“Why haven’t you gone to bed?”

“Oh, don’t you see?” Mamie answered, in deep distress,—­“I’ve been sitting up for you.  We all thought you were writing letters in your room, but after papa and mamma had gone to bed I went in to tell you good night, and you weren’t there, nor anywhere else; so I knew you must have gone out.  I’ve been sitting by the front window, waiting to let you in, but I went to sleep until a little while ago, when the telephone-bell rang and he got up and answered it.  He kept talking a long time; it was something about the Tocsin, and I’m afraid there’s been a murder down-town.  When he went back to bed I fell asleep again, and then those darkies woke me up.  How on earth did you expect to get in?  Don’t you know he always locks up the house?”

“I could have rung,” said Ariel.

“Oh—­oh!” gasped Miss Pike; and, after she had recovered somewhat, asked:  “Do you mind telling me where you’ve been?  I won’t tell him—­nor mamma, either.  I think, after all, I was wrong yesterday to follow Eugene’s advice.  He meant for the best, but I—­”

“Don’t think that.  You weren’t wrong.”  Ariel put her arm round the other’s waist.  “I went to talk over some things with Mr. Louden.”

“I think,” whispered Mamie, trembling, “that you are the bravest girl I ever knew—­and—­and—­I could almost believe there’s some good in him, since you like him so.  I know there is.  And I—­I think he’s had a hard time.  I want you to know I won’t even tell Eugene!”

“You can tell everybody in the world,” said Ariel, and kissed her.

XVII

MR. SHEEHAN’S HINTS

“Never,” said the Tocsin on the morrow, “has this community been stirred to deeper indignation than by the cold-blooded and unmitigated brutality of the deliberate murder committed almost under the very shadow of the Court-house cupola last night.  The victim was not a man of good repute, it is true, but at the moment of his death he was in the act of performing a noble and generous action which showed that he might have become, if he lived, a good and law-fearing citizen.  In brief, he went to forgive his enemy and was stretching forth the hand of fellowship when that enemy shot him down.  Not half an hour before his death, Cory had repeated within the hearing of a dozen men what he had been saying all day, as many can testify:  `I want to find my old friend Fear and shake hands with him.  I want to tell him that I forgive him and that I am ashamed of whatever has been my part in the trouble between us.’  He went with that intention to his death.  The wife of the murderer has confessed that this was the substance of what he said to her, and that she was convinced of his peaceful intentions.  When they reached the room where her husband was waiting for her, Cory entered first.  The woman claims now that as they neared the vicinity he hastened forward