“Now, Philip Withers, what a weak, pusillanimous wretch you must be, having known me so long, and tried my temper so well, to hope to find me such a fool, after all,—­that kind of fool, I mean!  My deepest shame, in this unutterably shameful hour, is that I chose such a cowardly ass to besot myself with.—­There, the subject sickens me, and I am going.  Dare to follow me, and the geese of Hendrik shall have you.  I go scot-free, fearing nothing, having nothing to lose; but I hold you, my exquisite Joseph Surface—­oh, the wit of my sister! oh, the wisdom of fools!—­by your fine sentiments; and when I want you I shall find you.  I can take care of me and mine; but beware how you dare to claim lot or portion in what I choose to call my own, even though your brand be on it,—­Joseph!”

She hissed the name, and, with hurried steps, and a low, scornful laugh, departed.  As Miss Wimple, all aghast, leaned forward with quick breath and tumultuous heart, and peered through the gloom toward where the silver moonlight lay across the further end of the bridge, she saw a white dress flash across a bright space and disappear.  Then Philip Withers stepped forth into the moonlight, stood there for a minute or two, and gazed in the direction of a branch road which made off from the turnpike close to the bridge, and led, at right angles to it, to the railroad station on the right; then slowly, and without once looking back, he followed the turnpike to the town.

All astonished, bewildered, full of strange, vague fears, Miss Wimple remained in the now awful gloom and stillness of the bridge till he had quite disappeared.  Then gathering up her wits with an effort, she resumed her homeward way.  As she emerged from the shadows into the same bright place which Withers and his mysterious companion had just passed, she spied something dark lying on the ground.  She stooped and picked it up; it was a small morocco pocket-book lined with pink silk.

Good Heaven!  She remembered,—­the one she had sold to Miss Madeline Splurge that afternoon,—­the very same!  So, then, that was her voice, her dress; she had, indeed, dimly thought of Madeline more than once, while that woman was speaking so bitterly,—­but had not recognized her tones, nor once fancied it might be she.  Now she easily recalled her words, and understood some of her allusions.  And her wild, distracted, incoherent speech in the shop, too,—­ah! it was all too plain; that was surely she; but what might be the nature or degree of her trouble Miss Wimple dared not try to guess.  This Philip Withers,—­was he a villain, after all?  “Had he—­this poor lady—­Oh, God forbid!  No, no, no!”

She opened the pocket-book;—­a visiting-card was all it contained.  She drew it forth,—­“Mr. Philip Withers,”—­yes, she knew it by that broken corner, as though it had been marked so for a purpose.  She held it up before her eyes where the moon was brightest, and—­turned the other side.