A knot of carpenters, with their tool-boxes on their shoulders, had halted at the garden gate on their way to Bishop’s new stables, and were glancing curiously at the unpainted facade of the house, which seemed to have taken on a remote, bewildered expression, as if it had an inarticulate sense of the horror within.  The men ceased their whispered conversation as Richard approached, and respectfully moved aside to let him pass.

Nothing had been changed in the cheerless room on the ground floor, with its veneered mahogany furniture and its yellowish leprous wall-paper, peeling off at the seams here and there.  A cane-seated chair, overturned near the table, had been left untouched, and the body was still lying in the position in which the Hennessey girl had discovered it.  A strange chill—­something unlike any atmospherical sharpness, a chill that seemed to exhale from the thin, pinched nostrils—­permeated the apartment.  The orioles were singing madly outside, their vermilion bosoms glowing like live coals against the tender green of the foliage, and appearing to break into flame as they took sudden flights hither and thither; but within all was still.  On entering the chamber Richard was smitten by the silence,—­that silence which shrouds the dead, and is like no other.  Lemuel Shackford had not been kind or cousinly; he had blighted Richard’s childhood with harshness and neglect, and had lately heaped cruel insult upon him; but as he stood there alone, and gazed for a moment at the firmly shut lips, upon which the mysterious white dust of death had already settled,—­the lips that were never to utter any more bitter things,—­the tears gathered in Richard’s eyes and ran slowly down his cheeks.  After all said and done, Lemuel Shackford was his kinsman, and blood is thicker than water!

Coroner Whidden shortly appeared on the scene, accompanied by a number of persons; a jury was impaneled, and then began that inquest which resulted in shedding so very little light on the catastrophe.

The investigation completed, there were endless details to attend to,—­papers to be hurriedly examined and sealed, and arrangements made for the funeral on the succeeding day.  These matters occupied Richard until late in the afternoon, when he retired to his lodgings, looking in on Margaret for a few minutes on his way home.

“This is too dreadful!” said Margaret, clinging to his hand, with fingers nearly as icy as his own.

“It is unspeakably sad,” answered Richard,—­“the saddest thing I ever knew.”

“Who—­who could have been so cruel?”

Richard shook his head.

“No one knows.”

The funeral took place on Thursday, and on Friday morning, as has been stated, Mr. Taggett arrived in Stillwater, and installed himself in Welch’s Court, to the wonder of many in the village, who would not have slept a night in that house, with only a servant in the north gable, for half the universe.  Mr. Taggett was a person who did not allow himself to be swayed by his imagination.