l find Mrs. Catherick has her sitting like the
rest of them, and pays the rent on the day it's due. Go to the
town-hall. There's a petition lying there--a petition of the
respectable inhabitants against allowing a circus to come and perform
here and corrupt our morals--yes! OUR morals. I signed that petition
this morning. Go to the bookseller's shop. The clergyman's Wednesday
evening Lectures on Justification by Faith are publishing there by
subscription--I'm down on the list. The doctor's wife only put a
shilling in the plate at our last charity sermon--I put half-a-crown.
Mr. Churchwarden Soward held the plate, and bowed to me. Ten years ago
he told Pigrum the chemist I ought to be whipped out of the town at the
cart's tail. Is your mother alive? Has she got a better Bible on her
table than I have got on mine? Does she stand better with her
trades-people than I do with mine? Has she always lived within her
income? I have always lived within mine. Ah! there IS the clergyman
coming along the square. Look, Mr. What's-your-name--look, if you
please!"

She started up with the activity of a young woman, went to the window,
waited till the clergyman passed, and bowed to him solemnly. The
clergyman ceremoniously raised his hat, and walked on. Mrs. Catherick
returned to her chair, and looked at me with a grimmer sarcasm than
ever.

"There!" she said. "What do you think of that for a woman with a lost
character? How does your speculation look now?"

The singular manner in which she had chosen to assert herself, the
extraordinary practical vindication of her position in the town which
she had just offered, had so perplexed me that I listened to her in
silent surprise. I was not the less resolved, however, to make another
effort to throw her off her guard. If the woman's fierce temper once
got beyond her control, and once flamed out on me, she might yet say
the words which would put the clue in my hands.

"How does your speculation look now?" she repeated.

"Exactly as it looked when I first came in," I answered. "I don't
doubt the position you have gained in the town, and I don't wish to
assail it even if I could. I came here because Sir Percival Glyde is,
to my certain knowledge, your enemy, as well as mine. If I have a
grudge against him, you have a grudge against him too. You may deny it
if you like, you may distrust me as much as you please, you may be as
angry as you will--but, of all the women in Engl