I knew the Thomas Jenkins farm on the Elmsburg road.  I had, indeed, bought vegetables and eggs from Mr. Jenkins himself.  That morning, as early as I dared, I called the Jenkins farm.  Mr. Jenkins himself would bring me three dozen eggs that day.  They were a little torn up out there, as Mrs. Jenkins had borne a small daughter at seven A.M.

When I told Willie, he was evidently relieved.  “I’m glad of it,” he said heartily.  “The doctor’s a fine old chap, and I’d hate to think he was mixed up in any shady business.”

He was insistent, that day, that I give up the house.  He said it was not safe, and I was inclined to agree with him.  But although I did not tell him of it, I had even more strongly than ever the impression that something must be done to help Miss Emily, and that I was the one who must do it.

Yet, in the broad light of day, with the sunshine pouring into the rooms, I was compelled to confess that Willie’s theory was more than upheld by the facts.  First of all was the character of Miss Emily as I read it, sternly conscientious, proud, and yet gentle.  Second, there was the connection of the Bullard girl with the case.  And third, there was the invader of the night before, an unknown quantity where so much seemed known, where a situation involving Miss Emily alone seemed to call for no one else.

Willie put the matter flatly to me as he stood in the hall, drawing on his driving gloves.

“Do you want to follow it up?” he asked.  “Isn’t it better to let it go?  After all, you have only rented the house.  You haven’t taken over its history, or any responsibility but the rent.”

“I think Miss Emily needs to be helped,” I said, rather feebly.

“Let her friends help her.  She has plenty of them.  Besides, isn’t it rather a queer way to help her, to try to fasten a murder on her?”

I could not explain what I felt so strongly—­that Miss Emily could only be helped by being hurt, that whatever she was concealing, the long concealment was killing her.  That I felt in her—­it is always difficult to put what I felt about Miss Emily into words—­that she both hoped for and dreaded desperately the light of the truth.

But if I was hardly practical when it came to Miss Emily, I was rational enough in other things.  It is with no small pride—­but without exultation, for in the end it cost too much—­that I point to the solution of one issue as my own.

With Willie gone, Maggie and I settled down to the quiet tenure of our days.  She informed me, on the morning after that eventful night, that she had not closed an eye after one o’clock!  She came into the library and asked me if I could order her some sleeping-powders.

“Fiddlesticks!” I said sharply.  “You slept all night.  I was up and around the house, and you never knew it.”

“Honest to heaven, Miss Agnes, I never slep’ at all.  I heard a horse galloping’, like it was runnin’ off, and it waked me for good.”