"I reckon," he said, "that you're one could hold your tongue, or anyways would stick to your word, specially to a man with his ribs all drove into him. I want you to keep it till I get well, and promise not to open it." "Very well," she replied. "If it will make you feel easier, I promise." The sick man drew from beneath the pillow a black and oily-looking pocket-book, long and flat, and apparently empty. It was so dirty, that Patty seized the first piece of paper at hand, and wrapped it up, thinking to herself that the valuable papers probably existed only in the imagination of the invalid. "You are very mysterious and dramatic, my friend," she said to herself. "Is this perhaps a chapter from 'The Blood-boultered Battering-Ram;' or every-day life in Montfield?" The incident turned her thoughts somewhat from herself, and her weariness asserted itself. Seeing that the patient had sunk into a quiet sleep, Patty lay back in her chair, and let herself drift away into a soft drowse. It was about half-past ten when she found herself suddenly wide awake from a profound sleep. A presence in the room made itself felt before she opened her eyes, and she cautiously peered between her scarcely parted lids without moving. The light was as she had left it, turned down and dim. The heavy breathings of the sick man told that he was still sleeping. Above his bed bent the figure of a woman. Her back was towards the watcher; and, as Patty opened her eyes, she recognized the stooping form as that of Flora Sturtevant. With a cautious, cat-like movement, the woman slid her hand beneath Mixon's pillow, searching for something which Frank Breck had assured her was to be found there. As Patty watched, her mind gathered up with marvellous quickness the allusions made by the sick man to Breck; and, knowing the long intimacy between the latter and Miss Sturtevant, it was not difficult to guess her errand. "Do you find what you want?" Patty at length asked coolly. The other started away from the bed, and turned quickly. "Patty Sanford!" she exclaimed. "They said his wife was here." "She is not, you see." "My room is next this," Flora continued, regaining her self-command, "and, hearing your heavy breathing, I thought the patient might need attention: so I came in." "Oh!" the watcher said incredulously. "That was very kind of you. I think Sol Shankland is coming now, and he can keep awake: so you need not trouble any further." * * * * * It was about four in the afternoon of the next day, when Bathalina returned from a visit to Mrs. Brown's. Mrs. Sanford heard her come in, and sent her daughter to inquire for the sick man. Patty waited to finish something she was doing; so that, by the time she reached the kitchen, Mrs. Mixon had been to her chamber, and brought down a black dress, which she was engaged in ripping up, to the accompaniment of a doleful minor. "What are you doing?" Patty asked.