Darraugh's in town. You know what that means. Luck's in the air, and
with a hundred dollars----But I've no time to talk. I came for a dollar,
a fifty-cent piece, a dime even, and go back with a bond worth----'

"But she was already between him and the door. 'You will never carry
that bond out of this house,' she whispered in the tone which goes
further than a cry. 'I have not held it in my hand to see it follow
every other good thing I have had in life. I will not, Henry. Take that
bond and sink it as you have all the rest and I fall at your feet a dead
woman. I will never survive the destruction of my last hope.'

"He was cowed--for a moment, that is; she looked so superb and so
determined. Then all that was mean and despicable in his thinly veneered
nature came to the surface, and, springing forward with an oath, he was
about to push her aside, when, without the moving of a finger on her
part, he reeled back, recovered himself, caught at a chair, missed it,
and fell heavily to the floor.

"'My God, I thank thee!' was the exclamation with which she broke from
the trance of terror into which she had been thrown by his sudden
attempt to pass her; and without a glance at his face, which to me
looked like the face of a dead man, she tore the paper from his hand and
stood looking about her with a wild and searching gaze, in the desperate
hope that somehow the walls would open and offer her a safe place of
concealment for the precious sheet of paper.

"Meanwhile I had crept near the prostrate man. He was breathing, but was
perfectly unconscious.

"'Don't you mean to do something for him?' I asked. 'He may die.'

"She met my question with the dazed air of one suddenly awakened. 'No,
he'll not die; but he'll not come to for some minutes, and this must be
hidden first. But where? where? I cannot trust it on my person or in any
place a man like him would search. I must devise some means--ah!'

"With this final exclamation she had dashed into the other room. I did
not see where she went--I did not want to--but I soon realised she was
working somewhere in a desperate hurry. I could hear her breath coming
in quick, short pants as I bent over her husband, waiting for him to
rouse and hating my inaction even while I succumbed to it.

"Suddenly she was back in the parlour again, and to my surprise passed
immediately to the little table in the corner where we had sat at
supper. We had had for our simple refreshment that homelies