The worthy squire, jogging along in his cart from market, came upon the artist, sitting on the top rail of the gate, whittling, and looking gloomily dejected.

“Hi!  George, my boy!” cried out the squire, “what’s gone wrong?  You look as dismal as a graveyard!”

“W-a-a-l!” drawled the artist, who wasn’t going to tell his troubles on the house-tops, “there ain’t nothin’ much to speak of.  It’s the all-fired dullness of this pesky one-horse village, where there ain’t nothin’ stirrin’, ’cept flies in fly-time, from one year’s end to t’other.”

“See what comes of traveling,” said Squire Brown.  “If you had stayed at home, instead of flying round England, you’d have been as right as a trivet.  My ’pinion is, you’ve been and left a gal behind.  Here’s a London paper for you.  My missus gets ’em every mail.  Perhaps you’ll see your gal’s name in the list of marriages.”

Mr. Parmalee took the paper chucked at him with languid indifference.

“Any news?” he asked.

“Lots—­just suited to your complaint.  A coal mine in Cornwall’s been and caved in and buried alive fifteen workmen; there’s been a horrid riot in Leeds; and a baronet in Devonshire is sentenced to be hung for murdering his wife.”

Mr. Parmalee gave one yell—­one horrid yell, like a Comanche war-whoop—­and leaped off the fence.

“What did you say?” he roared.  “A baronet in Devonshire for murdering his wife?”

“Thunder!” ejaculated Squire Brown.  “You didn’t know him, did you?  Maybe you took his picture when in England?  Yes, a baronet, and his name it’s Sir Everard Kingsland.”

With an unearthly groan, Mr. Parmalee tore open the paper.

“They haven’t hanged him yet, have they?” he gasped.  “Oh, good Lord above! what have I done?”

Squire Brown stared, a spectacle of dense bewilderment.

“You didn’t do the murder, I hope?” he asked.

The squire rode away, and Mr. Parmalee sat for a good hour, half stupefied over the account.  The paper contained a resume of the trial, from first to last—­dwelling particularly on Miss Silver’s evidence, and ending with the sentence of the court.

The paper dropped from the artist’s paralyzed hand.  He covered his face and sat in a trance of horror and remorse.  His mother came to call him to dinner, and as he looked up in answer to her call, she started back with a scream at sight of his unearthly face.

“Lor’ a-massy, George Washington! what ever has come to you?”

“Pack up my clean socks and shirts, mother,” he said.  “I’m going back to England by the first steamer.”

Late next evening Mr. Parmalee reached New York.  Early the following morning he strode up to the brownstone mansion of Mr. Denover and sharply rang the bell.

“Is Lady—­I mean, is Mr. Denover’s niece to home?”

The servant ushered him into the drawing-room.