begged her pardon for the bungling manner in which he had communicated intelligence that must be so terrible to a heart so sensitive!  Julia was just going to declare that she did not care anything for what August said or thought, but her natural truthfulness checked the transparent falsehood.  She had not gone far enough astray to lie consciously; she was, as yet, only telling lies to herself.  Very gradually and cautiously did he proceed so as not to “flush the bird.”  Even as I saw, an hour ago, a cat creep upon a sparrow with fascinating eyes, and a waving, snake-like motion of the tail, and a treacherous feline smile upon her face, even so, cautiously and by degrees, Humphreys felt his way with velvet paws toward his prey.  He knew the opportunity, that once gone might not come again; he soon guessed that this was the hour and power of darkness in the soul of Julia, the hour in which she would seek to flee from her own pride and mortification.  And if Humphreys knew how to approach with a soft tread, very slowly and cautiously, he also knew—­men of his “profession” always know—­when to spring.  He saw the moment, he made the spring, he seized the prey.

“Will you trust your destiny to me, Miss Anderson?  You seem beset by troubles.  I have means.  I could not but he wholly devoted to your welfare.  Let me help you to flee away from—­from all this mortification, and this—­this domestic tyranny.  Will you intrust yourself to me?”

He did not say anything about love.  He had an instinctive feeling that it would not be best.  She felt herself environed with insurmountable difficulties, threatened with agonies worse than death—­so they seemed to her.  He simply, coolly opened the door, and bade her easily and triumphantly escape.  Had he said one word of tenderness the reaction must have set in.

She was silent.

“I did hope, by sacrificing all my own hopes, to effect a reconciliation.  But when that young man spoke insulting words about you, I determined at once to offer you my devoted protection.  I ask no more than you are able to give, your respect Will you accept my life-long protection as your husband?”

“Yes!” said the passionate girl in an agony of despair

CHAPTER XIV.

THE SPIDER’S WEB.

Now that Humphreys had his prey he did not know just what to do with it.  Not knowing what to say, he said nothing, in which he showed his wisdom.  But he felt that saying nothing was almost as bad as saying something.  And he was right.  For with people of impulsive temperament reactions are sudden, and in one minute after Julia had said yes, there came to her memory the vision of August standing in the barn and looking into her eyes so purely and truly and loyally, and vowing such sweet vows of love, and she looked back upon that perfect hour with some such fooling perhaps as Dives felt looking out of torment across the great gulf into paradise.