hen an
exclamation of relief from the reader:--"There now! As if I could have
been mistook!" It was such a relief that she fairly gasped to feel it.

No doubt a prudent, judicious person, all self-control and guiding
maxims, would have refolded and replaced that document, locked the
drawer, hidden the key, and met the cunning expectancy of the evil face
that awaited her with:--"You are entirely mistaken, and I was absolutely
right."

But M'riar was another sort. Only one idea was present in the whirlwind
of her release from that hideous anxiety--the idea of striking home her
confutation of the lie that had caused it in the face of its originator.
She did the very thing his subtlety had anticipated. As he heard her
returning footsteps, and the rustle of the paper in her hand, he
chuckled with delight at his easy triumph, and perhaps his joy added a
nail in the coffin of his soul.

The snicker had gone from his face before she returned, marriage
certificate in hand, and held it before his eyes. "There now!" said she.
"What did I tell you?"

He looked at it apathetically, reading it, but not offering to take it
from her. "'Taint reg'lar!" said he. "Name spelt wrong, for one thing.
My name."

"Oh, Daverill, how can you say that? It's spelt right."

"Let's have a look!" He stretched out his hand for it in the same idle
way. Aunt M'riar's nature might have been far less simple than it was,
and yet she might have been deceived by his manner. That he was aiming
at possession of the paper was the last thing it seemed to imply. But he
knew his part well, and whom he had to deal with.

Absolutely unsuspicious, she let his fingers close upon it. Even then,
so sure did he feel of landing his fish, that he played it on the very
edge of the net. "Well," said he. "Just you look at it again," and
relinquished it to her. Then, instead of putting his hand back in his
pocket, he stretched it out again, saying:--"Stop a bit! Let's have
another look at it."

She instantly restored it, saying:--"Only look with your eyes, and
you'll see the name's all right." And then in a startled voice:--"But
what?--but why?" provoked by the unaccountable decision with which he
folded it, never looking at it.

He slipped it inside the breast-pocket of his coat, and buttoned it
over. "That was my game, you see!" said he, equably enjoying the dumb
panic of his victim.

As for her, she was literally speechless, for the moment. At last she
just fou