"'My dear little sweetheart,' he turned and said abruptly, 'women know nothing of business matters, and you would not understand me if I explained it all.'
"'You are deceiving me; for it does not require a business education to enable one to guess that there might be something wrong about a midnight transaction such as this.'
"He deigned no explanation, but answered half kindly, half sarcastically, 'Good night; ask no more of your puzzling questions. Take this kiss; you are a little nervous and disturbed in temper, you need rest—go to bed.'
"He dismissed me with another kiss, as he had often done before. It was the first to have a tinge of bitterness to it. I was far from satisfied. What could this occupation be, that required him to remain away so long and gather about him such associates? He had been gone a whole month. Oh, what a weary, unhappy, dreary month that was for me!—I thought it would never end. Why could not the fates let loose their wrath all at once? Why was not all revealed? I wept myself asleep, and was frightened into wakefulness by some horrid dream. I took up the newspaper and tried to read it; the letters all ran together. It was the Alexandria Times and Advertiser, of May, 1798. Instinctively my eyes caught the following notice:
"Counterfeit Dollars. The public are requested to be on their guard with respect to a number of counterfeit dollars of the United States, now passing in this city. They are made of block-tin and pewter, and, if not quite new, may be detected on sight. They are well cast, and, therefore, the impression is exact; but the milling around the edge is nothing like the true dollar, thereby may be easily known. They are about four penny-weights too light."
"The paper fell from my hands. Why I could not tell, and yet the reading of that paragraph seemed connected with my life. Had that box merchandise in it? Had my husband become one of a gang of base money coiners? He could not have fallen so low; he was too good and too honest. That mysterious box was always present, turn which way I would. I felt impelled to go to the cellar and examine it. There could be no harm in merely looking; it would ease my troubled brain. I took the lantern and stealthily groped my way down into the damp earthy atmosphere. It was silent as death there; the dim light revealed nothing but the box. I held the lantern up over it, and the uncertain flickering of its rays fell upon the lid. There was no denying the ownership, it was marked in large bold letters, 'John Othard.' Now, I must know what it contained; I could wait no longer; a sort of determined malice took possession of me to connect it with the newspaper, and with my husband—fiendish thought. I did not desire to prove him other than the pure and noble man I had loved; but I was not myself—I would do it just to still my excited suspicions. Putting the lamp down over the name, as if that could blot it out, I went up the creaking steps, and hastened back with the axe firmly clenched in both hands, as if I feared a rescue. Placing the light on the earth floor, I hesitated whether to strike or not—the blow was to reveal joy or eternal misery to me. To leave the fatal box to itself, and go to my chamber, was to be racked with horrible doubts. I seized again the axe, and with repeated blows splintered the cover; then, with bleeding hands I ripped it off and hurled it from me. Yes, there, wrapped in rolls, shining with damnable brilliancy, was my husband's secret. I was first stunned then frantic; cursed myself and him; wished I had been unable to read; that I had been blind, dead, rather than find him whom I had enshrined in my heart of hearts as a god, so unworthy. He would go to a felon's cell—perhaps to an ignominious death—and me, where could I go? I left the dreadful thing uncovered; as I backed away from it toward the stairway, those glittering witnesses grinned at me. I walked the floor all night—I could not rest. The angel of sleep had fled, frightened at the discord in my frame, and the angel of death was spreading his baneful wings over me.
"Dawn surprised with its unwelcome light, and found me a shivering, crouching wretch. That incestuous love with which we had defied the fates, had now borne its full fruit.
"About mid-day John came home. Despair had cooled me. I handed him the paper and pointed to the notice. I watched his eager face while he read it. He flushed and paled, and raising his eyes to meet mine, asked if I knew all.
"'Yes, I do know all. The box contains base coin. I have seen them. They are there, and will consign you to a prison and me to my grave; that is, if there lives one single, pitying human being, who will take the trouble to heap the sod over a friendless, homeless wretch, as I now am.'