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who was already flushed and panting under its mere suggestion. He made haste to discredit it.
    â€œWilfred was always fond of his uncle. He went a good deal to Brearley’s place, and played with the two boys, his cousins.”
    â€œHad Wilfred ever handled a gun?”
    â€œNever. He was never allowed to touch a gun.”
    â€œDid you ever teach him how to fire a gun?”
    â€œNever.”
    â€œCould he have had a gun in his possession, even for a few moments, on the afternoon of the murder?”
    â€œImpossible. I had my gun with me, and as you’ve heard my sister-in-law say, Brearley left home without his gun.”
    The hearing ended with the discharge of the innocent accused, and without any other accusation being made.
    â€œI’m glad he got off, for I don’t think he did it,” said Simon soberly as he drove Alice and Emily home in the trap he had hired.
    The sisters were too sunk in grief, it seemed, to reply. But when, having left Alice at the cottage she must soon vacate, the Emmetts presently found themselves in their own home, Emily turned her dark luminous eyes steadily on her husband, and asked in a low tone:
    â€œWho do you think killed my son, Simon?”
    â€œWe shall never know,” replied Simon with a sigh.
    He sighed because he felt the burden of secrecy, the need to conceal, heavy upon his shoulders. It would rest there, he knew, till the day he died.
    Sometimes in the years that followed, he felt the burden almost intolerable. It was his first thought in the morning, his last at night: keep the secret.
Occasionally
when he was out on the moors in the driving winds and bright cold sunshine of March, the still shimmering heat of August, the white dazzling snow of January, he felt a lifting of the heart, as if he might be about to be happy; but instantly the weight of the secret closed down on him again and forbade it. (The feeling he had when he took the passive Emily in his arms was entirely different: a hot passion, a guilty unrelenting triumph.) Again, when he helped Alice to regain her job as mender, supervised her removal back to Marthwaite—her parents took her in—presently found jobs for her growing sons and “gave away” her daughter in a suitable marriage, Simon smiled to himself and felt a warmth about his heart. But in a moment the warmth chilled and his heavy features hardened again into sternness; he could not afford to relax.
    The years rolled on. Simon lived a life of impeccable integrity; prospered in his work; saved money; bought some cottage property in Marthwaite which proved a good investment. He was a devoted and considerate husband, a kind and helpful uncle—pity he had no children—a most capable secretary and treasurer to various Ire Valley good works he undertook.
    All this time, Simon kept his secret. For a few weeks after the moor murders, local discussion raged and diverse and extraordinary theories were propounded, some of them uncomfortable to Simon; but as the months passed the matter grew stale, and presently new generations grew up who had scarcely heard of the event. The strain of the secret aged Simon before his time. His shoulders bowed, his thin hairwhitened, his mouth set in a hard line. But he remained a respected figure, and steadily kept his secret from his wife.
    The day came when Simon had a stroke. It happened when he was out on the moor with an Oldroyd shooting party. Brigg Oldroyd’s son Francis was an excellent shot, and followed his own notions with the impetuosity of youth. Simon’s advice had previously kept the shooting butts away from the place of Wilfred’s death, but young Mr Francis had demanded that butts should be aligned within twenty yards of that fatal hollow. The position he chose was a good one and Simon could not oppose it, he felt, without displaying an undue sensitivity. He superintended the butts’ erection with his customary cold efficiency, but when the