“Hush! yes; but you must never tell any one.  She tried to keep it from him.  That is her comfort.”

“Oh,” said Ellen.  She looked up at the white face of the young man bending over her, and suddenly the realization of a love that was mightier than all the creatures who came of it and all who followed it was over her.

Chapter XLIV

When Ellen did not return, there was some alarm in the Brewster household.  Mrs. Zelotes came over, finally, in a quiver of anxiety.

“Maybe I had better start out and see if I can find her,” said Andrew.

“I think you had better,” returned his mother.  “She went before eight o’clock, and it’s most midnight, and I’ve set at my window watchin’ ever since.  I don’t see what you’ve been thinkin’ about, waitin’ all this time.  I guess if I was a man I shouldn’t have waited.”

“I think she may have gone in to see Abby Atkins—­it’s on the way—­and not realized how late it was,” said Fanny, obstinately, but with a very white face.  She drew her thread through with a jerk.  It knotted, and she broke it off viciously.

“Fiddlesticks!” said her mother-in-law.

“There’s no use imaginin’ things,” said Fanny, angrily; “but I think myself you’d better go now, Andrew, and see if you can see anything of her.”

“I’m goin’ with him,” announced Mrs. Zelotes.

“Now, mother, you’d better stay where you be,” said Andrew, putting on his hat.  Then the door flew open, and Amos Lee, who had seen the light in the windows, and was burning to impart the news of the tragedy, rushed in.

“Heard what’s happened?” he cried out.

They all thought of Ellen.  “What?” demanded Andrew, in a terrible voice.  Fanny dropped her work and stared at him, with her chin falling as if she were dying.  Mrs. Zelotes made a queer gurgling noise in her throat.  Lee stared at them a second, bewildered by the effect of his own words, although they had for him such a tragic import.  Andrew caught hold of him in a grasp like the clamp of a machine.  “What?” he demanded again.

“The boss has been shot,” cried Lee, getting his breath.

Andrew dropped his arm, and they all stared at him.  Lee went on fluently, as if he were a fakir at a fair.

“Nahum Beals did it.  The boss went back to the office to get his pocketbook; McLaughlin saw him; then he went down the stairs; Nahum, he—­he fired; he had been hidin’ underneath the stairs.  Carl Olfsen caught him, and he’s in jail.  Your daughter she was there when the shot came, and run up and held his head.  The young boss he sent her in Dr. James’s buggy to Mrs. Lloyd to break the news.  She ’ain’t got home?”

“No,” gasped Andrew.

“The boss has been shot; he’s dead by this time,” repeated Lee.  “Beals did it; they’ve got him.”  There was the most singular evenness and impartiality in his tone, although he was evidently strained to a high pitch of excitement.  It was impossible to tell whether he exulted in or was aghast at the tragedy.