nt. For the
sitting-room was already in possession of a woman who was seated calmly
by the table.

The stranger turned on Mrs. Bunker that frankly insolent glance and
deliberate examination which only one woman can give another. In that
glance Mrs. Bunker felt herself in the presence of a superior, even if
her own eyes had not told her that in beauty, attire, and bearing the
intruder was of a type and condition far beyond her own, or even that of
any she had known. It was the more crushing that there also seemed to be
in this haughty woman the same incongruousness and sharp contrast to the
plain and homely surroundings of the cottage that she remembered in HIM.

"Yo' aw Mrs. Bunker, I believe," she said in languid Southern accents.
"How de doh?"

"I am Mrs. Bunker," said Mrs. Bunker shortly.

"And so this is where Cunnle Marion stopped when he waited fo' the
boat to take him off," said the stranger, glancing lazily around, and
delaying with smiling insolence the explanation she knew Mrs. Bunker was
expecting. "The cunnle said it was a pooh enough place, but I don't see
it. I reckon, however, he was too worried to judge and glad enough to
get off. Yo' ought to have made him talk--he generally don't want much
prompting to talk to women, if they're pooty."

"He didn't seem in a hurry to go," said Mrs. Bunker indignantly. The
next moment she saw her error, even before the cruel, handsome smile of
her unbidden guest revealed it.

"I thought so," she said lazily; "this IS the place and here's where the
cunnle stayed. Only yo' oughtn't have given him and yo'self away to the
first stranger quite so easy. The cunnle might have taught yo' THAT the
two or three hours he was with yo'."

"What do you want with me?" demanded Mrs. Bunker angrily.

"I want a letter yo' have for me from Cunnle Marion."

"I have nothing for you," said Mrs. Bunker. "I don't know who you are."

"You ought to, considering you've been acting as messenger between the
cunnle and me," said the lady coolly.

"That's not true," said Mrs. Bunker hotly, to combat an inward sinking.

The lady rose with a lazy, languid grace, walked to the door and called
still lazily, "O Pedro!"

The solitary rower clambered up the rocks and appeared on the cottage
threshold.

"Is this the lady who gave you the letters for me and to whom you took
mine?"

"Si, senora."

"They were addressed to a Mr. Kirby," said Mrs. Bunker sullenly. "How
was I to know they were