"You don't mean to say that he had been--" she stopped, shuddering.

"Murdered. Yes," and Margery went into all the details she had heard
from her gossip.

Mrs. Costello, attracted by the tone of their voices, had come to the
door between the parlour and her bedroom, and stood there listening.
Both she and Lucia, who, like every one else except perhaps his wife,
had heard of the doctor's proceedings against Clarkson, thought only of
him as the murderer until Margery finished her recital with--

"It all comes of having them savages of Indians about. I never could
abide the sight of them."

Lucia caught a glimpse of her mother's face. She felt her own muscles
stiffen with fear. With desperate strength she steadied her voice.

"What do you mean about Indians?" she said.

"It is an Indian as done it," Margery answered half indignant. "There's
no white man, let him be ever such a brute, would have chopped the body
up like that."

"You said they had taken the murderer?"

"They took him, and he's in gaol. Dawson's men knew him. He has been
working for Dawson lately. They say he comes from Moose Island. Mr.
Strafford would know him most like."

There was nothing further to be asked, and Margery went out of the room,