night, except Mrs. Kil-gore. Whenever she awoke she heard her husband tossing restlessly, but she dared not ask him what was the matter. In vain did Silas rehearse to himself all through the night-hours how petty were the trifles in Joseph's demeanor which had disturbed him. They were of the sort of trifles which create that species of certainty known as moral certainty,—the strongest of all in the mind it occupies, although so incapable of being communicated to others. It mattered little how much evidence there was, if it sufficed to lodge the faintest trace of suspicion in his mind. For, like some poisons, an atom of suspicion is as fatal as the largest quantity, Nay, perhaps, even more surely so, for against great suspicion the mind often takes arms and makes valiant head; but a little doubt, by its timid and hesitant demeanor, disarms opposition, and is readily entertained. And all that night, lying awake, and knowing that Silas was sleepless just the other side of the partition, and that the fungus of suspicion was moment by moment overgrowing his mind, he could hardly wait for morning, but would fain have rushed, even now in the darkness, to his bedside to cry: "I did not do it! Believe me, brother, I did not do it!"

In the morning, however, the sun shone brightly into his room, and last night's events and misunderstandings seemed like a bad dream. He went downstairs almost cheery. He did not find Silas, but Mrs. Kilgore was about. He was rather startled to observe the entire change in her demeanor. Yesterday she was constantly following him up with her sharp black eyes and brisk questions and exclamations, but now she seemed frightened, acted in a constrained manner, and avoided his eyes.

"Where is Silas?" he asked, as they sat down to table.

"He said that there was something he must see to at the shop before work began, so he had an early breakfast," replied Mrs. Kilgore, with her eyes on her plate.

Had she been looking up, she would have seen a piteous constriction in the muscles of Joseph's face. His heart was sick, and all his regained courage sank away. It was no bad dream. Silas was afraid to meet him. He left his meal untasted, and went to the office. A dozen acquaintances stopped him on his way down-street to ask about the murder; and all day long somebody was dropping in to pester him on the same subject. He told them with a dull, abstracted air all the fresh details he knew, but felt all the time as if he cheated each auditor of the vital part of the matter, in that he failed to shout after him:—

"Silas suspects me of it!"

Silas had, indeed, left the house early for the purpose of avoiding his brother. He was in a condition of mind and nerve in which he did not dare to meet him. At tea the brothers met for the first time since the night previous. There was a constraint between them like that between strangers, but stronger and more chilling far than ever that is. There is no chill like that which comes between friends, and the nearer the friends the more deathly the cold. Silas made a little effort to speak of business-matters, but could not keep it up, and soon a silence settled over the party, only broken by the words of table-service. Mrs. Kilgore sat pale and frightened all through the meal without venturing a single phrase, and scarcely looking up from her plate.

The silence was of that kind which all felt to be more expressive than the loudest, most explicit language could be,—more merciless than any form of verbal accusation. Such silence is a terribly perfect medium, in which souls are compelled to touch each other, resent as they may the contact. Several times Joseph was on the point of rising and rushing from the table. How many more such meals could he stand or could they stand? All of them recognized that the situation had become perceptibly more serious and more pronounced on account of that silent tea-table.

There was in particular not the slightest allusion made by any one to the murder, which, seeing that it had happened but