Ho, ho, the old folks, of course! They are dead--dead--dead--" He fairly shrieked the words.

Then, for a moment, he stood tightly clutching his thin hands over his chest in a powerful effort to control himself.
"They are dead!" he repeated.
He spoke more calmly, and yet there was something so terrible in his eyes, something so harshly vibrant of elation in the quivering passion of his voice that Nathaniel felt himself filled with a strange horror.
He caught him by the arm, shaking him as he would have shaken a child.
"Where is Marion ?" he asked.

"Tell me, Obadiah--where is Marion ?" The councilor seemed not to have heard him.

A singular change came into his face and his eyes traveled beyond Nathaniel.

Following his glance the young man saw that three men had appeared from the scorched shrubbery about the burned house and were hurrying toward them.