The ford was a short distance below, but before I reached it, I saw him climbing the abrupt bluff on the other side, helping himself by grasping the underbrush, and slipping and falling on the frozen ground. I turned the corner of the mill at this moment, and drove into the ford, and when I came up to the house, Jo had disappeared on the inside. Hurriedly hitching the team, I almost ran into the house, fearing there would be murder done, but when I opened the door, and stepped in, I found them all in the front room--Clinton Bragg, pale and trembling, near the door; Jo, on the opposite side of the room, in a great state of excitement, and Mateel between them. I had never seen her assert herself before, and it awed her angry husband into submission. There was a look of dignity in her face, and her eyes flashed as I had never seen them. I could see she had been talking excitedly, and she continued after looking up as I came in:-- “You have insulted my womanhood by this action, and cast suspicion on my honor,” she said, trembling violently. “The gentleman drove up but a moment ago on a trifling errand from my mother, and I could do nothing else than admit him. He sat down by the fire to warm, when you came bounding in like a jealous demon whose worst suspicions had been confirmed, and would have killed him had I not thrown myself in the way. You have given him reason to believe that you doubted my honor; every one who hears of this disgraceful proceeding will have the same opinion. You have wronged me in the most cruel manner, and I can no longer remain silent. In justice to myself as your wife I protest, and demand that you save me from disgrace by allowing him to depart in peace.” She was magnificent in her indignation, and Jo cowered before her, though there was so much hatred in his face that he looked like an animal. “I shall ask him in your presence to take me back to my mother,” Mateel went on to say, watching her husband narrowly, as if fearing that he would spring at Clinton Bragg at the suggestion, “to remain there until you come to me, and acknowledge that you were wrong.” I felt sick and faint when she said it, for I believed that if she went away with Bragg she would never come back. “When you come to yourself you will respect me for it. I have allowed you so much liberty in the past that I feel that I must do this to vindicate your wife; to redeem her from the stain your disordered fancy has put upon her.” She swept past me and up the stairs to her room to prepare for the journey, and like a cowardly dog Bragg crept out behind her, and on out to the front gate, where he shivered and waited in the cold.