“Oh, I don't know,--I don't know!” She had a folded paper in her hands, which lay helpless in her lap. After a moment she resumed, in a hoarse, low voice: “They have all begun to come for their money, and this one--this one says he will have the law of me--I don't know what he means--if I don't pay him.” Marcia could not know how hard Atherton found it to govern the professional suspicion which sprung up at the question of money. But he overruled his suspicion by an effort that was another relief to the struggle in which he was wrenching his mind from Miss Kingsbury's outrageous behavior. “What have you got there?” he asked gravely, and not unkindly, and being used to prompt the reluctance of lady clients, he put out his hand for the paper she held. It was the bill of the threatening creditor, for indefinitely repeated dozens of tivoli beer. “Why do they come to _you_ with this?” “Mr. Hubbard is away.” “Oh, yes. I heard. When do you expect him home?” “I don't know.” “Where is he?” She looked at him piteously without speaking. Atherton stepped to his door, and gave the order forgotten before. Then he closed the door, and came back to Marcia. “Don't you know where your husband is, Mrs. Hubbard?” “Oh, he will come back! He _couldn't_ leave me! He's dead,--I know he's dead; but he will come back! He only went away for the night, and something must have happened to him.” The whole tragedy of her life for the past fortnight was expressed in these wild and inconsistent words; she had not been able to reason beyond the pathetic absurdities which they involved; they had the effect of assertions confirmed in the belief by incessant repetition, and doubtless she had said them to herself a thousand times. Atherton read in them, not only the confession of her despair, but a prayer for mercy, which it would have been inhuman to deny, and for the present he left her to such refuge from herself as she had found in them. He said, quietly, “You had better give me that paper, Mrs. Hubbard,” and took the bill from her. “If the others come with their accounts again, you must send them to me. When did you say Mr. Hubbard left home?” “The night after the election,” said Marcia. “And he didn't say how long he should be gone?” pursued the lawyer, in the feint that she had known he was going. “No,” she answered. “He took some things with him?” “Yes.” “Perhaps you could judge how long he meant to be absent from the preparation he made?” “I've never looked to see. I couldn't!” Atherton changed the line of his inquiry. “Does any one else know of this?” “No,” said Marcia, quickly, “I told Mrs. Halleck and all of them that he was in New York, and I said that I had heard from him. I came to you because you were a lawyer, and you would not tell what I told you.” “Yes,” said Atherton. “I want it kept a secret. Oh, do you think he's dead?” she implored. “No,” returned Atherton, gravely, “I don't think he's dead.”