“Go away, you spider!  I hate you!  I told you I hated you, and you told people I loved you and was engaged to you.  Go away!  You detestable spider, you!  I’ll die right here, but I will not go with you.”

But the smirking Humphreys moved toward her, speaking soothingly, and assuring her that there was some mistake.  Julia dashed past him into the parlor and laid hold of her father’s arm.

“Father, protect me from that—­that—­spider!  I hate him!”

Mr. Anderson stood irresolute a moment and looked appealingly to his wife for a signal.  She solved the difficulty herself.  On the whole she had concluded not to die of heart-disease until she saw Julia married to suit her taste, and having found a hill she could not go through, she went round.  Seizing Julia’s arm with more of energy than affection, she walked off with her, or rather walked her off, in a sulky silence, while Mr. Anderson kept Humphreys company.

I thought best to keep August standing in the door of Julia’s room all this time while I explained these things to you, so that you might understand what follows.  In reality August did not stop at all, but walked out into the hall and into difficulty.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE ENCOUNTER.

Just before August came out of the door of Julia’s room he had heard Humphreys enter his room on the opposite side of the hall.  Humphreys had lighted his cigar and was on his way to the porch to smoke off his discomfiture when he met August coming out of Julia’s door on the opposite side of the hall.  The candle in Humphreys’s room threw its light full on August’s face, there was no escape from recognition, and Wehle was too proud to retreat.  He shut the door of Julia’s room and stood with back against the wall staring at Humphreys, who did not forget to smile in his most aggravating way.

“Thief! thief!” called Humphreys.

In a moment Mrs. Anderson and Julia ran up the stairs, followed by Mr. Anderson, who hearing the outcry had left the matter of the Apocalypse unsettled, and by Jonas and Cynthy Ann, who had just arrived.

“I knew it,” cried Mrs. Anderson, turning on the mortified Julia, “I never knew a Dutchman nor a foreigner of any sort that wouldn’t steal.  Now you see what you get by taking a fancy to a Dutchman.  And now you see”—­to her husband—­“what you get by taking a Dutchman into your house.  I always wanted you to hire white men and not Dutchmen nor thieves!”

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Anderson,” said August, with very white lips, “I am not a thief.”

“Not a thief, eh?  What was he doing, Mr. Humphreys, when you first detected him?”

“Coming out of Miss Anderson’s room,” said Humphreys, smiling politely.

“Do you invite gentlemen to your room?” said the frantic woman to Julia, meaning by one blow to revenge herself and crush the stubbornness of her daughter forever.  But Julia was too anxious about August to notice the shameless insult.