"I am not afraid of losing mine," was the calm rejoinder.
"Folks seldom are till they find it gone," said Mrs. Jones, tartly. "My goodness! not content with trapesing off there in the middle of the night, you must go and make an exhibition of yourself besides!--kneeling down on the damp earth to pray, in the face and eyes of all the people; and then rising to make a proclamation, just as if you had been the town bellman! Jones says it struck him dumb."
Alletha Rye was silent. Perhaps she had felt vexed since, that the moment's excitement had led her to the act.
"Who are you, that you should put yourself up against the verdict?" resumed Mrs. Jones. "Are you cleverer and sharper than the jury, and the coroner, and me, and Mr. Ollivera's friends, and the rest of the world, all of us put together? There can't be a doubt upon the point, girl."
"Let it drop," said Alletha, with a shiver.
"Drop! I'd like to see it drop. I'd like the remembrance of it to drop out of men's minds, but you've took care that shan't be. What on earth induced you to go and do it?"
"It was a dreadful thing that Mr. Ollivera should lie under the imputation of having killed himself," came the answer, after a pause.
"Now, you just explain yourself, Alletha Rye. You keep harping on that same string, about Mr. Ollivera; what grounds have you for it?"
The girl's pale face flushed all over. "None," she presently answered. "I never said I had grounds. But there's that vivid dream upon me always. He seemed to reproach me for not having sooner gone into the room to find him; and I'm sure no self-murderer would do that. They'd rather lie undiscovered for ever. Had I kept silence," she passionately added, "I might have become haunted."
Mrs. Jones stared at the speaker with all the fiery fervour of her dark, dark eyes.