seemed to have something of a sneer in it.

"I don't know that that is your affair," said August, all his
suspicions, by a sort of "resolution of force," changing into anger.

"Oh! I beg pardon," with a tone half-mocking. "I did not know but I
might help settle matters. I think I have Mrs. Anderson's confidence;
and I know that I have Miss Anderson's confidence in an unusual degree.
I think a great deal of her. And she thinks me _her friend_ at least. I
thought that there might be some little matters yet unsettled between
you two, and she suggested that maybe there might be something you would
like to say, and that if you would say it to me, it would be all the
same as if it were said to her. She considers that in the relation I
bear to her and the family, a message delivered to me is the same in
effect as if given to her. I told her I did not think you would, as a
gentleman, wish to hold her to any promises that might be irksome to
her now."

These words were spoken with a coolness and maliciousness of good-nature
quite devilish, and August's fist involuntarily doubled itself to strike
him, if only to make him cease smiling in that villainous rectangular
way. But he checked himself.

"You are a puppy. Tell _that_ to Jule, if you choose. I shall send her a
release from all obligations, but not by the hand of a rascal!"

Like all desperadoes, Humphreys was a coward. He could shoot, but he
could not fight, and just now he was affecting the pious or at least the
high moral role, and had left his pistols, brandy-flasks, and the other
necessary appurtenances of a gentleman, locked in his trunk. Besides it