"Great talk, too, about this trial. You've heard tell of it in course?"
Still another "yes," briefer, sterner, and colder than before, was Willard's answer; but his talkative host was not abashed.
"Very sad affair, I must say," he went on, shaking his head; "and very strange all through. It's wonderful how wimmin will do things when they's in a passion. They say this Miss Campbell went over jest a purpose to kill this other gal, and chucked her body into the sea when she was done."
Here he waited for a reply, but received none; for Willard, with his face shaded by his hand and his falling hair, was thinking, with a bursting heart, of Sibyl, and heard not a word the garrulous old man said.
"This Miss Campbell's beau—what she was going to be married to when she got took up—must be a precious villain. They say he was married to the other young gal on the sly, and nobody ever knowed nothing about it. I'd like to get my hands on him, and give him a good hoss whipping—I vow I would. A little hanging wouldn't hurt him a mite morn'n her!"
At this expose of his feelings, the worthy man again paused for a reply that came not; for Willard Drummond, buried in his own bitter thoughts, was dead to all the world around.
"Yes, there's a great crowd going to town," resumed the old man, thoughtfully, as a light wagon, filled with people, rattled past; "but it ain't no circumstance to what will go to see her hung. I'll go to see that myself; and I'll take the old woman and the girls, too. I've been promising them a treat this long time. S'p'ose you'll be there, too?" he added, determined to get an answer by some means.
But still his strange guest maintained his moody silence, and the old man gave up the effort in despair, and turned the tide of his eloquence upon "Johnny," who entered at this moment, in numberless inquiries concerning the state of the "gentleman's hoss." The girls looked at each other and giggled, and the old woman peered at Willard suspiciously over her spectacles.
A summons to supper was the first thing that aroused him from his reverie; but, with a head giddy, a brain throbbing with tumultuous thoughts, the very sight of food was loathsome to him. Rising to his feet, and standing with difficulty, owing to his strange dizziness, he said:
"As you kindly invited me to remain all night, may I ask to be shown to my room? I do not feel quite well, and I believe I will retire."