e was no mistaking the figure which turned the corner toward
Hopewell Drugg's store. It was the proprietor of the store himself,
with his fiddle in its green baize bag tightly tucked under his arm;
but his feet certainly were unsteady, and his head hung upon his breast.

They saw him disappear into the darkness of the side street. Janice
Day put her hand to her throat; it seemed to her as though the pulse
beating there would choke her.

"What did I tell ye? What did I tell ye?" cried the shrill voice of
Mrs. Scattergood. "_Now_ ye'll believe what I say, I hope! The
disgraceful critter! My poor, poor 'Rill! I knew how 'twould be if
she married that man."

It chanced that Janice Day's Bible opened that night to the sixth of
Proverbs and she read before going to bed these verses:

"These six things doth the Lord hate; yea, seven are an abomination
unto him.

"A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood.

"An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in
running to mischief.

"A false witness that speaketh lies, _and he that soweth discord among
brethren_."

CHAPTER IV

A RIFT IN THE HONEYMOON

Janice could not call at the little grocery on the side street until
Friday afternoon when she returned from Middletown for over Sunday.
While the roads were so bad that she could not use her car in which to
run back and forth to the seminary she boarded during the school days
near the seminary.

But 'Rill Drugg and little Lottie were continually in her mind. From
Walky Dexter, with whom she rode home to Polktown on Friday, she gained
some information that she would have been glad not to hear.

"Talk abeout the 'woman with the sarpint tongue,'" chuckled Walky. "We
sartain sure have our share of she in Polktown."

"What is the matter now, Walky?" asked Janice, gaily, not suspecting
what was coming. "Has somebody got ahead of you in circulating a
particularly juicy bit of gossip?"

"Huh!" snorted the expressman. "I gotter take a back seat, _I_ have.
Did ye hear 'bout Hopewell Drugg gittin' drunk, an' beatin' his wife,
an' I dunno but they say by this time that it's his fault lettle
Lottie's goin' blind again----"

"Oh, Walky! it can't be true!" gasped the girl, horrified.

"What can't? That them old hens is sayin' sech things?" demanded the
driver.

"That Lottie is truly going blind?"

"Dunno. She's in a bad way. Hopewell wants to send her back to Bosto