"Jericho! Jericho!" sneezed Duff Salter, but with a pale face, and said:
"That fact established would be serious; but it would be a gratuitous and vile act for you, who profess to love her."
"It is love that prompts me—love and pain! A divine anger, I may call it. I propose to make myself her rescuer afterward, and establish myself in her gratitude and confidence. You are to help me do this by watching the house from the inside."
"Dishonorable!"
"You were the friend of William Zane, the murdered man. Every obligation of friendship impels you to discover his murderer. You are rich; lend me money to continue my investigations. I know this is a cool proposition; but it is better than spending it on churches."
"Very well," wrote Duff Salter, "as the late Mr. Zane's executor, I will spend any proper sum of money to inflict retribution upon his injurers. I will watch the house."
They went home through Palmer Street, on which stood the little brick church—the street said to be occasionally haunted by Governor Anthony Palmer's phantom coach and four, which was pursued by his twenty-one children in plush breeches and Panama hats, crying, "Water lots! water fronts! To let! to lease!"
As Duff Salter entered the house he saw the school director indicated by Calvin Van de Lear sitting in the parlor with Podge Byerly. For the first time Duff Salter noticed that they looked both intimate and confused. He tried to reason himself out of this suspicion. "Pshaw," he said; "it was my uncharitable imagination. I'll go back, as if to get something, and look more carefully."
As the deaf man reopened the parlor-door he saw the school director making a motion as if to embrace Podge, who was full of blushes and appearing to shrink away.
"There's no imagination about that," thought Duff Salter. "If I could only hear well enough my ears might counsel me."