he said
she didn't care 'three ha'pence for holidays,' and if I wouldn't take
her case and push it, there were plenty of lawyers who would jump at the
chance of prosecuting the rich Robert Plowden for bigamy."

"Hush! for heaven's sake!" gasped Plowden, in a hoarse whisper, as, with
an expression of terror in his countenance, he pointed at the old maid.
Rutherford also looked frightened as, wheeling round, he for the first
time descried her; but seeing who it was, and that she was asleep, he
was reassured, and replied indifferently:

"Oh, it's all right--nobody but that mischief-making old cat who foists
herself upon us six months out of every twelve. You gave me an awful
scare. But she's as deaf as an adder when awake, and can't hear thunder
when asleep. Come, let's go to the billiard-room and have a game. I feel
like a new man, now that I've got a respite from this business until
after Christmas."

"Well, I can't forget that it's only a respite, and my anxiety will
spoil Christmas for me."

"And so will mine, I suppose, but we must not show it."

"Oh, what a pair of reprobates we are!" groaned Plowden, as his host led
him away to the billiard-room, which, as is frequently seen in the
South, was a detached structure, at a little distance from the main
building.

No sooner had the front door closed behind the gentlemen than Miss
Fithian sprang up. Pallid and quivering with wrath, she muttered half
audibly:

"So I'm 'a mischief-making old cat,' am I? and I 'foist myself on' you,
you villain! do I? and I'm 'deaf as a post and an adder,' am I? Well,
I'm not so deaf but what I heard the whole of your vile plot to conceal
your crimes; and if I am deaf--you hypocrites! you conspirators! you
bigamists!--you shall find that I'm not dumb!"

III.

CHRISTMAS EVE.

Not until she was dressing for dinner did Edna Rutherford find herself
alone with her husband. Then, between sobs and buttoning her shoes,
broken sentences and doing up her hair, she, metaphorically speaking,
smote her breast and cried, "_Mea culpa! mea culpa!_ I have sinned
against thee! Forgive me!"

Rutherford was not only a shrewd lawyer, but a natural diplomat; and
finding himself master of the situation, he took advantage of it to
exact a promise--which she passionately and penitently gave--that she
would "never again suspect him; no, not even on the evidence of her own
eyes and ears." This signal victory and the extreme comprehensiveness of
the a