"Miss Agnes Wilt, the especial favorite of our dying patriarch here, was
married to young Andrew Zane some time before his father died. There was
no murder in the case. Zane the elder, in one of his frequent fits of
wild and arrogant rage, which were little less than insanity, killed his
partner, Rainey, and in as sudden remorse took his own life."
"What was the occasion of Zane's rage?"
"That is not quite clear, but the local population here is in a violent
reaction against the accusers of young Zane and his wife. The church
recovers a valuable woman in Agnes Zane."
Mrs. Knox Van de Lear had a vial of smelling salts in her hand, and this
vial dropping suddenly on the floor called attention to the fact that
the lady had a little swooning turn. She was herself again in a minute,
and her eyes slowly unclosed and lifted their tender curtains prettily.
"I am so glad for dear Agnes," she said with a natural loudness in that
hushed room. "It even made me forget papa to find Agnes innocent."
The dying minister seemed to catch the words. A ministerial colleague
bent down to hear his low articulation:
"Agnes innocent!" said Silas Van de Lear, and strove to clasp his hands.
"The praying of the righteous availeth much!"
The physician said the good man's pulse ceased to beat at that minute,
and they raised around his scarcely cold remains a hymn to heaven.
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