Daniel slackened his pace, partly because his lameness always troubled him when he was weary, and partly because he wanted to order his thoughts. He found it hard, for he was visited by a vision of Virginia standing in the open door of her home, holding his hand, her eyes full of sympathy--for Leigh! At his own gate Daniel paused and looked up at the sky. The moon was just rising with an extraordinary beauty. The upper sky looked like a silver sea, pierced here and there by a brilliant star, and against it the dark hills rose in sharpened outlines, silhouetted against the ineffable sky. It had been so yesterday; it would be so to-morrow. The unchangeable forces of nature seemed to reach Daniel with a new and bitter truth. Things would continue in spite of their little tragedy, even life would go on just the same--except for the coarse man lying dead with Leigh’s bullet in his heart! He was a long time finding his latch-key, he felt so reluctant to open the door. But, as the lock clicked, his mother appeared at the threshold of the drawing-room, and he saw that she was shaking all over. “Oh, Danny!” In emotion she always reverted to the baby names of her children. “Oh, Danny, didn’t you bring him home. Where is he?” “I couldn’t bring him to-night, mother.” Daniel laid his hand kindly on her arm. “He’s all right--I’ve just been with him.” She looked at him in horror, tears welling up in her eyes. “He--he isn’t in jail?” she whispered in a faint voice, clutching at Daniel’s sleeve. He put his arm around her. “No, mother--he’s in the station-house, that’s all.” She uttered a cry, burying her face on his shoulder. Emily appeared behind her, in a state of dishevelment, her nose and eyes hopelessly red. “Hush!” she warned them. “William hasn’t stopped tramping up and down the back piazza. I think he’s going crazy, and it’s got into his legs first. Honest, I do, Dan!” Daniel made no reply to this, partly because his father had just emerged from the library. Mr. Carter had been busy all the afternoon trying to get his son out on bail. He was worn out, and looked it. His iron-gray hair was standing up in a frill on the top of his head, and his cheeks looked flabby. He had taken off his coat and his boots, and stood there in his shirt-sleeves and stockinged feet. “Did they take bail?” he asked grimly, looking at Dan over the top of the reading-glasses, which he had forgotten to take off. Daniel shook his head, and, without another word, Mr. Carter turned and went back into the library. “She’s up there--locked in her room,” Mrs. Carter whispered between sobs on her son’s shoulder. “She won’t even see William, and she’s had her supper sent up. I don’t see how she could eat it, after what she’s done!” And she wept again, clinging to Daniel. “She hasn’t,” said Emily, sniffing hard. “The tray’s outside in the hall. She never unlocked her door.”