The girl looked up at her mother mutely, almost piteously, as if she would be spared the unhappy tidings, of whose evil import some subtle intuition had already reached her brain.
"It's just as I expected," continued Mrs. Brown, full of the news she had brought. "They caught Milt Derr as he was gettin' on the cars at Grigg's Station, fifteen miles from here. The sheriff had telephoned to all the places around to be on the lookout for him. He had sold his watch, and was about to buy a ticket somewheres out West when they arrested him. They've brought him to town, an' he's safe in jail there now, thank goodness! There'll soon be a first-class hanging in this neighborhood. I hope," she added, with fervor.
CHAPTER XXIX.
The next day the Squire was buried.
The funeral seemed one of especial sadness, shadowed as it was with the stain and mystery of a dark crime, and with neither kith nor kin present to mourn, for Milton Derr was behind iron bars, and the girl flatly refused to attend the funeral, despite her mother's urging.
"I won't add a hypocrite's tears to my other shortcomings, and neither will I be a show to some folks who will go more out of idle curiosity than sympathy," said the girl, decisively, and so her mother went alone.
The toll gate was thrown open to the public during the funeral, which was no more than a proper mark of respect to the Squire's memory, for he had long been president of the road, and was a large stockholder, besides.
The day itself was one of gloom and dreariness, with low-hanging clouds surcharged with sullen rain, while at each frequent blast of wind there was a skurrying of fallen leaves, seeking, like sentient things, to find shelter from the pitiless rain.