"'Has Isaac Perry been here?' I asked, for I was strangely troubled. 'He has,' said granddaddy, 'he brought the document over this evening. Isaac seems likely to make something of himself, after all.' 'I will read it in the morning,' I said, and then I told him that I was glad that he had given the ground. 'Your uncle Frank advised me to tell you of it to-night,' said he.
"I went upstairs to my work, leaving him below. Soon afterwards I went down again to get the paper, feeling that I might as well read it before going to bed. He was reading in the back parlor. I got the envelope out of the drawer in the front room and went back upstairs without disturbing him. A minute afterwards I heard the shot. My own gun was standing in the corner. I grabbed it up and crawled through a window on to the gallery, running down the back steps. As I reached the bottom I saw a man climbing over the fence to the right. Not dreaming that a tragedy had occurred, I rushed after him. He easily got away in the darkness. Then I returned to the house. As I came near I saw Isaac Perry—unmistakably Isaac Perry—at the corner. He turned and ran the instant he saw me. When he crossed in front of the lighted parlor windows I distinctly saw that he did not carry a gun. The man I chased had one. Just then a great cry came from the parlor. I rushed up to the window to look within. One of the panes of glass had been broken.
"My grandfather was lying on the floor. Two of the servants were standing near, looking at him as if paralyzed. There was blood on his white shirt front. Oh! I can't tell you how it—"
He could not continue for a full minute or more. The girl was scarcely breathing.
"I just stood there and stared, the gun in my hand. Suddenly some one leaped upon me from behind. It was my uncle Frank and he was out of breath, very much excited. 'You little devil!' he yelled two or three times. Then he called for help. Servants came running from all directions. I didn't know what he meant. Soon I was to learn."
"He—he thought you killed him?" whispered Christine.
"He said I killed him. I was dazed—I was crazy. It was a long time before I realized what was happening to me. The—the servants and the neighbors who came in wanted to lynch me—but Judge Gainsborough, who rode over in his night-clothes from his plantation, prevailed upon them to wait—to give me a hearing. My uncle Frank would have let them hang me. I began at last to realize how badly it looked for me. They laughed at my story of the man who ran away. My uncle Frank deliberately denied that Isaac Perry had been there. I was stupefied. It came over me suddenly that—that Uncle Frank had done the shooting. He had killed his own father!"
"The monster!"
"How wonderfully everything worked out against me. The gun, with one barrel empty, for I had fired it that very day in the woods; my presence at the window; the servants who saw me looking in; my uncle Frank's tale of how he came out on the gallery above and saw me hiding in the dead lilac bushes, and afterwards creep up to the window to look in upon the thing I had done. He told of my attempt to run and of his straggle to hold me. One of the servants had seen me go down when granddaddy called to me, and again he had seen me go down quietly to the library after the paper. I did go quietly, it is true, so as not to disturb the old gentleman.
"They all rushed upstairs to search my room. Lying on my table was the long envelope. Judge Gainsborough opened it, so he says. They came downstairs and I shall never forget the look of horror in the Judge's eyes as he stood there staring at me. 'David,' he said, 'this is a terrible, terrible thing you have done.' I couldn't speak. 'How did you know that your grandfather had made this new will?' Christine, the—the paper was a new will, giving everything to my uncle Frank, excepting a small bequest in money and a house and lot in Richmond, which, however, was to go to Uncle Frank in case of my death. The will looked genuine—everybody said so—even Judge Gainsborough. It had been drawn three weeks before and had been witnessed by George Whitman, who died ten days after signing, and Mortimer Simms, who, strangely enough, died three days later."