I replied, "No; I thank you for your courtesy;" and bowed myself out. I was as confident now that I should trap Childs as if the thing was done; but there were two of them, and they must both be caught. Childs could not be carrying on this correspondence with the lawyer and writing to Mr. Redfield, that was patent. I would watch Childs that night, and see if he went to the lady's residence. He did go, and as they took a walk out, I saw her,--got a good view of her face, and made up my mind that she was innocent of any intelligent complicity in the matter. I liked her looks very much. She was one of those impulsive, earnest creatures, who, when they love, love desperately, but who know not how to hate, as some women know, who also know how to love intensely,--a miserable class of women, in my opinion, although novelists love to paint them, and these women themselves are ever boastful of their twofold power of love and hate,--a mean boast of a mean character of soul. I saw that she loved Childs, and I was sure she respected him, and what I should do I knew not exactly; but following them in their walk and back, and waiting till he left her, and went on his way to his office, had given me much time to think, and I had resolved upon a course which I thought the next day would see consummated; when, returning to my quarters, I found a note from Mr. Redfield, begging me to meet him at a certain place that night,--by no means to sleep without seeing him. He would be there at such an hour, and at such other hours till he met me. Something important had happened. I sought Mr. Redfield as requested; found that he had that afternoon received a note from the parties, again requesting him to meet them, or one of them, next day, at a place near Covington, Kentucky, and to come prepared to "take up the papers, according to our offer," in the afternoon, at six of the next day. Mr. R---- was greatly excited; said that this was their "last call," as they expressed it; that the papers would then be destroyed; "and that will be the last of our house," he tremblingly muttered. I had been looking the letter over carefully meanwhile, not at all disturbed, for I felt that Childs would not long be out of our hands, when I chanced to reflect that the paper on which it was written was like some of that on which the lady's letters to Childs were written; and I said to myself, probably he has supplied himself and her some time with the same kind of paper; but this is not his or her handwriting. "No, she's innocent," I muttered to myself; "I am satisfied of that;" but the paper was like, and that, though a slight thing, helped to steady me in my opinion of his guilt. I handed the letter to Mr. Redfield to replace,--he having taken it from the envelope before giving it to me,--when, placing it back, a small slip fell out of the envelope as he turned it upside down. "What's this?" said I, as I picked it up; "we must scan everything."