, but upon my heart. I went to bed, leaving the lamp burning low, and was almost asleep when I heard Alf on the stairs. He ran into the room with both hands pressed against his head. I sprang up. He ran to me and dropped upon his knees at the bed-side, dropped and clutched the covering and buried his face in it. I put my arm about him, knelt beside him, heard his smothered muttering, and put my face against his. "Bill!" he gasped in a shivering whisper, "Bill, I have killed him!" "Merciful God!" I cried, springing back. He reached round, as if to draw me down beside him. "Hush, don't let them hear down stairs. Come here, Bill." I lifted him to his feet, turned him round so that I could see his face. It was horror-stricken. "I have killed Dan Stuart." He stood with both hands on my shoulders looking into my eyes. "Wait a minute and I'll tell you. It wasn't altogether my fault. He ought to be dead. He tried to kill me. I left here without any thought of seeing him; didn't want to see him. I went away over yonder into the woods. I heard you calling me. Later in the day I came out near the wagon-maker's shop, and several fellows were sitting there, and I stopped to answer a question somebody asked me, and pretty soon here came Stuart. He grinned at me, but this didn't make me want to kill him. Do they hear me down stairs?" "Go on, for God's sake!" I urged. "Why did you kill him? Didn't you know----"