“No, not a particle!” she replied quietly, and then, with an impudent fling, “Oh, no!” She held up the lantern to look at the wick. “I’m really disappointed to find that you were a little ahead of me, Squire Glenarm. I didn’t give you credit for so much—perseverance. But if you have the notes—” “The notes! He told you there were notes, did he? The coward sent you here to find them, after his other tools failed him?” She laughed that low laugh of hers that was like the bubble of a spring. [Illustration: “I beg your pardon!” she said, and laughed.] “Of course no one would dare deny what the great Squire Glenarm says,” she said witheringly. “You can’t know what your perfidy means to me,” I said. “That night, at the Armstrongs’, I thrilled at the sight of you. As you came down the stairway I thought of you as my good angel, and I belonged to you, —all my life, the better future that I wished to make for your sake.” “Please don’t!” And I felt that my words had touched her; that there were regret and repentance in her tone and in the gesture with which she turned from me. She hurried down the passage swinging the lantern at her side, and I followed, so mystified, so angered by her composure, that I scarcely knew what I did. She even turned, with pretty courtesy, to hold the light for me at the crypt steps,—a service that I accepted perforce and with joyless acquiescence in the irony of it. I knew that I did not believe in her; her conduct as to Pickering was utterly indefensible,—I could not forget that; but the light of her eyes, her tranquil brow, the sensitive lips, whose mockery stung and pleased in a breath,—by such testimony my doubts were alternately reinforced and disarmed. Swept by these changing moods I followed her out into the crypt. “You seem to know a good deal about this place, and I suppose I can’t object to your familiarizing yourself with your own property. And the notes—I’ll give myself the pleasure of handing them to you to-morrow. You can cancel them and give them to Mr. Pickering,— a pretty pledge between you!” I thrust my hands into my pockets to give an impression of ease I did not feel. “Yes,” she remarked in a practical tone, “three hundred and twenty thousand dollars is no mean sum of money. Mr. Pickering will undoubtedly be delighted to have his debts canceled—” “In exchange for a life of devotion,” I sneered. “So you knew the sum—the exact amount of these notes. He hasn’t served you well; he should have told you that we found them to-day.” “You are not nice, are you, Squire Glenarm, when you are cross?” She was like Olivia now. I felt the utter futility of attempting to reason with a woman who could become a child at will. She walked up the steps and out into the church vestibule. Then before the outer door she spoke with decision.