"And suppose they ask me questions?"

"Don't answer 'em. You know very little. The papers were only found
the other day. You are not expected to know anything."

"Where was the real girl?"

"With her grandfather."

"Where was the grandfather?"

"What does that matter?" he replied; "I will tell you afterward."

"When did the real girl die?"

"That, too, I will tell you afterward."

Lotty leaned her cheek upon her hand, and looked at her husband
thoughtfully.

"Let us be plain, Joe."

"You can never be plain, my dear," he replied with the smile of a
lover, not a husband; "never in your husband's eyes; not even in
tights."

But she was not to be won by flattery.

"Fine words," she said, "fine words. What do they amount to? Oh, Joe,
little I thought when you came along with your beautiful promises,