mall deceit toward her
women made her ashamed, and angry for her shame as well as theirs. Then
a singular thought confronted her that made her hold up this simple
ruse--which hurt her, though it was well justified--against the deceit
she had wittingly and eagerly used toward Lassiter. The difference was
staggering in its suggestion of that blindness of which he had accused
her. Fairness and justice and mercy, that she had imagined were
anchor-cables to hold fast her soul to righteousness had not been hers
in the strange, biased duty that had so exalted and confounded her.

Presently Jane began to act her little part, to laugh and play with
Fay, to talk of horses and cattle to Lassiter. Then she made deliberate
mention of a book in which she kept records of all pertaining to her
stock, and she walked slowly toward the table, and when near the door
she suddenly whirled and thrust it open. Her sharp action nearly knocked
down a woman who had undoubtedly been listening.

"Hester," said Jane, sternly, "you may go home, and you need not come
back."

Jane shut the door and returned to Lassiter. Standing unsteadily, she
put her hand on his arm. She let him see that doubt had gone, and how
this stab of disloyalty pained her.

"Spies! My own women!... Oh, miserable!" she cried, with flashing,
tearful eyes.

"I hate to tell you," he replied. By that she knew he had long spared
her. "It's begun again--that work in the dark."

"Nay, Lassiter--it never stopped!"

So bitter certainty claimed her at last, and trust fled Withersteen
House and fled forever. The women who owed much to Jane Withersteen
changed not in love for her, nor in devotion to their household work,
but they poisoned both by a thousand acts of stealth and cunning and
duplicity. Jane broke out once and caught them in strange, stone-faced,
unhesitating falsehood. Thereafter she broke out no more. She forgave
them because they were driven. Poor, fettered, and sealed Hagars, how
she pitied them! What terrible thing bound them and locked their
lips, when they showed neither consciousness of guilt toward their
benefactress nor distress at the slow wearing apart of long-established
and dear ties?

"The blindness again!" cried Jane Withersteen. "In my sisters as in
me!... O God!"

There came a time when no words passed between Jane and her women.
Silently they went about their household duties, and secretly they went
about the underhand work to which they had been