Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/160

 

(Signed) ''John Hemphill. Darius Curtis. Alexander Bostwick.'' (Committee.)

He did not attempt to tear loose the planks and force an entrance to his church. For a little time he simply stood quite still in the high grass staring at the paper, and then, turning slowly, he walked away with his head bowed and his great cruel hands behind his tired back. As he left the churchyard, passing through the rusted gate, there arose behind him from the thicket of sumach a loud derisive laugh. The committee had been hiding there to watch him.

It was the end. There was nothing left.

At two o'clock in the afternoon of the same day Maria Hazlett, drowsing in the heat with the reins hanging loose over the dashboard of the milk-wagon, was roused sharply. Her team had shied at something that lay on the edge of the road and very nearly threw the wagon into the ditch. Stirring herself to action, she halted the team to find that almost beside her, among the high sweet clover,