irl is coming to see me here to-day: I'll
tell her how wrong----"

"No, no, my dear!" said the judge in a fatherly manner. "That would
never do, never! You may have given a hint as to this matter of
irresponsibility, worth considering. Promise of marriage--civil
contract; abnormal state--irresponsibility: it looks pretty well! You
should have been a lawyer. But this thing of having dealings with Miss
Scarlett except in the presence of and through her legal advisers,
Messrs. Fuller and Cox--not for a moment to be thought of by an
honorable practitioner: not for a moment!"

Madame le Claire regarded him with a lofty scorn meant for these
antiquated scruples of his; but before she could find words, the knock
of the bell-boy called her attention to the door.

"Miss Waldron is below!" said she. "Judge, you may bring Mr. Amidon up
in half an hour. I shall then be at liberty, and may grant his
request. Please leave me, now; I have asked Miss Waldron to be shown
up, and must see her alone."

Elizabeth Waldron, in this plexus of disasters, found nowhere a gleam
of comfort. Her fine chagrin at the thought of such things as she
feared might be censurable as overfree self-revelation to her lover in
such things as letters and the sweet concessions of the new
betrothal--all this was past, now. Tragedy has this of comfort in it:
its fateful lightnings burn out of the atmosphere of life all the
noisome littlenesses which have seemed worthy of concern. So it was
with Elizabeth, as she now faced the very annihilation of all for which
she had lived--centered in that "perfect lover," who was now worse than
annihilated in this descent to a plane which made every act of homage
to her so mean and common that she would have felt his status uplifted
by some proof of great guilt on his part. And she could see no way of
acquitting him. There was mystery in it, but no exculpation.
Mystery----

With the idea of mystery came in the image of the strange girl with the
fascinating glance and the party-colored hair. Could it be possible
that the occult power possessed by her might somehow furnish an
explanation of her lover's strangely base behavior? More and more did
this fixed thought engross her mind. She felt that she must know--must
see this woman and her colorless father. Desire grew to resolve;
resolve bred inquiry as to ways of compassing an interview; and in the
midst of the inquiry, came Madame le Claire's messenger.