hought when you came along with your beautiful promises,
what sort of a man I was going to marry."

"A very good sort of a man," he said. "You've got a jolly sailor--an
officer and a gentleman. Come now, what have you got to say to this?
Can't you be satisfied with an officer and a gentleman?"

He drew himself up to his full height. Well, he was a handsome fellow:
there was no denying it.

"Good looks and fine words," his wife went on. "Well, and now I've got
to keep you, and if you could make me sing in a dozen halls every
night, you would, and spend the money on yourself--joyfully you
would."

"We would spend it together, my dear. Don't turn rusty, Lotty."

He was not a bad-tempered man, and this kind of talk did not anger him
at all. So long as his wife worked hard and brought in the coin for
him to spend, what mattered for a few words now and then? Besides, he
wanted her assistance.

"What are you driving at?" he went on. "I show you a bit of my hand,
and you begin talking round and round. Look here, Lotty. Here's a
splendid chance for us. I must have a woman's help. I would rather
have your help than any other woman's--yes, than any other woman's in
the world. I would indeed. If you won't help me, why, then, of course,
I must go to some other woman."

His wife gasped and choked. She knew already, after only five weeks'
experience, how bad a man he was--how unscrupulous, false, and
treacherous, how lazy and selfish. But, after a fashion, she loved
him; after a woman's fashion, she was madly jealous of him. Another
woman! And only the other night she had seen him giving
brandy-and-soda to one of the music-hall ballet-girls. Another woman!

"If you do, Joe," she said; "oh, if you do--I will kill her and you
too!"

He laughed.

"If I do, my dear, you don't think I shall be such a fool as to tell
you who she is. Do you suppose that no woman has ever fallen in love
with me before you? But then, my pretty, you see I don't talk about
them; and do you suppose--oh, Lotty, are you such a fool as to suppose
that you are the first girl I ever fell in love with?"

"What do you want me to do? Tell me again."

"I have told you already. I want you to become, for the time, the
daughter of the man who died in America; you will claim your
inheritance; I will provide you with all the papers; I will stand by
you; I will back you up with such a story as will disarm all
suspicion. That is all."

"Yes. I understand. Haven