Riggs; you would bring your sister with
her infernal convent innocence and simplicity into our hut in the
hollow. She was meek enough before that. But this is sheer nonsense.
I have no fear of her. The woman don't live who would go back on
Godfrey Chivers--for a husband! Besides, she went off to see your
sister at the convent at Santa Clara as soon as she passed those bonds
off on Charley to get rid of! Think of her traveling with that d--d
fool lawyer all the way to Stockton, and his bonds (which we had put
back in her bag) alongside of them all the time, and he telling her he
was going to stop their payment, and giving her the letter to mail for
him!--eh? Well, we'll have time to get rid of her husband before she
gets back. If he don't go easy--well"--

"None of that, Chivers, you understand, once for all!" interrupted
Riggs peremptorily. "If you cannot see that your making away with that
woman's husband would damn that boasted reputation you make so much of
and set every man's hand against us, I do, and I won't permit it. It's
a rotten business enough,--our coming on him as we have; and if this
wasn't the only God-forsaken place where we could divide our stuff
without danger and get it away off the highroads, I'd pull up stakes at
once."

"Let her stay at the convent, then, and be d--d to her," said Chivers
roughly. "She'll be glad enough to be with your sister again; and
there's no fear of her being touched there."

"But I want to put an end to that, too," returned Riggs sharply. "I do
not choose to have my sister any longer implicated with OUR confederate
or YOUR mistress. No more of that--you understand me?"

The two men had been standing side by side, leaning against the
chimney. Chivers now faced his companion, his full lips wreathed into
an evil smile.

"I think I understand you, Mr. Jack Riggs, or--I beg your
pardon--Rivers, or whatever your real name may be," he began slowly.
"Sadie Collinson, the mistress of Judge Godfrey Chivers, formerly of
Kentucky, was good enough company for you the day you dropped down upon
us in our little house in the hollow of Galloper's Ridge. We were
living quite an idyllic, pastoral life there, weren't we?--she and me;
hidden from the censorious eye of society and--Collinson, obeying only
the voice of Nature and the little birds. It was a happy time," he went
on with a grimly affected sigh, disregarding his companion's impatient
gesture. "You were young then,