Was she quite alone in the seemingly quiet street? She could hear
no one, see no one. A lamp burned in front of Miss Weeks' small
house, but the road it illumined (I speak of the one running down
to the ravine) showed only darkened houses.

She had left the corner and was passing the gate of the Ostrander
homestead, when she heard, coming from some distant point within,
a low and peculiar sound which held her immovable for a moment,
then sent her on shuddering.

It was the sound of hammering.

What is there in a rat-tat-tat in the dead of night which rouses
the imagination and fills the mind with suggestions which we had
rather not harbour when in the dark and alone? Deborah Scoville
was not superstitious, but she had keen senses and mercurial
spirits and was easily moved by suggestion.

Hearing this sound and locating it where she did, she remembered,
with a quick inner disturbance, that the judge's house held a
secret; a secret of such import to its owner that the dying Bela
had sought to preserve it at the cost of his life.

Oh, she had heard all about that! The gossip at Claymore Inn had
been great, and nothing had been spared her curiosity. There was
something in this house which it behooved the judge to secrete
from sight yet more completely before her own and Reuther's
entrance, and he was at work upon it now, hammering with his own
hand while other persons slept! No wonder she edged her way along