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 where no one could find us. Then I ordered him to leave the house that instant, and he laughed at me. I knew him, then, sir, for what he was. I could have forgiven him a good deal, because if a man loves a woman he'll say things that—well, that he wouldn't say otherwise—but I couldn't forgive him for laughing at my sorrow and trouble. I knew him then to be bad and heartless.

"Well, sir, it's no good dwelling on that matter. I got rid of him, then, but he came again, and he waylaid me in the streets, and at last, when I'd one day told him that I would never speak to him again, no matter what he did or said, he told me that I was a fool to wait for Walter, for he'd embezzled the money to give to another woman. That made me hate him—because I knew it was a lie. Thank God! I never believed it for a moment. But it suggested an idea to me. It was Stephen Wood himself that had committed the crime. He wasn't unlike Walter; they might have passed for brothers. I could