fore
herself, revealed a line of footprints slanting toward her from
Leonard's own gate.

As the cottage door shut Minnie in, Isabel, reassured by the brightness
of the Byingtons' lower windows, stopped for a furtive instant, and
holding in her hand the fellow of the slipper so lately in Ruth's
fingers, exactly fitted it to one of these footprints. Then, with the
lantern on her farther side, and every vein surging with fright and
shame, she made haste toward the open gateway of the Winslow house.

A short space from it she recoiled with a gesture of dismay and
self-repression, and her light shone full upon a man. He stepped from
the garden, his form tensely lifted, his face aflame with anger.

But her small figure straightened also, and swiftly muffling the lantern
in a fold of her skirt, she exclaimed, audibly only to him, though in
words clear-cut as musical notes, "Oh, Arthur Winslow, has it come to
this?"

She arrested his resentful answer by the uplift of a hand, which left
the lantern again uncovered. "Inside! In the house!" she softly cried,
starting on. "Not here! Look!--those upper windows!--we're in full view
of them!"

Quickly she remuffled the lantern, but not in time to hide his motion as
he threw out an arm and pushed her rudely back, while he exclaimed, "In
full view of them answer me one question!"

It was then that Leonard went hurriedly downstairs.

XII

THE LANTERN QUENCHED

"I will answer you nothing!" murmured Isabel, still facing her husband
as she moved round into the garden driveway. "Arthur Winslow, it is you
who are on trial, not I!"

"I on trial! God, listen to that!"

He sprang after her, gripped her shoulders, and hung over her, snarling,
"You two-faced runaway! what have I done but suffer?"

She kept the lantern hid. "What have you done? Oh, my husband, will you
hear if I tell you? You have hung the fates of all of us, living or yet
to live, on one thread,--please, dear, don't bear so heavily on me,--on
one poor thread which the jar of another misstep will surely break. Oh,
let us not make it! Come, Arthur,--my husband,--into the house; maybe
we can yet save ourselves and our dear ones! Arthur, you're hurting me
dreadfully. If you press me down that way, you'll force me to my knees."

Still she spoke in undertone, and still she muffled the light, while
steadily the weight of his arms increased. Suddenly he crowded her to
the earth. "Arthur," she murmured, "Arthur, w