own carriage brought to the door at
once. Then, turning on a sudden impulse to the stranger, she said,--

"Will you come with me? Or are you afraid of him--afraid to have him
know you warned me?"

The woman laughed bitterly. "I feared him once," she said; "but I fear
him no longer; he fears me now. Yes, I will go with you."

"Then wait here; I will be ready in a moment."

At twenty minutes of eight Kate and the stranger passed down the hall
together--the woman veiled, Kate attired in a trim walking suit. The
latter stopped to look in at the sitting-room door.

"Aunt Marcia, Mr. Britton said he would be out but a few minutes. When
he comes in please tell him I want to see him at papa's office; my
carriage will be waiting for him here."

Her aunt looked her surprise, but she knew Kate to be enough like her
father that it was useless to ask an explanation where she herself made
none.

Once seated in the carriage and driving rapidly down the street Kate
laid her hand on the arm of her strange companion.

"Senora," she said, "you say you are my friend; were you my friend the
first time you came to the house? If not then, why are you now?"

"No, I was not your friend;" for the first time there was a ring of
passion in her voice; "I hated you, for I thought he loved you--that you
had stolen his heart and made him forget me. I travelled many miles. I
vowed to kill you both before you should marry him. Then I found he
could not marry you while I was his wife; he had told me our marriage
was void here because performed in another country. I found he had told
me wrong, and I told him unless he came with me I would go to the church
and tell them there I was his wife."

"And he went away with you?" Kate questioned.

"Yes, and he gave me money, and then he told me----" The woman
hesitated.

"Go on," said Kate.

"He told me that he did not love you; that he only wanted to marry you
that he might get money from your father, and then he would leave you.
So when I found he wanted to make you suffer as he had me I began to
pity you. I came back to Ophir to see what you were like. He does not
know that I am here. I found he was angry because you would not marry
him. Then I was glad. I saw you many times that you did not know. Your
face was kind and good, as though you would pity me if you knew all, and
I loved you. I heard something about a lover you had a few years ago who
died, and I knew your heart must have been sad fo