was worthless, how could it pay
dividends?"

"It did not," he answered, huskily. "That distillery stock, I tell
you, isn't worth the matches to burn it."

"But there has been no difference in my income," she persisted,
steadily. "Why? Can you explain that to me?"

"Yes, I can," he replied, and it seemed to her that he spoke with a
pallid and bitter desperation, like a man driven to the wall. "I can
if you think you want to know."

"I do."

"I sent it."

"Do you mean from you own--"

"I mean it was my own money."

She had not taken her eyes from his, which met hers straightly and
angrily; and at this she leaned forward, gazing at him with profound
scrutiny.

"Why did you send it?" she asked.

"Charity," he answered, after palpable hesitation.

Her eyes widened and she leaned back against the lintel of the door,
staring at him incredulously. "Charity!" she echoed, in a whisper.

Perhaps he mistook her amazement at his performance for dismay caused
by the sense of her own position, for, as she seemed to weaken before
him, the strength of his own habit of dominance came back to him.
"Charity, madam!" he broke out, shouting intolerably. "Charity, d'ye
hear? I was a friend of the man that made the money you and your
grandfather squandered; I was a friend of Jonas Tabor, I say! That's
why I was willing to support you for a year and over, rather than let a
niece of his suffer."

"'Suffer'!" she cried. "'Support'! You sent me a hundred thousand
francs!"

The white splotches which had mottled Martin Pike's face disappeared as
if they had been suddenly splashed with hot red. "You go back to my
house," he said. "What I sent you only shows the extent of my--"

"Effrontery!" The word rang through the whole house, so loudly and
clearly did she strike it, rang in his ears till it stung like a
castigation. It was ominous, portentous of justice and of disaster.
There was more than doubt of him in it: there was conviction.

He fell back from this word; and when he again advanced, Ariel had left
the house. She had turned the next corner before he came out of the
gate; and as he passed his own home on his way down-town, he saw her
white dress mingling with his daughter's near the horse-block beside
the fire, where the two, with their arms about each other, stood
waiting for Sam Warden and the open summer carriage.

Judge Pike walked on, the white splotches reappearing like a pale rash
upon his face. A y