Mrs. Brenner jumped.  “You old screech-owl!” she cried.  She wiped her hand quickly on her dirty apron and held it up again to see the cut.  But there was no cut on her hand!  Where had that blood come from?  From Tobey’s shoes?

And who was it that had screamed on the hill?  She felt herself enwrapped in a mist of puzzling doubts.

She snatched up the shoes, searching them with agonized eyes.  But the wet and pulpy mass had no stain.  Only the wet sands and the slimy water-weeds of the beach clung to them.

Then where had the blood come from?  It was at this instant that she became conscious of shouts on the hillside.  She limped to the door and held it open a crack.  Very faintly she could see the bobbing lights of torches.  A voice carried down to her.

“Here’s where I found his hat.  That’s why I turned off back of these trees.  And right there I found his body!”

“Are you sure he’s dead?” quavered another voice.

“Stone-dead!’”

Olga Brenner shut the door.  But she did not leave it immediately.  She stood leaning against it, clutching the wet shoes, her staring eyes glazing.

Tobey was strong.  He had flown into childish rages sometimes and had hurt her with his undisciplined strength.  Where was Mart?  Tobey had seen him.  Perhaps they had fought.  Her mind refused to go further.  But little subtle undercurrents pressed in on her.  Tobey hated and feared his father.  And Mart was always enraged at the sight of his half-witted son.  What had happened?  And yet no matter what had occurred, Tobey had not been on the hill.  His shoes bore mute testimony to that.  And the scream had been on the slope.  She frowned.

Her body more bent than ever, she hobbled slowly over to the stove and laid the shoes on the big shelf above it, spreading them out to the rising heat.  She had barely arranged them when there was again the sound of approaching footsteps.  These feet, however, did not stumble.  They were heavy and certain.  Mrs. Brenner snatched at the shoes, gathered them up, and turned to run.  But one of the lacings caught on a nail on the shelf.  She jerked desperately at the nail, and the jerking loosened her hold of both the shoes.  With a clatter they fell at her feet.

In that moment Mart Brenner stood in the doorway.  Poverty, avarice, and evil passions had minted Mart Brenner like a devil’s coin.  His shaggy head lowered in his powerful shoulders.  His long arms, apelike, hung almost to his knees.  Behind him the fog pressed in, and his rough, bristly hair was beaded with diamonds of moisture.

“Well?” he snapped.  A sardonic smile twisted his face.  “Caught you, didn’t I?”

He strode forward.  His wife shrank back, but even in her shivering terror she noticed, as one notices small details in a time of peril, that his shoes were caked with red mud and that his every step left a wet track on the rough floor.