“If I dast!  The hussy!  But there’s no use talkin’ to you.  You’re as crazy as a Bedlamite.  Either that, or you’re in the game with her.  If you are, I warn you—­”

“Stop!  What game?  What do you mean?  Gracie!  My Grace!  What is it?  For mercy sakes, Elkanah—­”

“Humph!  I wondered if I couldn’t get some sense into you, finally.  Lock that door!”

“I will!  I will!  But Elkanah—­”

“Lock it!  Give me the key!”

The click of the lock sounded sharply.

“Where’s the lamp?” demanded Daniels.  “And the matches?  Don’t stand there shaking.”

A smell of sulphur floated out into the hall.  Then the sickly glow of the “fluid” lamp shone through the doorway.

“What ails you?” asked Elkanah.  “Are you struck dumb?  Now go and see if there’s anybody else in the house.”

“But—­but there ain’t.  I know there ain’t.  Hannah’s gone and Gracie’s at meetin’ by this time.”

“She?  Humph!  Well, maybe she’s at meeting and maybe she isn’t.  Maybe she’s over in Peters’s pines, hugging and kissing that man she’s met there every Sunday for I don’t know how long—­Here! let go, you old fool!  Let go, I tell you!”

A chair fell to the floor with a bang.  There was the sound of hard breathing and rapid footsteps.

“Let go!” panted Daniels.  “Are you crazy?  Take your hands off me!”

“You liar!” snarled Captain Eben.  “You low-lived liar!  By the Almighty, Elkanah Daniels!  I’ll—­You take that back or I’ll choke the everlastin’ soul out of you.  I will—­”

“Let go, you lunatic!  You’ll kill yourself.  Listen!  I’m not lying.  It’s the truth.  She’s met a man, I tell you.  Been meeting him for months, I guess.  There! now will you listen?”

The footsteps had ceased, but the heavy breathing continued.

“A man!” gasped Eben.  “A man!  Gracie!  It’s a—­Who is he?  What’s his name?”

“His name’s John Ellery, and he’s minister of the Regular church in this town; that’s who he is!  Here! hold up!  Good Lord! are you dying?  Hold up!”

The girl on the stairs sprang to her feet.  Her head was reeling and she could scarcely stand, but she blindly began the descent.  She must go to her uncle.  She must.  But Captain Daniels’s voice caused her to halt once more.

“There! there!” it said in a tone of relief.  “That’s better.  Set still now.  Be quiet, that’s it.  Shall I get some water?”

“No, no! let me be.  Just let me be.  I ain’t what I used to be and this—­I’m all right, I tell you.  Grace!  And—­and—­What was it you just said?  I—­I don’t b’lieve I heard it right.”

“I said that daughter of yours, or niece, or whatever she is, this Grace Van Horne, has been meeting young Ellery, our minister, in Peters’s grove.  Been meeting him and walking with him, and kissing him, and—­”

“It’s a lie!  It ain’t so, Elkanah!  Prove it or—­It—­it can’t be so, can it?  Please—­”