"Philemon!"

Mr. Sutherland had advanced and was standing by his old friend's
side.

"Philemon, what has become of your guests? You've waited for them
here until morning."

The old man with a dazed look surveyed the two plates set on
either side of him and shook his head.

"James and John are getting proud," said he, "or they forget, they
forget."

James and John. He must mean the Zabels, yet there were many
others answering to these names in town. Mr. Sutherland made
another effort.

"Philemon, where is your wife? I do not see any place set here for
her!"

"Agatha's sick, Agatha's cross; she don't care for a poor old man
like me."

"Agatha's dead and you know it," thundered back the constable,
with ill-judged severity. "Who killed her? tell me that. Who
killed her?"

A sudden quenching of the last spark of intelligence in the old
man's eye was the dreadful effect of these words. Laughing with