"So imagine when I went to conference and when the charges were being read off and I heard the Secretary call 'Reverend Speed to Mitchfield!'

instead of the town from which I had gone.

"I was just sick, man; so sick until I almost dropped dead on the floor!

Oh, the agony it gave me! I finally got outside some way, and stood leaning against the church. How long I stood thus, I never knew; but the church let out by and by, while I still stood there--and let me explain.

Mitchfield was a charge that contained exactly a dozen members--the Reverend McCarthy came out and I looked up straight into his eyes.... I knew then why I had been sent to Mitchfield instead of back to the charge I had been at.

"Well, I went to Mitchfield, and by working around town by the day, in connection with the charge, I managed to make it. Some months later, I married the girl I have spoken of, and we began to keep house in Mitchfield.

"It was pretty hard, and sometimes I don't wonder at what later happened. But to make a long story short, I was compelled to get work in a near-by town to make a living for me and my wife, and was gone all the week until Saturday night. At the end of six months, Reverend McCarthy had taken my wife, and she had left me and was living in St.

Louis!"

Baptiste was regarding him strangely.

"Have you heard the rest of it?" the other paused to ask. "Well, Reverend McCarthy became the father of her two sons. One was killed some years ago, the other lives in St. Louis."

"But what--what became of their mother?" Baptiste inquired curiously.

"Her? What becomes of women who are deceived? If you visited St. Louis and the _district_, you might find her. She was there the last I heard of her."

"And you?"

"Me?" the other repeated in a strangely hollow voice. "You know what _I_ am. A gambler, and with an old score to settle with that man if I ever get the chance."

CHAPTER V

THE PREACHER'S EVIL INFLUENCE

With all Ethel's excited ways, she was not to be reckoned a fool when she had in mind to accomplish some purpose. She understood full well, that it would be up to her at this time to keep Orlean from returning West with her husband, unless she recalled her father. This she did not wish to resort to, until she had exhausted all her force without avail.

She appreciated the fact that Jean Baptiste could and would influence her husband as well as her mother, while as to Orlean, she would only need a half a chance to fall away from her influence and go back to her husband.

So with this in mind, Ethel, who had inherited from her father, much evil and the faculty of making people miserable began, as soon as Baptiste had left the house, to formulate plans to counter any effort on his part to see Orlean.

Her first move, therefore, was to recall Orlean who was visiting near, a fact which her mother had feared to tell Baptiste. She convinced her forthwith that she was sick, in danger, and sent her to bed, not telling her that Baptiste was even in town. She followed this by sending her mother to the kitchen, and keeping her there.

"Now what I must do--succeed in doing," she muttered to herself, "is to keep Orlean from seeing or meeting him in private and even in public for as much as an hour." She realized that keeping a man and wife apart was a grave task, and that she could not trust to the sympathy of any friends. But one person could she trust to be an ally in the task she was trying to accomplish, and that was her father. She rather feared her husband at this time, for, while she held him under her control at most all times, he was by disposition inclined to be kind and good. And, although he was jealous of Baptiste in a measure, this did not reach proportions where he was likely to be a very ready accomplice with the plan in hand. Indeed, if it was left to him, Orlean would sleep in her husband's arms that very night!

"I wish papa had stayed just another day," she grumbled as she walked the floor and tried to formulate some effective plan of action. "To think that he left only this morning and that man came this afternoon!"

She was provoked at such a coincidence. She did not like to think too deeply, or to scheme too long, for it hurt her. So she was compelled to take a chair for a time and rest her mind. She was not positive how long Baptiste would stay, and she would have difficulty in keeping her sister in bed for any length of time. But she decided to keep her in the house if she had to sit on guard at the front door.

And it was while she was yet undecided upon her plan of action, that Glavis came home. Once in a great while, when she wanted a change, a diversion, she would have his supper waiting. Other times it was left to her mother. He loved her in spite of all her evil, and was always pleased when she had his supper ready. So when she heard his footsteps outside, she was suddenly struck with an inspiration. She rushed toward the rear, and began hurriedly to set the table. Her mother had the meal ready, so she affected to be very cheerful when Glavis came into the room, and even kissed him fondly. He was so surprised, that the instance made him temporarily forget what was on his mind, which was just what she wished him to do.

"Where is Orlean?" he inquired after a time, whereupon his wife's face darkened.

"Oh, she's sick, and in bed," replied Ethel guardedly.

Glavis grunted. He was thinking. For a time he forgot all that was around him; his wife, the supper, his work, all but Jean Baptiste and the wife that was being harbored under the roof that he kept up. He suddenly got up. He walked quickly out of the room and hurried upstairs while his wife's back was turned, and knocked at the door of the room wherein Orlean was supposed to lay sick.

"Come in," called the other.

"Oh, it's you, Glavis," she cried, dropping back into bed when he entered the door.

"A--ah--Orlean," he said in his stammering sort of way. "A--ah--how are you?"

"Why, I feel well, Glavis," she replied wonderingly. She had never felt just right mentally since before she left the West. And when she allowed herself to think, she found that it hurt her. She had always been obedient--her father had told her that time and again, and gave her great credit for being so. "Think of it, my dear," he had so often said, "in all your life you have never 'sassed' your father, or contraried him," whereupon he would look greatly relieved. So her father had laid down the rule she was following--trying to follow. Her husband must certainly have been in grave error--not that she had observed it, or that she had been badly treated by him, for she had not. However, whenever she tried to see and understand what it all meant, it hurt her.

She was again the victim of those nervous little spells that had harassed her before she married, but which had strangely left her during that time. But to do her father's will--for he never bid--always his was an influence that seemed to need no words--she was trying. So she looked up at Glavis, and observed something unusual in his face.

"What is the matter, Glavis?" she inquired, sitting up in bed again.

Glavis shifted about uneasily before replying.

"Ah--why--Orlean, it's Baptiste, your husband."

"Jean!" she cried, forgetting everything but her husband--forgetting that she had allowed herself to be parted from him. "What--what is the matter with him, Glavis? With Jean? Has something happened? Oh, I'm always so afraid something will happen to Jean!"

"No, no," exclaimed Glavis, pushing her gently back upon the pillow.

"Nothing has happened. Ah--er--ah--"

"Oh, I'm so relieved," she sighed, as she fell over in the bed.

"He's here--in the city," she heard then from Glavis.

"He is!" she cried, sitting suddenly erect again. For a moment she hesitated, and then, raising her hand to her forehead as if in great pain, she groaned perceptibly. The next moment she had again sunk back upon the pillow, and her breath came hard. Perspiration stood upon her brow, and he saw it.

"Orlean, oh, Orlean," he cried then upon impulse. "Great God, this is a shame, a shame before God!" he lamented with great emotion.

Suddenly he rushed to the door and then halted as he heard his wife calling him from below. He turned to where Orlean lay in the bed, sick now for true.

"Aren't you coming down to supper, Orlean?" he called.

"No, Glavis. I am not hungry."

"But you should eat something, Orlean."

"No, Glavis," she repeated in a tired voice, a voice in which he detected a sigh. "I couldn't eat anything--now." He looked at her a moment with great tenderness, let escape a sigh, and then as if resigned to the inevitable, he turned and passed down the stairway to where his wife waited below.

She regarded him keenly, and during the meal, she kept casting furtive glances in his direction. "I wonder what he's been saying to Orlean?"

she kept muttering to herself. She concluded then, that she would have to watch him closely. He had never been in accord with her and her father's plan, and they had borne false witness to influence him against Baptiste. But he had seen Baptiste she knew, and was also aware of the fact that Glavis liked both her sister and brother-in-law, and it was going to be a task to keep him from following his natural inclination.

She thought about her father again, and wished that he was in Chicago.

She had never been delegated to handle such a task alone, and she disliked the immense responsibility that was now upon her, and no one to stand with her in the conflict.

"Well, Ethel," Glavis said, arising from the table when the meal was over, "I'm going to walk out for a while."

She started up quickly. Her lips parted to say that he was going to meet Baptiste and conspire with him against her father, but she realized that this would not be expedient. He might revolt. She rather feared this at times, notwithstanding her influence over him, therefore she decided to exercise a little diplomacy. Accordingly she sank back into the chair, and replied: