CHAPTER XVI.
NARROW MARGINS The black-caps pipe among the reeds, And there'll be rain to follow; There is a murmur as of wind In every coign and hollow; The wrens do chatter of their fears While swinging on the barley-ears.
-- Amelie Rives.
The Judge and Mrs.Claiborne were dining with some old friends in the valley, and Shirley, left alone, carried to the table several letters that had come in the late mail.

The events of the afternoon filled her mind, and she was not sorry to be alone.

It occurred to her that she was building up a formidable tower of strange secrets, and she wondered whether, having begun by keeping her own counsel as to the attempts she had witnessed against John Armitage's life, she ought now to unfold all she knew to her father or to Dick.

In the twentieth century homicide was not a common practice among men she knew or was likely to know; and the feeling of culpability for her silence crossed lances with a deepening sympathy for Armitage.

She had learned where he was hiding, and she smiled at the recollection of the trifling bit of strategy she had practised upon Chauvenet.
The maid who served Shirley noted with surprise the long pauses in which her young mistress sat staring across the table lost in reverie.