Adam perhaps had dragged himself to the sitting room fire in a drunken fit of superstition.

Seeking what?
Someone he had _wronged_?
The sinister spark inflamed his fancy.

His brain whirled.
Inexplicably the tale of the fairy mill and the rascal who stole the widow's bag of meal linked itself with the mishap of the night before.
Then too Adam had fallen forward in his chair unconscious.
Nellie stumbled and jolted Kenny into sanity.

He put his thoughts aside in horror.

But dreadful strings of mystery converged persistently to one point: Adam Craig, the pitiful old miser who for some reason huddled every book in the farmhouse on his shelves.