“But you will, for it is true; and I tell it not out of love for you (though I never disliked—­I always liked you—­would have liked you if you’d have let me), but out of hate for that—.  That man has treated me shamefully—­worse than a yellow dog!  I’ve done for that man what I wouldn’t have done for my brother.  You know what I’ve done for him, Mr. Keith, and now when he’s got no further use for me, he kicks me out into the street and threatens to give me to the police if I come to him again.”

Keith’s expression changed.  There was no doubt now that for once Quincy Plume was sincere.  The hate in his bleared eyes and bloated face was unfeigned.

“Give me to the police!  I’ll give him to the police!” he broke out in a sudden flame at Keith’s glance of inspection.  “He thinks he has been very smart in taking from me all the papers.  He thinks no one will believe me on my mere word, but I’ve got a paper he don’t know of.”

His hand went to the breast of his threadbare coat with an angry clutch.  “I’ve got the marriage lines of his wife.”

One word caught Keith, and his interest awoke.

“What wife?” he asked as indifferently as he could.

“His wife,—­his lawful wife,—­Squire Rawson’s granddaughter, Phrony Tripper.  I was at the weddin’—­I was a witness.  He thought he could get out of it, and he was half drunk; but he married her.”

“Where?  When?  You were present?”

“Yes.  They were married by a preacher named Rimmon, and he gave me her certificate, and I swore to her I had lost it:  he got me to do it—­the scoundrel!  He wanted me to give it to him; but I swore to him I had lost it, too.  I thought it would be of use some of these days.”  A gleam of the old craftiness shone in his eyes.

Keith gazed at the man in amazement.  His unblushing effrontery staggered him.

“Would you mind letting me see that certificate?”

Plume hesitated and licked his ups like a dog held back from a bone.  Keith noted it.

“I do not want you to think that I will give you any money for it, for I will not,” he added quietly, his gray eyes on him.

For a moment Plume was so taken aback that his face became a blank.  Then, whether it was that the very frankness of the speech struck home to him or that he wished to secure a fragment of esteem from Keith, he recovered himself.

“I don’t expect any money for it, Mr. Keith.  I don’t want any money for it.  I will not only show you this paper, I will give it to you.”

“It is not yours to give,” said Keith.  “It belongs to Mrs. Wickersham.  I will see that she gets it if you deliver it to me.”

“That’s so,” ejaculated Plume, as if the thought had never occurred to him before.  “I want her to have it, but you’d better keep it for her.  That man will get it away from her.  You don’t know him as I do.  You don’t know what he’d do on a pinch.  I tell you he is a gambler for life.  I have seen him sit at the board and stake sums that would have made me rich for life.  Besides,” he added, as if he needed some other reason for giving it up, “I am afraid if he knew I had it he’d get it from me in some way.”