"No, thank you," replied the minister, who felt rather uncomfortable in her presence. "I have come to talk seriously, Miss Arnott." "Is this a duty call as a pastor?" asked the woman, biting her lip. "Have you come to talk religion to me?" "I have come to talk about Bithiah!" Miss Arnott's thin hands clenched themselves on her lap, and she flashed an anxious glance on her visitor. "About that poor murdered heathen?" "Yes, about Tera--although she was no heathen. Do you know, Miss Arnott, that I am accused of having murdered her?" "I have heard the lie," said Miss Arnott, with quiet scorn; "but I need hardly tell you that I do not believe it." "Thank you. My mother tells me that you saw Bithiah shortly before she left the house. I fancied she might have said something in your presence likely to throw light, perhaps, on the darkness of this mystery." Miss Arnott flushed through her sallow skin, but kept her black eyes on the minister. "I asked your mother to say nothing about that meeting," she remarked angrily. "Bithiah acted like the savage she was." "I know she did. Miss Arnott, and I am deeply sorry to know it. It was, of course, because the poor girl's passions were those of a partially uncivilized being, that she so far forgot herself as to strike you." "She did strike me," said Miss Arnott, drawing a long breath; "struck me and tore the ear-ring from my left ear. It was a ring of gold, and her hand or sleeve caught in it so roughly that the clasp gave way. My ear bled from her savage attack." "I am deeply grieved," said Johnson, horrified at this instance of Tera's savage nature; "but, as I have said, she was but half civilized." "She was sufficiently civilized to steal my ear-ring, however," retorted Miss Arnott. "I never got it back." "I must see to that. What did you quarr----" Johnson stopped suddenly, for he remembered what his mother had said was the cause of the quarrel. "We quarrelled about you," said Miss Arnott, in a low voice. "Yes, I can now acknowledge my love for you without shame. While you were prosperous and popular, with a stainless name, I kept silent--there was no other course open to me. Now that you are despised and accused of murder, I can tell you how dear you are to me. If you had not come to me to-day, I should still have told you." The minister rose to his feet, horrified at this bold and, as it seemed to him, shameless confession. "Miss Arnott," he stammered, "I--I--I cannot listen to this; I must go." "No, stay!" she cried, with a theatrical gesture; "I have some claim on you." "Claim on me?" replied Johnson. He could not understand her. Miss Arnott looked at him steadily. "It was I who paid your debts," she said. CHAPTER X A FRESH PIECE OF EVIDENCE Johnson made no further attempt to leave. He sat down again. He was too much taken aback to speak. Yet mechanically he repeated the words of Miss Arnott, as if the more clearly to convey their meaning to his mind.