hat might well pass for formal civility, he now looked aslant
into his breast-pocket from which he drew a folded paper. "I just got
hold of a document this morning that I think will interest you. I was
bringing it round to Dick's wife for you." The intolerable familiarity
of all this was fast working Kenton to a violent explosion, but he
contained himself, and Bittridge stepped forward to lay the paper on
the table before him. "It's the original roster of Company C, in your
regiment, and--"

"Take it away!" shouted Kenton, "and take yourself away with it!" and he
grasped the stick that shook in his hand.

A wicked light came into Bittridge's eye as he drawled, in lazy scorn,
"Oh, I don't know." Then his truculence broke in a malicious amusement.
"Why, judge, what's the matter?" He put on a face of mock gravity, and
Kenton knew with helpless fury that he was enjoying his vantage. He
could fall upon him and beat him with his stick, leaving the situation
otherwise undefined, but a moment's reflection convinced Kenton that
this would not do. It made him sick to think of striking the fellow, as
if in that act he should be striking Ellen, too. It did not occur to him
that he could be physically worsted, or that his vehement age would
be no match for the other's vigorous youth. All he thought was that it
would not avail, except to make known to every one what none but her
dearest could now conjecture. Bittridge could then publicly say, and
doubtless would say, that he had never made love to Ellen; that if there
had been any love-making it was all on her side; and that he had only
paid her the attentions which any young man might blamelessly pay a
pretty girl. This would be true to the facts in the case, though it was
true also that he had used every tacit art to make her believe him in
love with her. But how could this truth be urged, and to whom? So far
the affair had been quite in the hands of Ellen's family, and they had
all acted for the best, up to the present time. They had given Bittridge
no grievance in making him feel that he was unwelcome in their house,
and they were quite within their rights in going away, and making it
impossible for him to see her again anywhere in Tuskingum. As for his
seeing her in New York, Ellen had but to say that she did not wish it,
and that would end it. Now, however, by treating him rudely, Kenton was
aware that he had bound himself to render Bittridge some account of his
behavior throu