a paper once existed, for Mr. Forsyth assured me that,
if I needed assistance to establish the fact of my marriage he would
be ready to give it at any time. I did not think I should need to call
upon him, however; I reasoned that, rather than submit to an arrest
and scandal, for--bigamy, you would quietly surrender the certificate
to me."

Gerald Goddard shivered at the sound of those three ugly words, while
the listener, behind the draperies, clinched her hands and locked her
teeth to keep herself from shrieking aloud in her agony, and thus
revealing her presence.

"I am afraid you will find that you have reckoned without your host,
madam," the man at length retorted, for he was stung to the soul with
the covert threat which had suggested the possibility that he, Gerald
Goddard, the noted artist, the distinguished society man, and princely
entertainer, might be made to figure conspicuously in a criminal court
under a charge that would brand him for all time.

"Ah! how so?" quietly inquired his companion.

"No power on earth would ever have compelled me to relinquish it, Mr.
Forsyth's assurance to the contrary notwithstanding."

The man paused, to see what effect this assertion would have upon his
listener; but she made no response--she simply sat quietly regarding
him, while a curious little smile hovered about her beautiful mouth.

"You look skeptical," Mr. Goddard continued, gazing at her
searchingly; "but let me tell you that you will find it no easy matter
to prove the statements you have made--no person of common sense would
credit your story."

"Indeed! But have you not already admitted that you received the
certificate of which Mr. Forsyth told me?"

"Yes; but we have been here alone, with no witness to swear to what
has passed between us. However, as I have already told you, Anna stole
the paper from me years ago, and I have never seen it since."

"Yes, I know you told me so!"

"Do you not believe me?"

"I think my past relations with you have not served to establish a
feeling of excessive confidence in you," was the quietly ironical
response.

The man flushed hotly, while anger for the moment rendered him
speechless.

"Possibly you might be able to induce your--companion to surrender the
document," the lady added, after a minute of awkward silence.

Gerald Goddard gnawed his under lip in impotent wrath at this
sarcastic reference to the woman who had shared his life for so many
years; while