“Where’s the necessity for being put out about it, my good woman?” spoke up Mr. Bitterworth.  “If you know nothing, you can’t tell it.  But you must state what you do know—­why you were there, what startled you, and such like.  Perhaps—­if she were to have a chair?” he suggested to Mr. Verner in a whisper.  “She looks too shaky to stand.”

“Ay,” acquiesced Mr. Verner.  “Somebody bring forward a chair.  Sit down, Mrs. Roy.”

Mrs. Roy obeyed.  One of those harmless, well-meaning, timid women, who seem not to possess ten ideas of their own, and are content to submit to others, she had often been seen in a shaky state from very trifling causes.  But she had never been seen like this.  The perspiration was pouring off her pinched face, and her blue check apron was incessantly raised to wipe it.

“What errand had you near the Willow Pond this evening?” asked Mr. Verner.

“I didn’t see anything,” she gasped, “I don’t know anything.  As true as I sit here, sir, I never saw Rachel Frost this blessed evening.”

“I am not asking you about Rachel Frost. Were you near the spot?”

“Yes.  But—­”

“Then you can say what errand you had there; what business took you to it,” continued Mr. Verner.

“It was no harm took me, sir.  I went to get a dish o’ tea with Martha Broom.  Many’s the time she have asked me since Christmas; and my husband, he was out with the Dawsons and all that bother; and Luke, he’s gone, and there was nothing to keep me at home.  I changed my gownd and I went.”

“What time was that?”

“‘Twas the middle o’ the afternoon, sir.  The clock had gone three.”

“Did you stay tea there?”

“In course, sir, I did.  Broom, he was out, and she was at home by herself a-rinsing out some things.  But she soon put ’em away, and we sat down and had our teas together.  We was a-talking about—­”

“Never mind that,” said Mr. Verner.  “It was in coming home, I conclude, that you were met by young Broom.”

Mrs. Roy raised her apron again, and passed it over her face but not a word spoke she in answer.

“What time did you leave Broom’s cottage to return home?”

“I can’t be sure, sir, what time it was.  Broom’s haven’t got no clock; they tells the time by the sun.”

“Was it dark?”

“Oh, yes, it was dark, sir, except for the moon.  That had been up a good bit, for I hadn’t hurried myself.”

“And what did you see or hear, when you got near the Willow Pond?”

The question sent Mrs. Roy into fresh tears; into fresh tremor.

“I never saw nothing,” she reiterated.  “The last time I set eyes on Rachel Frost was at church on Sunday.”

“What is the matter with you?” cried Mr. Verner, with asperity.  “Do you mean to deny that anything had occurred to put you in a state of agitation, when you were met by young Broom?”

Mrs. Roy only moaned.