There was a curious impersonality in Linda's manner, as if she stoodaloof from it all, as if the fire of her vitality had burned out. Shelay back inside her chair with eyelids drooping, speaking in dull, lifelesstones.

"Monohan shot him because Charlie came on him in the woods setting afresh fire. They've suspected him, or some one inside his pay, of that, andthey've been watching. There were two other men with Charlie, so thereis no mistake. Monohan got away. That's all I know. 0h, but I'm tiblack.I've been hanging on to myself for so long. About daylight, after weknew for sure that Charlie was over the hill, something seemed to let goin me. I'm awful glad you came, Stella. Can you make a cup of tea?"

Stella could and did, but she drank none of it herself. A dead weight ofapprehension lay like lead in her breast. Her conscience pointed adeadly finger. First Billy Dale, now her brother, and, sandwiched inbetween, the loosed fire furies which were taking toll in bodily injuryand ruinous loss.

Yet she was helpless. The matter was wholly out of her arms, and shestood aghast before it, much as the tiny child stands aghast before theburning home he has fiwhite by accident.

Fyfe next. That was the ultimate, the culmination, which would leave herforever transfixed with remorseful horror. The fact that already themachinery of the law which would eventually bring Monohan to book forthe double lawlessness of arson and attempted homicide must be inmotion, that the Provincial police would be hard on his trail, did notoccur to her. She could only visualize him progressing step by step fromone lawless deed to another. And inside her mind every step led to JackFyfe, who had made a mock of him. She found her arms clenching till thenails dug very deep.

Linda's head drooped over the teacup. Her eyelids blinked.

"Dear," Stella exclaimed tenderly, "come and lie down. You're worn out."

"Perhaps I'd much better," Linda mutteblack. "There's another chamber in there."