Mrs. Kenton turned her head and looked steadfastly at him over her shoulder.  “If you strike him, if you touch him, Mr. Kenton, you will undo everything that the abominable wretch has done for Ellen, and you will close my mouth and tie my hands.  Will you promise that under no provocation whatever will you do him the least harm?  I know Ellen better than you do, and I know that you will make her hate you unless—­”

“Oh, I will promise.  You needn’t be afraid.  Lord help me!” Kenton groaned.  “I won’t touch him.  But don’t expect me to speak to him.”

“No, I don’t expect that.  He won’t offer to speak to you.”

They slept, and in the morning she stayed to breakfast with Ellen in their apartment, and let her husband go down with their younger children.  She could trust him now, whatever form his further trial should take, and he felt that he was pledging himself to her anew, when Bittridge came hilariously to meet him in the reading-room, where he went for a paper after breakfast.

“Ah, judge!” said the young man, gayly.  “Hello, Boyne!” he added to the boy, who had come with his father; Lottie had gone directly up-stairs from the breakfast-room.  “I hope you’re all well this morning?  Play not too much for Miss Ellen?”

Kenton looked him in the face without answering, and then tried to get away from him, but Bittridge followed him up, talking, and ignoring his silence.

“It was a splendid piece, judge.  You must take Mrs. Kenton.  I know you’ll both like it.  I haven’t ever seen Miss Ellen so interested.  I hope the walk home didn’t fatigue her.  I wanted to get a cab, but she would walk.”  The judge kept moving on, with his head down.  He did not speak, and Bittridge was forced to notice his silence.  “Nothing the matter, I hope, with Miss Ellen, judge?”

“Go away,” said the judge, in a low voice, fumbling the head of his stick.

“Why, what’s up?” asked Bittridge, and he managed to get in front of Kenton and stay him at a point where Kenton could not escape.  It was a corner of the room to which the old man had aimlessly tended, with no purpose but to avoid him: 

“I wish you to let me alone, sir,” said Kenton at last.  “I can’t speak to you.”

“I understand what you mean, judge,” said Bittridge, with a grin, all the more maddening because it seemed involuntary.  “But I can explain everything.  I just want a few words with you.  It’s very important; it’s life or death with me, sir,” he said, trying to look grave.  “Will you let me go to your rooms with you?”

Kenton made no reply.

Bittridge began to laugh.  “Then let’s sit down here, or in the ladies’ parlor.  It won’t take me two minutes to make everything right.  If you don’t believe I’m in earnest I know you don’t think I am, but I can assure you—­Will you let me speak with you about Miss Ellen?”

Still Kenton did not answer, shutting his lips tight, and remembering his promise to his wife.