VI
"THAT THY DAYS MAY BE LONG"
The door was still locked. Puzzled not a little, he turned the key, and stopped to listen. All was quiet within. Wondering, he pushed the door open, looked in, and was astounded.
The kitchen, always so orderly, was in the dirtiest confusion. Over the floor lay the tracks of muddy boots, with here and there a cake of dried mud. A broken chair and the fragments of a plate cluttered round the legs of the table, on which there stood, in a litter of dishes, two great empty bottles. The stuffed loon in the corner leaned its black head tipsily against the wall, as if it were the culprit. Through the back door, which stood open, Marden caught sight of another bottle smashed at the foot of the chopping-block. All this he saw in a flash, thinking, "He came home late, for his boots were muddy, and I did n't hear it rain till nearly midnight." Taking a lid from the stove, he found coals
