“How can you prevent it if you persist in going through the form of marriage—provided, of course, you can win him—since Salome is already his wife; unless—” and the woman’s face grew deadly pale; “you are meditating a worse crime——” “Hush!” and Miss Rochester’s eyes blazed dangerously, “what could have put such a horrible idea into your mind? But what I mean to do is this: I mean to put her,” with a glance at the still form, “where she can do no harm by tattling, at least for the present. Then I shall write to a New York lawyer that I am engaged to Dr. Winthrop; but since his first wife’s body was never recovered from the ruins of that building, I am in constant fear lest she should be living, and sometimes appear to cause me trouble. Of course, I shall represent to him that I realize it is only a morbidly nervous fear, still, to satisfy me, I want him to procure regular divorce papers, as if she were living and had simply disappeared—all to be done without publicity of course, as lawyers nowadays know how to do such things. This will, no doubt, cost a great deal of money and require some ingenuity to manage, but they understand how to meet such difficulties, and we need not mind a few thousands if we can but secure the bulk of those fortunes.” “Well, I must admit, Sadie, you would do credit to the arch-plotter himself!” her mother exclaimed; “as inventive as I am, I should never have thought of such a device; but”—meditatively—“I believe it can be done. Still there will be great risks to be run, even if you succeed in securing the doctor, while, if he should ever mistrust anything afterward, I should not envy you your future happiness. Suppose he should some time learn that you had applied for this divorce?” “Well, then I could admit to him, as to the lawyer, that I simply did it to satisfy my own conscience, and to prevent any possibility of illegality in our marriage.” “Then, too,” persisted Mrs. Rochester, still doubtful of the feasibility of the plot, “suppose Salome should manage to escape some time; she might—she would be very likely to make trouble for you.” “Let her! once I am Mrs. Truman Winthrop, I will snap my fingers at whatever trouble she might try to make. I shall be so secure in my position that I shall not fear her at all,” returned Miss Rochester, confidently. “Really, Sadie, you have greatly relieved my mind upon one point,” her mother thoughtfully observed. “I have been very much afraid all along that you were going to throw Dr. Winthrop over entirely, out of admiration, if not of some stronger sentiment, for his brother.” Miss Rochester flushed a vivid scarlet at this unexpected turn to the conversation.