Castalia smiled bitterly. "Did I?" she said. "Of course you're in league with her. Why does this good young woman come here in secret to see my husband? What can she want to say to him that cannot be said openly?" "I cannot hear such things, ma'am; I cannot, indeed. If you would give yourself an instant for reflection, you would remember that Miss Maxfield offered to tell her message to you yourself." "Offered to tell me! Do you really suppose I am duped by such low tricks? I heard her say, 'Send him to me directly he comes back'--heard it with my own ears. But of course you won't tell me the truth." "I am obliged to say, Mrs. Errington, that you really must leave the office. I am very sorry, but I am responsible in Mr. Errington's absence, and I cannot allow you to turn everything topsy-turvy here in this way. There has been trouble enough by your coming here already." "Trouble enough! Who says so? Who is troubled?" "Mr. Errington is troubled, and I am troubled, and--in short, it's altogether out of rule." "Then he confesses, does he, that he is afraid of my coming here to make discoveries about him? Why should he be troubled if he had nothing to conceal?" Castalia spoke with trembling eagerness and excitement. She had thrown all semblance of dignity or reserve to the winds. She would have spoken as she was speaking at that moment in Whitford market-place. Gibbs looked at her, and a doubt came into his mind as to whether his suspicions, and other people's suspicions, about her were quite so well-founded as he had thought. She was terribly violent, jealous, insolent, unconverted, full of the leaven of unrighteousness--but was she a practised hypocrite, a woman experienced in dishonesty? For the life of him, Obadiah Gibbs could not feel so sure of this as he had felt, now that he looked into her poor, haggard face, and met her eyes, and heard her utterly incautious and vehement speeches. "As to me not telling you the truth, Mrs. Errington," he said, "I suppose you know the truth as to why your visits here bring trouble on everybody?" "Tell it me, you!" "Well, I--oh you must be aware of it, I suppose. And if I was to tell you, you would only be more angry and offended with me than ever, though what I have done to excite your displeasure I don't know." "Tell me this truth that I know so well! Do you think I should seriously care for anything _you_ could say, except as it concerned my husband?" "Mrs. Errington, I don't know whether you are feigning or not. But, anyway, I think it my duty to answer you with Christian sincerity. It is borne in upon me that I ought to do so." "Go on, go on, go on!" cried Castalia, drumming with restless fingers on the table and looking up at the clerk with eyes that blazed with excitement and impatience.