As she was drawing near the house, she said to herself with a low, satisfied chuckle: “I believe I worked him exactly right. If I'd 'a' let him know I suspected his full villany he wouldn't have been shaken off so easily. But what am I going to do about that drop of blood on my brain?” she laughed. “If I get rid of it too suddenly Cynthia may smell a mouse. I believe I'll wait a few days and then tell her I think my stroke was due to that new hair-restorer I'm using, an' promise to throw it away.” She paused at the steps and shuddered. “But am I not really a little off?” she mused. “Surely no woman in the full possession of her senses could have gone through all that, as if it were God's truth from beginning to end.” Inside the hall, after she had softly shut the front door, she saw Cynthia standing on the threshold of her chamber. “Did you see him, mother?” The question was hardly above a whisper. “Oh yes, I saw him,” the old woman answered, frigidly. “I saw him.” “What did he say, mother?” The girl's voice was low, tremulous, and halting. “Oh, I don't know as he said much of anything, he was so set back by seeing me in this outfit instead of you in your best Sunday-go-to-meeting, with your valise in hand, ready to fly to the moon with him. He let me do most of the talking.” Mrs. Porter managed to stifle a chuckle of satisfaction, and the darkness hid her impulsive smile. “He seemed to be more reasonable, though, than most men would be in his condition. I don't think he was fully sober; he smoked like a steam-engine, dropping cigars and lighting fresh ones, as if they were his main-stay and support. He agreed with me, in a roundabout way, that it was a foolish thing for him to expect a respectable girl to run off in the dead of night with a man of his stamp, and he ended by saying for me to tell you that he was going away off somewhere and that he wouldn't bother you any more. He looked and acted like a thief caught on the spot with the goods in hand and was ready to promise anything to escape arrest and prosecution.” “Well, you have had your way, mother,” Cynthia said, quietly; “I hope you will feel better satisfied now.” “Oh, I will, I will--in fact, I feel some better already.” There was another incipient chuckle far down in Mrs. Porter's throat, but she coughed it away. “I really feel like I'm going to get well. I'll sleep like a log to-night. You'd better turn in yourself, daughter.” “All right, mother--good-night.” The next morning, shortly after breakfast, as Mrs. Porter was attending to some hens' nests in the barn-yard, Hillhouse crept out of the thicket just beyond the fence and approached her. He was quite pale and nervous, and bent his head and shoulders that the high staked-and-ridered rail-fence might hide him from the view of the house.