"You advertised her in the papers, didn't you, when you left?--(after the usual fashion, 'harboring and trusting,' and all that)--were you afraid she would run you in debt?"
"Devil a bit; she's too proud for that; she would have starved first."
"To mortify her confounded pride," said Stahle, with a diabolical sneer, "and to injure her in public estimation. That stroke, at least, told for a time."
"A pretty set of friends she must have had," said Smith, "to have stood by and borne all that."
"Oh, I know _them_ all, root and branch. I knew I could go to the full length of my rope without any of their interference. In fact, their neglect of her helped me more than any thing else. Every body said I must have been an injured man, and that the stories I had circulated _must_ be true about her, or they would certainly have defended and sheltered her. I knew them--I knew it would work just so; that was so much in my favor, you see."
Stahle applied his thumbs to the end of his nose, and gave another diabolical sneer.
"Liked me! Humph! They all looked down on me as a vulgar fellow. I was tolerated, and that was all--hardly that."
"I don't understand it, then," said Smith.
"I do, though; if they _defended_ her, they would have no excuse for not helping her. It was the cash, you see, the cash! so they preferred siding with me, vulgar as they thought me. I knew them--I knew how it would work before I began."
"Well, I suppose this is all very interesting to you," said Smith, yawning, "but as I am confounded tired and sleepy, and as it is after midnight, I shall wish you good-night."
"Good-night," said Stahle. "I shall smoke another cigar while I arrange my plans. This is the last quiet night's sleep 'Mrs. Gertrude Dean' will have for some time, I fancy."
"Scoundrel!" exclaimed John, leaping suddenly upon the piazza through his low parlor window. "Scoundrel! I have you at last," and well aimed and vigorous were the blows which John dealt his sister's traducer.
Your woman slanderer is invariably a coward--the very nature of his offense proves it. There never was one yet who dared face a man in fair fight; and so on his knees Stahle pleaded like a whipped cur for mercy.
"Go, cowardly brute," said John, kicking him from the piazza. "If you are seen here after daylight, the worse for you."