The woman slowly nodded her head.  “Don’t know what she’s doin’, not she.  She’s one of the silly kind.”  She put out a hand like a claw, and touched Mrs. Marteen’s shoulder.  Mrs. Marteen turned her flushed and troubled face toward the woman with something akin to intelligence in her eyes.  “What are you settin’ here fur, lady?” asked the woman harshly.  “Watchin’ his house?  Well, it’s no use; he won’t come out again for you or your likes—­never again, never again,” and she chuckled.

“I was here last night.  I sat here last night,” said Mrs. Marteen, her mind reverting to its last conscious moment.

The woman peered at her closely, striving to see through the meshes of the veil where the electric light touched her cheek.

“You did?  What fur?  Was he comin’ out to ye, or did ye want to be let inside?”

The insult was lost on the sufferer.

The woman shifted her position, and changed her tone to one of cunning ingratiation.

“Goin’ to the funeral?” she inquired, and without waiting for an answer, continued to talk.  “I am.  I won’t be asked, of course—­they don’t know I’m here; but I’m goin’.  I wouldn’t miss it—­no, not for—­nothing.  I ought to have some crape, I know, but I don’t see’s I can.  It would be the right thing, though.  I’ll ride in a carriage,” she boasted.  “I suppose they’ll have black horses.  I haven’t seen anything back where I come from, so’s I’d know just what is the fashionable thing.  It’ll be a fashionable funeral, won’t it?  He’s a great big man, he is.  Everybody knows him—­and everybody don’t know him; but I do—­he’s a devil I And women love him, always did love him, the fools!  Why, I used to love him.  You wouldn’t think that now, would you?  Well, I did.”  She laughed a broken cackle, and seemed surprised that her listener remained mute.  “Did you love him?” demanded the crone sneeringly.

“Love him—­love him?” exclaimed Mrs. Marteen, her emotions responding where her mind was unreceptive.  “I hated him—­I hated him!”

“Of course you hated him.  How could a lady help hating him?” murmured the questioner.  “But would you have the courage to kill him—­that’s what I want to know!”

Under the inquisition Mrs. Marteen half roused to consciousness.  She was in the semi-lucid state of a sleepwalker.

“Kill him!” She held up her hands and looked at them as she had done after reading the account of the murder.  “I’m not sure I didn’t kill him; perhaps I did—­I can’t remember—­I can’t remember,” she moaned more and more faintly.

“Don’t you take the credit of that!” shouted the woman, so loudly that a young man who had been aimlessly walking up and down as if intent upon some rendezvous, stopped short to gaze at them keenly.

The older woman, with a movement so rapid that it seemed almost prestidigitation, lifted and threw back her companion’s veil.  The young man gave a start and approached hastily, amazement in every feature.  But the two women were unaware of his presence, and what he next heard made him pause, turn, and by a slight detour come up close behind the bench.