of water and stood looking down dissatisfied at the
result of his labor, while he dried his hands. The stain
was still there, in spite of him, just as the memory of
the murder would cling always to the place. He went
out and watered Jean's poppies and sweet peas and
pansies, still going over and over the evidence and trying
to fill in the gaps.

He had blundered with his lie that had meant to
help. The lie had proven to every man who heard him
utter it that his faith in Aleck's innocence was not
strong; it had proven that he did not trust the facts.
That hurt Lite, and made it seem more than ever his
task to clear up the matter, if he could. If he could
not, then he would make amends in whatever way he
might.

Almost as if he were guarding that gruesome room
which was empty now and silent,--since the clock had
not been wound and had run down,--he sat long upon
the narrow platform before the kitchen door and smoked
and stared straight before him. Once he thought he
saw a man move cautiously from the corner of the
shed where the youngest calf slept beside its mother,
He had been thinking so deeply of other things that
he was not sure, but he went down there, his cigarette
glowing in the gloom, and stood looking and listening.

He neither saw nor heard anything, and presently
he went back to the house; but his abstraction was