There was the usual group of loafers gathered on the porch of Haskell's grocery store when we reached the village. I left Mary seated in the buggy outside while I went in to buy the sugar. A brisk-mannered young man, with fair hair, served me, and it was my fancy that he dawdled a little over making up the parcel. The proprietor was busy near by at the time, and from the side-glance the assistant gave him I gathered that the latter was purposely stretching out his task to gain time. I was not wrong. Upon the proprietor crossing to the back of the store, where the cash register stood, the young man leaned forward across the counter. "Doctor," he began, "I would like a few words with you sometime when you aren't busy." "Why, certainly," I answered. "Any time you like. You want advice about something?" It was almost the first time I had had occasion to go into the store, and the assistant was quite a stranger to me. I was probably known to him by sight, but I wondered at his choosing such a confidential way to approach me if he merely wanted medical advice; I kept the same office hours as Lennox had done, and everyone in the village knew where and when to find me. "I'm George Freeman," he said. "It wasn't advice exactly. I just ... wanted to see you." George Freeman ... suddenly I remembered. It was the name of Rebecca Burn's sweetheart, the young man who had shown such decision on the evening of the ghost scare at Sliefer's farm. I looked at him with new interest. "I shall be in this evening after nine o'clock," I said. "Come round to the house. You know where it is?" "Yes. I'll be round." "All right." I put down a quarter on the counter, taking up the parcel he held out to me. As I did so a step creaked behind me and I turned quickly. Aaron Menning stood near us. For a second his eyes moved shiftily from one to the other; then he put up a hand to the greasy peaked cap he wore. "Arternoon, doctor," he drawled; "arternoon, F-Freeman. Gimme some p-plug terbaccer." His face was impassive and stupid, but when he pushed his cap back I noticed the veins on his temples stand out. He approached the counter with something of a swagger, his hands in the pockets of his black oilskin coat, and spat on the floor. There was something in the movements of the man which I disliked, at that moment, more intensely than ever. He had a curious shambling way when he walked, which, added to his thick-set figure, gave me the feeling of something half animal, almost simian. It amounted to an actual repugnance. I gave him a curt nod while I waited for my change, and lost no time in hastening out to the buggy. I put the parcel under the seat and took the reins from Mary's hands. Curiously, my mood of a few moments ago was all but forgotten as I climbed in beside her. "Did the fellow say anything to you?" I asked her as we drove off. A sudden suspicion had struck me when I came out and found her waiting there. "Who?"