There were groups of men standing here and there on the comers--a little away from the full light of the street-lamps, as if unwilling to court observation. These knots of workmen had a sinister significance to her feverish mind. She had the clew to the terrible mischief which some of them intended--which no doubt even now they were canvassing in furtive whispers--and only Tracy could stop it, and she was powerless to find him! There came slouching along the sidewalk, as she grappled with this anguish of irresolution, a slight and shabby figure which somehow arrested her attention. It was a familiar enough figure--that of old “Cal” Gedney; and there was nothing unusual or worthy of comment in the fact that he was walking unsteadily by himself, with his gaze fixed intently on the sidewalk. He had passed again out of the range of her cursory glance before she suddenly remembered that he was a lawyer, and even some kind of a judge. She turned swiftly and almost ran after him, clutching his sleeve as she came up to him, and breathing so hard with weakness and excitement that for the moment she could not speak. The ’squire looked up, and angrily shook his arm out of her grasp. “Leave me alone, you hussy,” he snarled, “or I’ll lock you up!” His misconstruction of her purpose cleared her mind. “Don’t be foolish,” she said, hurriedly. “It’s a question of perhaps life and death! Do you know where Reuben Tracy is? Or can you tell me where I can find out?” “He don’t want to be bothered with _you_, wherever he is,” was the surly response. “Be off with you!” “I told you it was a matter of life and death,” she insisted, earnestly. “He’ll never forgive you--you’ll never forgive yourself--if you know and won’t tell me.” The sincerity of the girl’s tone impressed the old man. It was not easy for him to stand erect and unaided without swaying, but his mind was evidently clear enough. “What do you want with him?” he asked, in a less unfriendly voice. Then he added, in a reflective undertone: “Cur’ous’t I sh’d want see Tracy, too.” “Then you do know where he is?” “He’s drove out to ’s mother’s farm. Seems word come old woman’s sick. You’re one of that Lawton tribe, aren’t you?” “If I get a cutter, will you drive out there with me?” She asked the question with swift directness. She added in explanation, as he stared vacantly at her: “I ask that because you said you wanted to see him, that’s all. I shall go alone if you won’t come. He’s _got_ to be back here this evening, or God only knows what’ll happen! I mean what I say!” “Do you know the road?” the ’squire asked, catching something of her own eager spirit. “Every inch of it! I was bom half a mile from where his mother lives.” “But you won’t tell me what your business is?” “I’ll tell you this much,” she whispered, hastily. “There is going to be a mob at the Minster house to-night. A girl who knows one of the men told--”