in the path of their safety, and it was not long before she decided on a means of guarding themselves from Gilbert's delirium.
"We'll put the boy upstairs," she said curtly. "It'll be harder to hear him there. And—and we'll say he's got something contagious—scarlet fever. We can even put a sign on the door—you'll make a sign, Tim. Scarlet fever. We'll tell 'em the doctor said no one was to go into the house. That'll keep 'em away from Gil. We'll answer all questions outside. Understand?"
Cruze actually smiled in glee.
"Where do you get all the ideas?" he asked fervently.
"Not from you! Now get busy with that. I want to wash the stains."
With savage control of his emotions, Timothy applied himself to the task. Into the well in the yard he dropped. the huge body of Dr. Philemon—and when he heard it thud against the rocks fifty feet underground, he felt faint and dizzy. He dropped the doctor's hat and coat and muffler into the pit, kicked its covering of boards into place, and rushed back through the rain to the house.
He fell upon a chair, buried his head in his hands, and sat moaning and swaying.
"It—was—terrible!" he told Agatha. "That sound when he hit the bottom—"
"Forget it! Drive that buggy away!"
She was scrubbing the floor as easily as though she were merely erasing blots of mud. Her angular figure bent to the work, moving back and forth rhythmically with each scratch of the brush. And presently Timothy regained sufficient strength to begin his journey through the storm. It was miserably chilly as he drove down the road, and he hunched his shoulders while the rain splashed against this face. He passed the dark house of the Drakes, a few other homes and—finaly he reached a desolate spot where he tied the horse to a tree.
After that he trudged home, feeling as if he had removed an unbearable weight from his soul. The dim light in his window promised no cheer; rather, it gleamed with malicious foreboding. It lured—as the eyes of a snake lure. He moved toward it through the penetrating rain, and his heart beat furiously.
When he entered the door, he saw Agatha sitting by the bedside, her bony hand on Gilbert's forehead. She turned to Timothy in tremulous concern.
"We'd better put him upstairs," she said softly. "Soon's I got through cleaning the room, he started saying something like a song he learned in school. A crazy thing. He was delirious again. We'd better put him upstairs."
"What was he saying?" demanded Tim, throwing his wet coat on the once more upright table.
In answer to his query, Gilbert stirred. He squirmed, his mouth opened, and hysterically he began chanting a horrible parody of a song he had been taught. His eyes glared at the yellow lamp and he sang:
"The doctor's in the well,
The doctor's in the well,
I own the cherry-o,
The doctor's in the well!"
CHAPTER FOUR
THE INQUIRY
Though they carried the boy to the upper floor where they tucked him comfortably on a cot, there was no sleep for Agatha and Timothy Cruze that night. Sleep after the terrors of the past few hours was impossible; everything was impossible—save their sitting in the dark room, silent and morbid.
Agatha sat near the window, her stolid face bent, her hands clasped in her lap. Opposite her Timothy glared at the lamp. His huge countenance deeply lined. Nervously his hands rubbed over his knees. He was not conscious of his wet clothes; he was conscious of only one thing: he had murdered a man. . . . And in the morning he would be compelled to meet inquiring villagers.
Well, his story was ready.
Their unspoken meditations were interrupted a dozen times by the chattering of Gilbert. From the upper floor floated the weird chant of "The doctor's in the well—"
It fell upon Timothy Cruze with the weight of a blow—and shattered his courage. Each wildly uttered word pounded upon his conscience—pounded steadily, gloomily, unavoidably. He writhed under the weight of the song. Once he sprang to his feet, stamped across the room, and rasped madly:
"Can't you make him stop? Can't you make him stop that damn thing? He's driving me crazy!"
Moodily the gaunt Agatha answered, without glancing up:
"Sit down, Tim. It's the boy's fever. Don't let it bother you."
He tried bravely to follow hèr instructions. When he sat again, his hands gripped the edge of the chair in an effort to find strength. But he could not escape the fantastic, repeated, "The doctor's in the well—"
At dawn, when Agatha blew the flame from the wick of the oil lamp, he was limp and haggard. With bent shoulders he sagged in his chair, and his lips quivered. Soon the villagers would come. And upstairs Gilbert was still muttering, occasionally, "The doctor's in the well—"
A bright sun vanquished the rain clouds. Fresh from its shower, the countryside sparkled in the golden light of morning. Vapory masses of billowing white rose lazily from the mountain forests, and were wafted away in ephemeral cloudlets. The vague odor of pine drifted down upon the rickety home of the Cruzes.
Timothy stepped out of the house, filled his lungs with the invigorating air. He looked for an instant at the brilliance of the rising sun, blazing above a distant ridge; he stared about, as he did every morning, at the maze of fiery colors in the dying leaves of autumn; and then—he glanced at the boards which covered the well. He shuddered. Fifty feet under those boards lay the lifeless thing he had thrown there. . . .
With gratification he noticed that no marks of his steps remained in the mud; the rain had effectively washed them into oblivion. Queer, he thought, how daylight brought reassurance and courage. He could breathe easily now, though his head throbbed with lack of sleep, and his eyes were black and cadaverous.
He turned to find Agatha, angular and forbidding and ungainly, beside him. She thrust a slip of paper into his hand.
"Nail it up on the door," she said sullenly. "Don't stand around dreaming. When the folks come, tell 'em you put this up until the doctor sent you one of those regular signs. Get busy, Tim."
He fixed the paper to the door. It bore the alarming words:
"SCARLET FEVER."
"That'll keep 'em out," mumbled Agatha.
She was right. It was almost noon—after an interminably long morning—when four men from the village walked up the road to their home. When the delegation, rather breathless from the rapid search for the doctor, came into the yard, they paused. The glaring sign stopped them as abruptly as the muzzle of a gun might have done. They eyed each other hesitantly.
But Agatha and Timothy stepped out of the door—a tall, menacing couple, uncouth and lumbering. It was the woman who called:
"Good morning!"
A short, bald man, twisting his hat in his hands, moved forward to act as spokesman. Before venturing a word, he tugged at both ends of a shaggy moustache.
