"

"Bah!" said Mrs. Tanberry.

"The next morning, when I taxed her with it, she dutifully defied and
insulted me."

"I can imagine the delicacy with which you 'taxed' her. What has that to
do with your devilish tantrums of this afternoon, Robert Carewe?"

"I am obliged to you for the expression," he returned. "When I came
home, this afternoon, I found her reading that thing." He pointed
to many very small fragments of Mr. Cummings's newspaper, which were
scattered about the lawn near the veranda. "She was out here, reading
an article which I had read downtown and which appeared in a special
edition of that rotten sheet, sent out two hours ago."

"Well?"

"Do you know what that article was, madam, do you know what it was?"
Although breathing heavily, Mr. Carewe had compelled himself to a
certain outward calmness, but now, in the uncontrollable agitation of
his anger, he sprang to his feet and struck one of the wooden pillars of
the porch a shocking blow with the bare knuckles of his clenched hand.
"Do you know what it was? It was a eulogy of that damned Vanrevel! It
pretended to be an account of the enrollment of his infernal company,
but it was nothing more than a glorification of that nigger-loving
hound! His company--a lot of sneaks, who'll run like sheep from the
first Greaser--elected him captain yesterday, and today he received
an appointment as major! It dries the blood in my veins to think of
it!--that black dog a major! Good God! am I never to hear the last of
him? Cummings wrote it, the fool, the lying, fawning, slobbering fool;
he ought to be shot for it! Neither he nor his paper ever enter my
doors again! And I took the dirty sheet from her hands and tore it to
pieces--"

"Yes," interposed Mrs. Tanberry, "it looks as if you had done it with
your teeth."

"--And stamped it into the ground!"

"Oh, I heard you!" she said.

Carewe came close to her, and gave her a long look from such bitter eyes
that her own fell before them. "If you've been treacherous to me, Jane
Tanberry," he said, "then God punish you! If they've met--my daughter
and that man--while I was away, it is on your head. I don't ask you,
because I believe if you knew anything you'd lie for her sake. But I
tell you that as she read that paper, she did not hear my step on the
walk nor know that I was there until I leaned over her shoulder. And I
swear that I suspect her."

He turned and walked to the door, while the indomitable Mrs. Tan