He heard the key turn in the lock. It had Come. It was a frame-up.
There would be a scandal. And to save himself from it they would
force him to "hush up" this other one. But, as to the outcome, in
no way was he concerned. Through the window, standing directly
below it, he had seen Nolan. In the sunlit yard the chauffeur, his
cap on the back of his head, his cigarette drooping from his lips,
was tossing the remnants of a sandwich to a circle of excited hens.
He presented a picture of bored indolence, of innocent
preoccupation. It was almost too well done.

Assured of a witness for the defense, he greeted the woman with a
smile. "Why can't I do it?" he taunted.

She ran close to him and laid her hands on his arm. Her eyes were
fixed steadily on his. "Because," she whispered, "the man who shot
that girl-is your brother-in-law, Ham Cutler!"

For what seemed a long time Wharton stood looking down into the
eyes of the woman, and the eyes never faltered. Later he recalled
that in the sudden silence many noises disturbed the lazy hush of
the Indian-summer afternoon: the rush of a motor-car on the Boston
Road, the tinkle of the piano and the voice of the youth with the
drugged eyes singing, "And you'll wear a simple gingham gown," from
the yard below the cluck- cluck of the chickens and the cooing of
pigeons.

His first thought was of his sister and of her children, and of
what this bomb, hurled from the clouds, would mean to her. He
thought of Cutler, at the height of his power and usefulness, by
this one disreputable act dragged into the mire, of what disaster