ust above the
knuckle of the front-finger, and revealed the cotton stuffing within.
Nay, more, the ruby ring with its peculiar device was thus exposed,
which graced the slender finger of the charlatan! I do not apply this
term as concerned the profession he affected at all, but merely (as
shall be seen later) as one appropriate to himself individually.

There must be beings of all kinds to constitute a world, philosophers
tell us, and he, no doubt, so long in ignorance of it, had stumbled
suddenly on his proper vocation at last. The _role_ he was playing (so
far successfully) had doubtless been the occasion of an exquisite
delight to him, unknown to simpler mortals, who masquerade not without
dread misgivings of detection. I for one, when affecting any costume not
essentially belonging to me, or covering my face even with a paper-mask
for holiday diversion, have had a feeling of unusual transparency and
obviousness, so to speak, which precluded on my part every thing like a
successful maintenance of the part I was attempting to play. It was as
if some mocking voice was saying: "This is Miriam Monfort, the true
Miriam; the person you have known before as such was only making
believe--but the Simon-pure is before you, a volume of folly that all
who run may read! Behold her--she was never half so evident before!"

But to digress thus in the very moment of detection, of recognition,
seems irrelevant. The flash of conviction was as instantaneous in its
action in my mind as that of the lightning when it strikes its object. I
stood confounded, yet enlightened, all ablaze!--but the subject of this
discovery did not seem in the least to apprehend it, or to believe it
possible, in his mad, mole-like effrontery of self-sufficiency, that by
his own track he could be betrayed.

"Vat ansair shall I bear to Mr. Bainrothe from his vard?" asked the
Mercury of my Jove, clasping his costumed hands together, then dropping
them meekly before him. "I vait de reply of Miss Monfort vid patience.
Dere is pen, and ink, and papair, I perceive, on dat table. Be good
enough to write at once your reply to de vise conditions of your
excellent guardian."

"You know them, then?" I said, quickly, glancing at him with a derisive
scorn that did not escape his observation.

"I have dat honnair," was the hypocritical reply, accompanied by a
profound bow.

"Disgrace, rather," I substituted. "But you have your own stand-point of
view, of course. The sh