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Presently Jane began to act her little part, to laugh and play with Fay, to talk of horses and cattle to Lassiter Then she made deliberateto her stock, and she walked slowly toward the table, and when near the door she suddenly whirled and thrust it open

Her sharp action nearly knocked doo

"Hester," said Jane, sternly, "you o home, and you need not come back"

Jane shut the door and returned to Lassiter Standing unsteadily, she put her hand on his arone, and how this stab of disloyalty pained her

"Spies! My oo, tearful eyes

"I hate to tell you," he replied By that she knew he had long spared her "It's begun again--that work in the dark"

"Nay, Lassiter--it never stopped!"

So bitter certainty claimed her at last, and trust fled Withersteen House and fled forever The woed not in love for her, nor in devotion to their household work, but they poisoned both by a thousand acts of stealth and cunning and duplicity Jane broke out once and caught the falsehood

Thereafter she broke out no ave thears, how she pitied the bound them and locked their lips, when they showed neither consciousness of guilt toward their benefactress nor distress at the sloearing apart of long-established and dear ties?

"The blindness again!" cried Jane Withersteen "In my sisters as in me!O God!"

There came a time when no words passed between Jane and her women Silently they went about their household duties, and secretly they went about the underhand work to which they had been bidden The gloolooht spirit of little Fay, did not pervade these woloom They spied and listened; they received and sent secret ers; and they stole Jane's books and records, and finally the papers that were deeds of her possessions Through it all they were silent, rapt in a kind of trance Then one by one, without leave or explanation or farewell, they left Withersteen House, and never returned

Coincident with this disappearance Jane's gardeners and workers in the alfalfa fields and stable es Of all her Morreat ranch only Jerd remained He went on with his duty, but talked no e than if it had never occurred