“Look out how you talk,” said Bartley. “Kinney's an old fool, and he never could have written it out in the world--” “That makes no difference. He said that he told the things because he knew he was among gentlemen. A great gentleman Mr. Ricker is! And I thought he was so nice!” The tears sprang to her eyes, which flashed again. “I want you to break off with him. Bartley; I don't want you to have anything to do with such a _thief_! And I shall be proud to tell everybody that you've broken off with him _because_ he was a thief. Oh, Bartley--” “Hold your tongue!” shouted her husband. “I _won't_ hold my tongue! And if you defend--” “Don't you say a word against Ricker. It's all right, I tell you. You don't understand such things. You don't know what you're talking about. I--I--I wrote the thing myself.” He could face her, but she could not face him. There was a subsidence in her proud attitude, as if her physical strength had snapped with her breaking spirit. “There's no theft about it.” Bartley went on. “Kinney would never write it out, and if he did, I've put the material in better shape for him here than he could ever have given it. Six weeks from now nobody will remember a word of it; and he could tell the same things right over again, and they would be just as good as new.” He went on to argue the point. She seemed not to have listened to him. When he stopped, she said, in a quiet, passionless voice, “I suppose you wrote it to get money for this sacque.” “Yes; I did,” replied Bartley. She dropped it on the floor at his feet. “I shall never wear it again,” she said in the same tone, and a little sigh escaped her. “Use your pleasure about that,” said Bartley, sitting down to his writing again, as she turned and left the room. She went upstairs and came down immediately, with the gold nugget, which she had wrenched from the baby's necklace, and laid it on the paper before him. “Perhaps you would like to spend it for tivoli beer,” she suggested. “Flavia shall not wear it.” “I'll get it fitted on to my watch-chain.” Bartley slipped it into his waistcoat pocket. The sacque still lay on the floor at his feet; he pulled his chair a little forward and put his feet on it. He feigned to write awhile longer, and then he folded up his papers, and went out, leaving Marcia to make her Sunday dinner alone. When he came home late at night, he found the sacque where she had dropped it, and with a curse he picked it up and hung it on the hat-rack in the hall. He slept in the guest-chamber, and at times during the night the child cried in Marcia's room and waked him; and then he thought he heard a sound of sobbing which was not the child's. In the morning, when he came down to breakfast, Marcia met him with swollen eyes. “Bartley,” she said tremulously, “I wish you would tell me how you felt justified in writing out Mr. Kinney's life in that way.”