the wretched eavesdropper herself barely suppressed a
moan of passionate anguish.

"You have very little idea of Anna's spirit, if you imagine that she
would ever yield one jot to you," Mr. Goddard at length retorted, his
face crimson with rage.

Isabel Stewart arose from her chair and stood calm and cold before
him.

She gazed with a steady, searching look into his eyes, then remarked,
with slow emphasis:

"She will never be asked to yield to me, and I am spared the necessity
of suing to either of you, for--that all-important certificate of
marriage is already in my possession."

As we know, Gerald Goddard had feared this; he had even suggested the
possibility to Anna, on the night of the ball at Wyoming, when she
told him of the disappearance of the paper.

Nevertheless, the announcement of the fact at this time came upon him
like a thunderbolt, for which he was utterly unprepared.

"Zounds!" he cried, starting to his feet, as if electrified, "can you
mean it? Then you stole it the night of the ball!"

"You are greatly mistaken, Mr. Goddard; it was in my possession before
the night of the ball," quietly returned his companion.

"I do not believe it!" cried the man, excitedly.

"I will prove it to you if you desire," Mrs. Stewart remarked.

"I defy you to do so."

"Very well; I accept your gage. You will, however, have to excuse me
for a few moments," and, with these few words, the stately and
graceful woman turned and disappeared within a chamber that opened
from the room they were in.

It would be difficult to describe the conflict of emotions that raged
in Gerald Goddard's breast during her absence.

While he was almost beside himself with anger and chagrin, over the
very precarious position in which he found himself, he was also
tormented by intense disappointment and a sense of irritation to think
he had so fatally marred his life by his heartless desertion of the
beautiful woman who had just left him.

Anna was not to be compared with her; she was perhaps more brilliant
and pronounced in her style; but she lacked the charm of refinement
and sweet graciousness that characterized Isabel; while, more than all
else, he lamented the loss of the princely inheritance which had
fallen to her, and which he would have shared if he had been true to
her.

Ten minutes passed, and then he was aroused from his wretched
reflections by the opening of the chamber door near him, when his late
housekeeper at Wy