“No harm talking to me, a stranger without any interest in it,” Doctor St. Clair said reassuringly, with a bland smile. “I hope the young fellow compensated you well for your trouble?” “Oh, yes, sir; yes. Since he went away he paid up liberal. Sent my ole man fifty dollars and me a gold watch. Think o’ that, now!” “Very clever!” exclaimed the doctor. “What did you say his name was, madam?” “A Mr. John Rupert, from way off somewhere,” she replied incautiously, having an uncontrollable propensity for gossip. “From Ohio?” cried the doctor, his thoughts reverting to his bête noire, Doctor Rupert. “I dunno,” she answered curtly, suddenly becoming tongue-tied. But the doctor’s languid interest, suddenly stimulated to malignant activity by that name, prompted him to further inquiry. Could there be any coincidence? he wondered. Had he stumbled on a clue to a disgraceful mystery in the life of the man he hated? He determined to board with the couple a day or two, and ferret out every particular about “John Rupert, from way off somewhere,” as the woman said. His evil genius favored him, for, when the ferryman returned he was somewhat excited, and exclaimed to his wife: “You’d never think who ’twas I put across the river!” She made some futile guesses, and then he said jestingly: “I knowed you was too stupid to ever guess, so I’ll tell. ’Twere that runaway, Dan Ellis!” Her surprise made the doctor ask some leading questions, and the replies elicited soon showed him that he was on the track of a subject most interesting to him--the Hallowe’en tragedy that had resulted in the sending of Eva Somerville to the insane asylum. The doctor had heard something of it before, but not so fully as now, when related by people of the neighborhood familiar with the simplest details of the story. He plied the unsuspecting, easy-going pair with questions, and as they never wearied of the thrilling tragedy, they gave it to him in full, with all the embellishments, down to the great funeral of Terry Groves, that all the people for miles about had attended, and the strange fate of Doctor Ludington’s corpse, that had burst from its casket en route to burial, and rolled into the river. Then they dwelt at length on the fearful storm of that night, and the woman exclaimed: “’Twere the same night, you know, Jake, that we found the wounded stranger in our back yard!” The doctor started violently, and Jake frowned darkly at his loquacious better half. “You wa’n’t called on to refer to that, Mandy, far’s I kin see!” he observed rebukingly. “Well, you needn’t kick my shin so hard! ’Tain’t a hangin’ secret, as I knows on!” she retorted. The doctor played him skillfully as a wary trout. “If you can keep me until to-morrow, perhaps I can make arrangement with you, but just now I’m taken all aback by the stiff price you ask. I’d like to sleep on it and clear my head.”