"The picture?"
"Yes. Tim Slater, he was thar, ye know, says 'twas an uncommon fine 'un, lyin' right atop the chist."
"But why should the picture frighten him?"
"He wasn't altogether frightened, miss. Ye can't frighten 'im. He only got a little white around the gills, so Tim says. Ye see, 'twas a woman's picter, all fixed up on that kind of paper them artist chaps use, an' done with a pencil. 'Twas mighty fine, so Tim says, an' I guess he knows."
Constance made no reply to these words. "A picture!" she mused, "and a woman's!" Anxious though she was to hear more about the trial, her thoughts wandered. She longed with womanly curiosity to know about that picture. Was it a young face, pretty, and whether the missionary had explained whose it was? Something, however, restrained her. She did not dare to ask, lest she should betray the note of eagerness in her voice, and she was sure her face would flush even if she mentioned it.
"But it wasn't the only charge they brung agin the parson," continued Sol. "They raked up all sorts of stuff. It was certainly wonnerful."
"What else did they say?" questioned Mr. Radhurst.
"They said, or at least Pritchen did, that he killed an Injun woman some years back."
"What!"
"Yes, that's what he said. But, my, you should have seed the parson then. He was jist like a tager, an' I never heerd a man say sich cuttin' things in all my life. He jist went fer Pritchen an' opened up a page in his history which 'ud make ye creep. He told sartin an' clear that the villain himself was the one who killed the woman. An', says he: