“And I suppose,” she said, drily, “when it comes right I'm to take the place of your sister in the charge of this workhouse and succeed to the keys of that safe in the other room?” “It'll come all right, I tell you; you can fix things up here any way you'll like when we get the old man straight,” said Jack, with the iteration of feebleness. “And as to that safe, I've seen it chock full of securities.” “It'll hold one less to-night,” she said, looking at the fire. “What are you talking about?” he asked, in querulous suspicion. She drew a paper from her pocket. “It's that draft of yours that you were crazy enough to sign Dawson's name to. It was lying out there on the desk. I reckon it isn't a thing you care to have kept as evidence, even by your father.” She held it in the flames until it was consumed. “By Jove, your head is level, Lottie!” he said, with an admiration that was not, however, without a weak reserve of suspicion. “No, it isn't, or I wouldn't be here,” she said, curtly. Then she added, as if dismissing the subject, “Well, what did you tell her?” “Oh, I said I met you in New York. You see I thought she might think it queer if she knew I only met you in San Francisco three weeks ago. Of course I said we were married.” She looked at him with weary astonishment. “And of course, whether things go right or not, she'll find out that I've got a husband living, that I never met you in New York, but on the steamer, and that you've lied. I don't see the USE of it. You said you were going to tell the whole thing squarely and say the truth, and that's why I came to help you.” “Yes; but don't you see, hang it all!” he stammered, in the irritation of weak confusion, “I had to tell her SOMETHING. Father won't dare to tell her the truth, no more than he will the neighbors. He'll hush it up, you bet; and when we get this thing fixed you'll go and get your divorce, you know, and we'll be married privately on the square.” He looked so vague, so immature, yet so fatuously self-confident, that the woman extended her hand with a laugh and tapped him on the back as she might have patted a dog. Then she disappeared to follow Zuleika in the kitchen.