sponded in a joyful whisper from a window, and came down a few
minutes later with her head in a capuchin hood.

"Oh, Sim! dear, is it you indeed? I could hardly believe my ears."

He put down the arms she would throw about his neck and held her wrists,
squeezing them till she almost screamed with pain. He bent his face down
to stare into her hood; even in the darkness she saw a plain fury in his
eyes; if there was a doubt about his state of mind, the oath he uttered
removed it.

"What do you want with me?" she gasped, struggling to free her hands.

"You sent me a letter on the morning of the ball?" said he, a little
relaxing his grasp, yet not altogether releasing her prisoned hands.

"Well, if I did!" said she.

"What was in it?" he asked.

"Was it not delivered Jo you? I did not address it nor did I sign it,
but I was assured you got it."

"That I got it has nothing to do with the matter, woman. What I want to
know is what was in it?"

"Surely you read it?" said she.

"I read it a score of times--"

"My dear Sim!"

"--And cursed two score of times as far as I remember; but what I am
asking now is what was in it?"

Mrs. Petullo began to weep softly, partly from the pain of the man's
unconsciously cruel grasp, partly frotn disillusion, partly from a fear
that she had to do with a mind deranged.

"Oh, Sim, have you forgotten already? It did not use to be that with a
letter of mine!"

He flung away her hands and swore again.

"Oh, Kate Cameron," he cried, "damned black was the day I first clapt
eyes on you! Tell me this, did your letter, that was through all my
dreams when I was in the fever of my wound, and yet that I cannot recall
a sentence of, say you knew I was Drimdarroch? It is in my mind that it
did so."

"Black the day you saw me, Sim!" said she. "I'm thinking it is just
the other way about, my honest man. Drimdarroch! And spy, it seems, and
something worse! And are you feared that I have clyped it all to Madame
Milk-and-Water? No, Simon, I have not done that; I have gone about the
thing another way."

"Another way," said he. "I think I mind you threatened it before myself,
and Doom is to be rouped at last to pleasure a wanton woman."

"A wanton woman! Oh, my excellent tutor! My best respects to my old
dominie! I'll see day about with you for this!"

"Day about!" said he, "ftly good sweet-tempered Kate! You need not fash;
your hand is played; your letter trumped the trick, and I am done.