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At length Hammond Brake rose to go. I wished him good night, but did not offer to accompany him to the door. My wife supplied this omitted courtesy, as I had expected. The moment I was alone I picked up the book leaf from the floor. It was NOT the leaf of a volume of poems. Beyond that, however, I learned nothing. It contained a string of paragraphs printed in the biblical fashion, and the language was biblical in style. It seemed to be a portion of some religious book. Was it possible that my wife was being converted to the Romish faith? Yes, that was it. Brake was a Jesuit in disguise–I had heard of such things–and had stolen into the bosom of my family to plant there his destructive errors. There could be no longer any doubt of it. This was some portion of a Romish book–some infamous Popish publication. Fool that I was not to see it all before! But there was yet time. I would forbid him the house.

I had just formed this resolution when my wife entered. I put the strange leaf in my pocket and took my hat.

“Why, you are not going out, surely?” cried Elsie, surprised.

“I have a headache,” I answered. “I will take a short walk.”

Elsie looked at me with a peculiar air of distrust. Her woman’s instinct told her that there was something wrong. Before she could question me, however, I had left the room and was walking rapidly on Hammond Brake’s track.

He heard the footsteps, and I saw his figure, black against the sky, stop and peer back through the dusk to see who was following him.

“It is I, Brake,” I called out. “Stop; I wish to speak with you.”

He stopped, and in a minute or so we were walking side by side along the road. My fingers itched at that moment to be on his throat. I commenced the conversation.

“Brake,” I said, “I’m a very plain sort of man, and I never say anything without good reason. What I came after you to tell you is, that I don’t wish you to come to my house any more, or to speak with Elsie any farther than the ordinary salutations go. It’s no joke. I’m quite in earnest.”

Brake started, and, stopping short, faced me suddenly in the road. “What have I done?” he asked. “You surely are too sensible a man to be jealous, Dayton.”

“Oh,” I answered scornfully, “not jealous in the ordinary sense of the word, a bit. But I don’t think your company good company for my wife, Brake. If you WILL have it out of me, I suspect you of being a Roman Catholic, and of trying to convert my wife.”

A smile shot across his face, and I saw his sharp white teeth gleam for an instant in the dusk.

“Well, what if I am a Papist?” he said, with a strange tone of triumph in his voice. “The faith is not criminal. Besides, what proof have you that I was attempting to proselyte your wife?”

“This,” said I, pulling the leaf from my pocket–“this leaf from one of those devilish Papist books you and she were reading this evening. I picked it up from the floor. Proof enough, I think!”

In an instant Brake had snatched the leaf from my hand and torn it into atoms.

“You shall be obeyed,” he said. “I will not speak with Elsie as long as she is your wife. Good night. You think I’m a Papist, then, Dayton? You’re a clever fellow!”

And with rather a sneering chuckle he marched on along the road and vanished into the darkness.

II

THE SECRET DISCOVERED

Brake came no more. I said nothing to Elsie about his prohibition, and his name was never mentioned. It seemed strange to me that she should not speak
of his absence, and I was very much puzzled by her silence. Her moodiness seemed to have increased, and, what was most remarkable, in proportion as she grew more and more reserved, the intenser were the bursts of affection which she exhibited for me. She would strain me to her bosom and kiss me, as if she and I were about to be parted forever. Then for hours she would remain sitting at her window, silently gazing, with that terrible, wistful gaze of hers, at the west.