remained quietly with Mrs. Rochester, you would ultimately have come to us, we should have been mutually attracted, and there would have been nothing to interfere with our future happiness. Of course, when they told me this, I understood all their plot at once. I knew why Sarah’s name had been changed to Sadie—why they were travelling with you, and the end they hoped to attain. I could understand, too, what a marplot they must regard me—that they must fear that I would betray their secret and spoil all their plans. It would be a terrible thing for Mrs. Rochester, after having carried her deception so far to be obliged to confess that she had been palming off her own daughter as the child of her husband, just to get his money and secure her a brilliant position in life. When they discovered, however, that I had no intention of revealing my identity to you, they recovered themselves somewhat, but I did not dream that they were plotting to shut me up in that dreadful place.” “They are a couple of hardened criminals, and they shall be made to suffer for their wrong-doing; I will not spare them,” Dr. Winthrop said sternly. “Ah! but they have been foiled in it—that will be a terrible punishment to them; and—and we are happy, True; I cannot wish anybody any ill,” Salome responded, as she laid her soft cheek against her husband’s with a trustful, contented air, that touched him deeply. “That is true; but such people deserve to be dealt with to the extent of the law. When I think how they have tried to divorce us, and almost tricked me into this hated marriage, I feel as if nothing could be too bad for them,” he replied with a frown. “I do not mind anything now, that I know you love me,” Salome said, with gleaming eyes. “The cruellest pang I suffered was when I believed you loved her—Sarah. O True, I was desperate enough then to do anything; you must know I was, or I never could have signed that letter to the New York lawyer.” “The more I think of it, the more amazed I grow at the daring of those scheming women. I am almost tempted to believe that Sarah Rochester would have married me, even if she had failed to secure the decree, to gain her point,” Dr. Winthrop said, with a shrug of repulsion. “I begin to believe that people will do anything to attain wealth; truly, ‘the love of money is the root of all evil.’ But their consigning you to Dr. Arnot’s mad-house was the worst of all, and I swear that Mrs. Rochester shall be made to answer for that horrible crime. Oh, my darling, what if I had never gone there!” Salome shuddered and clung to him. She could hardly persuade herself, even now, that the blessed present was not, after all, a mere dream or vision, and that she should not awake by and by, to find herself back in that wretched place, and surrounded by the hapless beings who had been her companions for so long.