, Obadiah Gibbs could not feel so sure of this as he had felt, now that he looked into her poor, haggard face, and met her eyes, and heard her utterly incautious and vehement speeches.

"As to me not telling you the truth, Mrs. Errington," he said, "I suppose you know the truth as to why your visits here bring trouble on everybody?"

"Tell it me, you!"

"Well, I—oh you must be aware of it, I suppose. And if I was to tell you, you would only be more angry and offended with me than ever, though what I have done to excite your displeasure I don't know."

"Tell me this truth that I know so well! Do you think I should seriously care for anything you could say, except as it concerned my husband?"

"Mrs. Errington, I don't know whether you are feigning or not. But, anyway, I think it my duty to answer you with Christian sincerity. It is borne in upon me that I ought to do so."

"Go on, go on, go on!" cried Castalia, drumming with restless fingers on the table and looking up at the clerk with eyes that blazed with excitement and impatience.

"You are aware that there have been unpleasant circumstances at the post-office—letters lost—money-letters lost. Well, your name has been mentioned in connection with those losses. It is known in Whitford that you come haunting the office at all hours when your husband is away. A little while ago you paid a bill with some notes that were endorsed in a peculiar way. People ask where you got those notes. I thought it my duty to mention the subject to Mr. Errington the other day. He was greatly distressed, of course. He said he should interrogate you about the notes. My advice to you is—in all sincerity and charity, as the Lord sees me—to tell your husband the truth, whatever it is."

He ended his speech with a tremor of compassion in his voice, and with a sudden breakdown of his rhetorical manner, for Castalia's face changed so piteously, so terribly, as he spoke, that the man's heart was deeply touched by it. She grew ashy pale. The quick fingers that had been tapping impatiently on the table seemed turned to lead. They lay there heavy and motionless. Her mouth was half open, and her eyes stared straight before her at the blank wall of the yard, as though they saw a spectre.

"
