they are trying to keep him awake. If he is allowed to go to sleep, he
will die. They are walking him back and forth, though he implores them
to let him sleep. I couldn't bear to see it any longer, it was too, too
dreadful! Oh, how _can_ people be so criminally careless?"

John turned pale and leaned against the gate for support. Celia's face
became a mere blur before his eyes. What had he done--what _had_ he
done? For, at that moment, the conviction came with terrible force upon
him that he, and he alone, would be responsible for Squire Shirley's
death.

He might blame the poor light--Doctor Pratt's miserable scrawl; but
these were but cowardly subterfuges. John _knew_ that he had been able
to decipher Doctor Pratt's handwriting well enough, but that he had been
thinking of something else while putting up the powders, and so had put
too much opium into them.

Celia looked at his agitated face in wonder. Then she uttered a little
cry.

"You--_you_ did it! It is your fault," she said. "And he was your
friend, and always spoke so well of you."

Then she turned and walked swiftly toward the house.

It was true he and Squire Shirley had become excellent friends that
winter, and the squire had only a few days before asked him if he
thought he should like law better than the drug business.

He expected a vacancy in his office soon; in the meantime he had offered