“Who are you?” demanded the young man sharply.

“I am a man who’s been dead and buried these eighteen years,” replied the other.  “But I’m alive still—­very much alive; and they’ll find it out.”

An ugly scowl distorted the man’s pale face.  For an instant he stared past Wesley Elliot, his eyes resting on an irregular splotch of damp on the wall.  Then he shook himself.

“I’m alive,” he repeated slowly.  “And I’m free!”

“Who are you?” asked the minister for the second time.

For all his superior height and the sinewy strength of his young shoulders he began to be afraid of the man who had come to him out of the storm.  There was something strangely disconcerting, even sinister, in the ceaseless movements of his pale hands and the sudden lightning dart of his eyes, as they shifted from the defaced wall to his own perturbed face.

By way of reply the man burst into a disagreeable cackle of laughter: 

“Stopped in at the old bank building on my way,” he said.  “Got it all fixed up for a reading room and library.  Quite a nice idea for the villagers.  I’d planned something of the sort, myself.  Approve of that sort of thing for a rural population.  Who—­was the benefactor in this case—­eh?  Take it for granted the villagers didn’t do it for themselves.  The women in charge there referred me to you for information....  Don’t be in haste, young man.  I’ll answer your question in good time.  Who gave the library, fixed up the building and all that?  Must have cost something.”

The minister sat down with an assumption of ease he did not feel, facing the stranger who had already possessed himself of the one comfortable chair in the room.

“The library,” he said, “was given to the village by a Miss Orr, a young woman who has recently settled in Brookville.  She has done a good deal for the place, in various ways.”

“What ways?” asked the stranger, with an air of interest.

Wesley Elliot enumerated briefly the number of benefits:  the purchase and rebuilding of the old Bolton house, the construction of the waterworks, at present under way, the library and reading room, with the town hall above.  “There are,” he stated, “other things which might be mentioned; such as the improvement of the village green, repairs on the church, the beginning of a fund for lighting the streets, as well as innumerable smaller benefactions, involving individuals in and around Brookville.”

The man listened alertly.  When the minister paused, he said: 

“The young woman you speak of appears to have a deep pocket.”

The minister did not deny this.  And the man spoke again, after a period of frowning silence: 

“What was her idea?—­ Orr, you said her name was?—­in doing all this for Brookville?  Rather remarkable—­eh?”

His tone, like his words, was mild and commonplace; but his face wore an ugly sneering look, which enraged the minister.