The news of the finding of the body spread rapidly through Millbank, but with comparatively trifling sensation. Men were drowned each year in the river. The driving business was full of risks and men fell victims to it each spring. It was not like a murder--a blow from no one knew where, falling no one knew why. This drowning was a thing people were accustomed to expect. They shrugged, wondered if he had a family, and thought little more of an accident that left them “one less Canuck.” A solitary priest, poor and hard-worked, spent the night in prayers for the dead; for these men who come from the North to drive the river are almost without exception faithful children of the Church, which, through her ministry, mourns her bereavement and assails the gates of heaven for admission of the departed soul. Trafford sat alone in his room at the hotel. He had no doubt that this was the man on whom had fallen the blow which was intended for him. Disabled, so that he could not be concealed or taken away without discovery and recognition, it had been worth the while of those who had failed in their attempt on his own life, to murder the poor wretch, rather than take the chances of his being seen and questioned. Disabled as he was, his condition should have appealed to the hardest heart. He had tried to do faithfully the work given him and, failing, had been done to death for his fidelity. What was this hideous thing that played with murder, rather than let itself be discovered? As Trafford asked himself the question, he glanced uneasily at his windows. It was here, in this very town, within a stone’s throw of the very place where he sat, that murder stalked--murder that had once sought him as a victim and then had destroyed its own instrument, not trusting the man it had employed. It seemed like a lowering menace, ready to fall without warning, and almost for the first time since he had taken up this profession, he was conscious of the sense of personal fear. This merciless, unseen something, impressed him as standing just beyond the line of sight, watching with unseen eyes, to strike at him again. If it could be uncovered, what would it prove itself, to justify so desperate a chance? If it could not be uncovered, where was safety for himself or for any one who stood as a menace to its purposes?