chance of a broken head at the end of all this--most likely. My
mortification was extreme. The scandal would be horrible; that was
unavoidable. But how to act so as to satisfy myself I did not
know. I stood on my guard and at any rate faced him. There was
nothing else for it. Of one thing I was certain, that, however
brazen my attitude, it could never equal the characteristic Jacobus
impudence.

He gave me his melancholy, glued smile and sat down. I own I was
relieved. The perspective of passing from kisses to blows had
nothing particularly attractive in it. Perhaps--perhaps he had
seen nothing? He behaved as usual, but he had never before found
me alone on the verandah. If he had alluded to it, if he had
asked: "Where's Alice?" or something of the sort, I would have
been able to judge from the tone. He would give me no opportunity.
The striking peculiarity was that he had never looked up at me yet.
"He knows," I said to myself confidently. And my contempt for him
relieved my disgust with myself.

"You are early home," I remarked.

"Things are very quiet; nothing doing at the store to-day," he
explained with a cast-down air.

"Oh, well, you know, I am off," I said, feeling that this, perhaps,
was the best thing to do.

"Yes," he breathed out. "Day after to-morrow."

This was not what I had meant; but as he gazed persistently on the