nough to sign Dawson's
name to. It was lying out there on the desk. I reckon it isn't a thing
you care to have kept as evidence, even by your father."

She held it in the flames until it was consumed.

"By Jove, your head is level, Lottie!" he said, with an admiration that
was not, however, without a weak reserve of suspicion.

"No, it isn't, or I wouldn't be here," she said, curtly. Then she added,
as if dismissing the subject, "Well, what did you tell her?"

"Oh, I said I met you in New York. You see I thought she might think it
queer if she knew I only met you in San Francisco three weeks ago. Of
course I said we were married."

She looked at him with weary astonishment.

"And of course, whether things go right or not, she'll find out that
I've got a husband living, that I never met you in New York, but on the
steamer, and that you've lied. I don't see the USE of it. You said
you were going to tell the whole thing squarely and say the truth, and
that's why I came to help you."

"Yes; but don't you see, hang it all!" he stammered, in the irritation
of weak confusion, "I had to tell her SOMETHING. Father won't dare to
tell her the truth, no more than he will the neighbors. He'll hush it
up, you bet; and when we get this thing fixed you'll go and get your
divorce, you know, and we'll be married privately on the square."

He looked so vague, so immature, yet so fatuously self-confident, that
the woman extended her hand with a laugh and tapped him on the back as
she might have patted a dog. Then she disappeared to follow Zuleika in
the kitchen.

When the two women returned together they were evidently on the best
of terms. So much so that the man, with the easy reaction of a shallow
nature, became sanguine and exalted, even to an ostentatious exhibition
of those New York graces on which the paternal Hays had set such store.
He complacently explained the methods by which he had deceived Dr.
Dawson; how he had himself written a letter from his father commanding
him to return to take his brother's place, and how he had shown it to
the Doctor and been three months in San Francisco looking for work and
assisting Lottie at the theatre, until a conviction of the righteousness
of his cause, perhaps combined with the fact that they were also short
of money and she had no engagement, impelled him to his present heroic
step. All of which Zuleika listened to with childish interest, but
superior appreciation of his companion