.

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE CAT AND THE MOUSE

Mr. Gilmore, having yielded once again to temptation, found himself at
Marshall Langham's door. He asked for the lawyer, but was informed he
was not at home, a fact of which Mr. Gilmore was perfectly well aware,
since he had parted from him not twenty minutes before at the
court-house steps. Mrs. Langham was at home, however, and at this
welcome information the gambler, smiling, strode into the hall.

From the parlor, Evelyn heard his voice. She had found him amusing in
the first days of their acquaintance, and possibly she might again find
him diverting, but this afternoon he had chosen ill for his call. She
was quite sure she detested him. For the first time she measured him by
standards of which he could know nothing, and found no good thing in
him. What had Marsh meant when he forced this most undesirable
acquaintance on her!

"You wanted to see Marsh?" she asked, as she gave him her hand.

"That will keep," said Gilmore cheerfully. "May I stay?" he added.

"If you wish," she answered indifferently.

She felt a sense of shame at his presence there. Everything about her
seemed to sink to his level, which was a very low level, she was sure.
These afternoon calls were a recent feature of their intimacy. Before
Gilmore came, she had been thinking for the hundredth time of John
North--the man she had once loved and now hated, but in whose honor she
had such confidence that she knew he would face death rather than
compromise her. In spite of the fact that he had scorned her, had thrown
her aside for another, she had had on his account many a soul-rending
struggle with her conscience, with her better self. She knew that a word
from her, and his prison doors would open to a free world. Time and
again this word had trembled on her lips unuttered. She knew also that
it was not hate of North that kept her silent. It was an intangible,
unformed, unthoughtout fear of what might follow after. North, she knew,
was innocent; who then was guilty? She closed her eyes and shut her
lips. That North would ultimately clear himself she never seriously
doubted, and yet the burden of her secret was intolerable. In her
present mood, she was accessible to every passing influence, and to-day
it was Gilmore's fate to find her both penitent and rebellious, but he
could not know this, he only knew that she was quieter than usual.

He seated himself at her side, and his eyes, eager and an