The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 3, 1904, Page 3

THE, SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. he said, “the man can only obey Maud bung on his words, When she ped their import, she suddenly moved toward him. There was some- hetic in her eagerness of grat- 'Oh, thanks! thanks! I knew you'd It's not you I object to. I like better than any of the others. glanced over her shoulder the lantern-lit brilliance of the orish room and dropped her voice«— 1ere’s some one I like more. “Oh,” sa the Count, and his dark d from her face, which had me v “He's going to marry me some day. He's just Jack Latimer, the stenog- her in the office. But I like him, and at’s all there is to it. But mommer’s terribly set on you. And.she's so de- ter Oh, Count de Lamolle, it's d to make determined people see things differently to what they want. So please, don’t want to marry me any more, for if you don’t want to, will have to end it.” e stopped, her lips trembling. The took her hand, cold and clammy, lifting it pressed his lips lightly the back. Then, dropping it, he rietly: is understood ly, Mademoiselle, by dence.” ent for a moment. The , the something > different from the 1 c miring criticism she as accustomed to—in the man’s eyes srought her uncomfortably close to rs. Few people had been kind to ackleton in the midst of her d splendor. t saw her em rd the fire. He feit more her than he had ever been his courtship. From the tail of he saw her little handkerchief out and then into her pocket. t disappeared he sald: ., Miss Shackletc that you album of views on the Might we not look at them to- You have hon- giv- n and some was that Bessie and Essex r. "Phey had worked through es of Northern Italy, and Switzerland. And over the flened pages with their photographs t one-half of which Maud nember though she had been to ces on her trip they being than abroad, friends ever earer CHAPTER XX after her-int with had appeared at st white-cheeked and apathetic. n nothing, and when gues- state of health had re- ad passed a sleepless eadache, tting had been r Cove gh the that she nothing, that the headache she the result of a wakeful evening before, when he to see the little boys in * had casualy asked them if they ing games that afternoon mi- ovpo He saw was s Benito had suggested, sit- in his cot and scratching the f his neck; “that's a hollering When I Any game with screams. 1 thought I heard shouts com- " said Miguel from i in the corner. “We v burying soldiers in the back d that's a game where you cut out of the papers, in ace. There’s no sorter ering 1 t. Sometimes we play e're erying, but that's quiet. said Benito sleepily, “it was reau’s gentleman in the par- I let him in. They might have singing. Now tell us the story ut the Indians and the pony ex- press This was 21l the satisfaction he got from the boys. After the story was told he did not go downstairs, but went into his own room and sat by his lit- tered le, thinking. The detaiis of his rance into the house a few hours be- > were engraved on his mind's e By the uncertain gaslight he saw the dark face of the stranger, with its slightly insolent droop of eyelid and non-committal line of clean-shaven lip. It was to his idea a disagreeable face. The simple man in him read through 1d of reserve to the complexi- ties beneath. The healthy frank Amer- n saw in it the intricate sophistica- of older civilizations, of vast com- munities where “God hath mmde man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.” On his ear again fell the cold polite- ness of the voice. Gamaliel Barron was too lacking in any form of self-con- ;usness, was too indifferently con- fident of himself as a Westerner, the equal of any and all human creatures, to experience that sensation of mau- vaise honte that men of smaller fiber are apt to feel in the presence of beings of superior polish. Polish was nothing to him. The man everything. And it seemed to him he had seen the man, deep down, In that one startled mo- ment of encounter in the hall. Thought- fully smoking and tiiting back in his chair, he mentally summed him ap in two words, “bad egg.” He would keep his eve on him, and to do so would put off the trip to the mines he was to take in the course of the next two weeks. The next morning Mariposa's appear- ance at the breakfast table roused the uneasiness he felt to poignant anxiety. With the keenness of growing love, he realized that it was the mind that was disturbed more than the body. He came home to lunch—an unusual deviation, as_he almost invariably lunched down ‘town at the Lick House—and found her at the table as pale and distrait as ever. After the meal was over he followed her into the hall. She was slowly as- cending the stairs, one hand on the bal- ustrade, her long, black dress sliding upward from stair to stair. - Hc followed her noiselessly, and at the top of the flight, turning to go to her room, ghe saw him and paused, her s sh hand Btill touching the rai “Miss Moreau,” he said, out—too tired to teach. Let me 0 aad put off your pupils. I've a lot of spare time this afternoon.” “How kind of you,” she said, Jooking fairtly surprise “I haven't any this atternoon, luckily. I don’t work every day; that’s the point I'm trying to work up to; that’s my highest ambition.’ She looked down at his upturnei face anc gave a slight smile. “Is it overwork that kept you awake last night and makes you look so paie »-day ?” he queried in a lowered Vi i away her face rather impatiently I'm wor- ried, I suppose. Everybody has to be worried, don’t they?” “I can't bear to have yon There isn’t one wild, crazy thi world 1 wouldn’t do to prevent H:> was looking up at her with his soul in his eyes. Barron w: not the man to hide or juggle with his love. It possessed him now and shone on his Mariposa’s eyes turned from it as from the scrutiny of something at once painful and holy. He laid his hand on hers on the rail. “You know that,” he sald, his deep voice shaken. Her eves dropped to the hands and she mechanically noticed how white her fingers locked between his large, brown She drew them softly away, feel- ing his glance keen, impassioned and unwavering on her face. “Something’s troubling you,” he con- tinuved in the same voice. “Why won't you let me help you? You needn’t tell me what it is, but you might let me help you. What am I here for but to take care of you, and fight for you, and protect you?” The words were Indescribably sweet to the lonely girl. All_the- previous night she had tossed on her pillow haunted by terror of Essex and what he intended to do. She had felt herself completely helpless, and her uncer- tainty at what step he meant to take was torturing. For one moment of weakness she thought of pouring it all out to the man beside her, whose strong hand on her own had seemed symbolic of the grip, firm and fearless, he could take on the situation that was threat- Then she realized the im- sibility of such a thing and drew k from the railing. ou can’t help me,” she said; one can.” He mounted a step and stretched his hand over the railing to try to detain her. “But I can do one thing; I can a ways be here, here close to you, ready to come when you call m ther in trouble or for advice. If ever you want help, help of any kind, I'll be here. And if you had need of me I think I'd know it, and no matter where I was, I'd come. Remember that.” She had half turned away toward her door as he spoke, and now stood in pro- file, a tall figure, with her throat and wrists looking white as milk against the hard black line of her dress. She seemed a picture painted in few colors, - a coppery bronze, and her lips a clear, pale red, being the brightest tones in the composition. “Will you remember?” he said. “Yes,” she murmured. “And when you want help come to me, or call for me, and if I were at the ends of the world I'd hear you and come.” he turned completely away without wering, and, opening her door, van- ished into her room. For the next three or four days she looked much the same. Barron’s anxiety about her, though not again openly expressed, continued. He was certain that some blow to her peace of mind had been delivered the man he had seen in the hall. did not like to question her, or attempt an intrusion into her confiden: but he remembered the few words she had dropped thet evening. The man’s name was Essex, and he was a friend of Mrs. Willers'. Barron had known Mrs. Willers for years. He had been a guest in the house during the period of her tenancy, and thopgh he did not see her frequently, had retained an agree- able memory of her and her daughter. It was therefore with great relief that, a few days after his meeting with Essex, he encountered her in the heart of a gray afternoon crossing Union- square Plaza. Mrs. Willers was hastening down to The Trumpet office after a morning's work in her own rooms. She greeted Barron with a friendly hail, and they paused for a moment's chat in the middle of the plaza. “You're looking fresh as a summer morning,” said the mining man, whose life, spent searching for the mineral secrets of the Slerra, had not made him conversant with those of complexions like Mrs. Willers’. “Oh, get out!” said she, greatly pleased; “I'm too old for that sort of taffy. It's almost Edna’s turn now.” “I'll be afrald to see Edna soon. She's going to be such a beauty that the only safety’s in flight.” The mother was even more pleased at this. “You're right,” she said, nodding at him with a grave eye; “Edna’s a beauty. Where she gets it from is what stumps me. My glass tells me it’s not from her mommer, and my memory tells me it's not from her pop- per” “There’'s 2 man on your paper called Essex,” sald Barron, who was not one to beat about the bush; “what sort of a fellow is he, Mrs. Willers?” “A bad sort, I'm inclined to think. Why do you ask?” “He was at the house the other after- noon, calling on Miss Moreau. I met him in the hall. I didn’t cotton to him at all. She told me he was a friend of yours and a writer on The Trumpet.” He looked at her inquiringly, hardly liking to go farther till she gave him some encouragement. He noticed that her expression had changed and that she was eying him with a”hard, con- sidering attention. “Why didn’t you like his looks?” she saild. . “Well, I've seen men like that before —at the mines. Good-looking chaps, who are sort of imitation gentlemen, ce. ones. no and try to make you take the imita- tion for the real thing by putting on dog. I didn’t like his style, anyhow, and I don’t think she does, either.” “You're right about that,” said Mrs. Willers; “do you know what he was there for?"” “Something about music lessons, she said. I didn’t like to ask her.” “Music lessons!” exclaimed Mrs. Wil- lers, with a strong inflection of sur- ” said Barron, uneasy at her tone and the strange look of aimost agitated astonishment on her face; “and I'm under the impression he said something to her that frightened her. As I was coming up the steps that af- ternoon I heard distinctly some one call out in the drawing-room. I burst in on the full jump, for I was certain it was a woman's voice, and that man came out of the drawing-room as I opened the door. He was smooth as a summer sea; said he hadn’t heard a sound, and went out smirking. Then I went into the drawing-room to see who had been in there and found Miss Moreau, lean- ing against the wall and white as my cuffs.” He looked frowningly at Mrs. Wil- lers. She had listened without moving, her face rigidly attentive. “Mariposa didn’t tell you what they'd been talking about?” she asked. “No; she told me nothing. And when T asked her about the screams she said I'd been mistaken. But I hadn’t, Mrs. Willers. That man had scared her some way, and she'd screamed. She called for Benito and Mrs. Garcia. I heard her. And she's looked pale and miserable ever since. What does that blackguard ccme to see her for, any- way? What's he after?"” “Her,” said Mrs. Willers, solemnly; e wants to marry her.” “Wants to marry her! That foreign spider! Well, he’s got a gall. Humph!” Words of sufficient scorn seemed to fail him. That he should be similarly aspiring did not at that moment strike. him as a reason for moderation in his censure of a rival. “And is he trying to scare her into marrying him? I wish I'd known that. I'd have broken his neck in the hall.” “Don’t you go round breaking peo- ple’s necks,” said Mrs. Willers, “but I'm glad you're in that house. If Barry Es- sex is going to try to make her marry him by bullying and bulldozing her, I'm giad there's a man there to keep him in his place. That's no way to win a woman, Mr. Barron. I know, for that's the way Willers courted me. Wouldn't hear of my saying no; said he'd shoot himself. Iknew even then he wouldn’t, but I didn’t know but what he'd try to wound himself somewhere where it didn’t hurt, leaving a letter for me that would be published in the morning pa- per. So I married him to get rid of him, and then I had to get the law in to get rid of him a second time. A man that badgers a woman into mar- rying him is no good. You can bank that.” “Well,” said Barron,“I'm glad you've told me this. I'll keep my eye on Mr. Essex. 1 was going to the mines next but I'll put it off.” But don’t let on to Mariposa I've told you. She wouldn’t like he's a proud girl. But I'll tell you, Mr. Barron, she’s a good one, too; one of the best kind, and I love her nearly as much as my own girl. But lock!” glancing at an adjacent cleck with a start, “I must be traveling. Tt uff’s got to go in at once.” “Good-by,” said Barron, holding”out s hand; “it's a good thing we had this minute talk.” “Good-by,” she answered, returning the pressure with a grip almost as manly; “it'’s been awfully good to see vou again. I must get a move on. So long.” And they parted, Barron turning his face toward the Garcia house, where he had an engagement to take the boys to the beach at the foot of Hyde street, and Mrs. Willers hurrying to The Trumpet office. Her walk did not occupy more than fifteen minutes, and during that time the anger roused by the mining man’s words grew apace. From smothered fndignation it passed to a state of sim- mering passion. Her conscience heated it still further, for it was she who had introduced Essex to Mariposa, and in the first stage of their acquaintance had in a careless way encouraged the friendship, thinking it would be cheer- ful for the solitary girl to have the oc- casional companionship of this clever and interesting man of the world. She had thoughtlessly kindled a fire that might burn far past her power of con- trol and lead to irreparable disaster. She ran up the stairs of The Trumpet bullding with the lightness of a girl of sixteen. Ire gave wings to her feet, and it was ire as much as the speed of her ascent that made her catch her breath quickly at the top of the fourth flight. Still, even then, she might have held her indignation in check—years of training in expedient self-control being a powerful force in the energetic busi- ness woman—had she not caught a glimpse of Essex in his den as she passed the open door. He was sitting at his desk, leaning languidly back in his chair, evidently thinking. His face, turned toward her, looked worn and hard, the lids droop- ing with their air of faintly bored in- solence. Hearing the rustle of her dress, he looked up and saw her mak- ing a momentary pause by the door- way. He did not look pleased at the sight of her. “Ah, Mrs. Willers,” he sald, leaning forward to pick up his pen and speak- ing with the crisp clearness of utter- ance certain people employ when irri- tated, “what is it that you want to see me about?” “Nothing,” said Mrs. Willers abrupt- Iy and with battle in her tone; “why should I?” “I have not the least idea,” he an- swered, looking at his pen, and then, dipping it in the ink, “unless perhaps you want a few hints for your forth- coming article, ‘The Kind of Shoe- strings Worn by the Crowned Heads of Europe.” Essex was out of temper himself. ‘When Mrs. Willers interrupted him he had been thinking over the situation e N\ with Mariposa, and it had seemed to him very cheerless. His remark was well calculated .to enrage the leading spirit of the woman’s page, who was as proud of her weekly contributions as though they had been inspired by the genius of George Eliot. “Well,” she said, and her rouge be- came quite unnecessary in the flood of natural color that rose to her face, “if 1 was going to tackle that subject I think you’'d be about the best perscn to come to for information. For if you ever have had anything to do with crowned heads it's been as their boot- black.” Essex was startled by the stinging malice revealed in this remark. He swung round on his swivel chair and sat facing hi« antagonist, making no at- tempt to rise, although she entered the roum. As he saw her face in the light of the window he realized that for the first time he saw the woman stirred out of her carefully acquired profes- sional calm. - As she entered she pushed the door to behind her, and, taking the chair be- side the desk, sat down. “Mr. Essex,” she said, word with you.” “Any number,” he answered with ironical politeness. “Do you wish the history of my connection with the crowned heads as court bootblack?” “No,” she said. “I want to know what business you've got to go to Mrs. Garcia’s boarding-house and frighten one of the ladies living there?” An instantaneous change passed over Essex’s face. His eyes seemed sud- denly to grow veiled as they narrowed to a cold, non-committal slit. His mouth hardened. Mrs. Willers saw the muscles of his cheeks tighten. “Really,” he said, “this sudden inter- est in me is quite flattering. I hardly know what to say.” He spoke to gain time, for he was amazed and enraged. Mariposa had evidently made a confidante of Mrs. ‘Willers, and he knew that Mrs. Willers was high in favor with Winslow Shackleton and his'mother. “In this country, Mr. Essex,” Mrs. Willers went on, clenching her hands in her lap, for they trembled with her indignation, “men don’t scare and browbeat young women who den’t hap- pen to have the good taste to favor them. When a man gets the mitten he knows enough to get out.” “Very clever of him, no doubt,” he murmured with unshaken suavity. “If you're going to live here you've got to live by our laws. You've got to do as the Romans do. And take my word for it, young, man, the Romans don't approve of nagging and scaring a woman into marriage.” “No?” he answered with a blandly questioning.inflection, “these are inter- esting facts in local manners and cus- toms. I'm sure they'd be of value to some one who was making a special study of the subject. Personally I am not interested in the California abor- igines. Even the original and charm- ing specimen now before me would oblige me greatly by withdrawing. It is now”—looking at the clock that stood on the side of the desk—"half-past two, my time is valuable, my dear Mrs. illers.” Mrs. [Willers rose to her feet, burn- ing with rage. “Put me off any way you like,” she said, “and be as fresh and smart as you know how. But I tell you, young man, this has got to stop. That girl's got no one belonging to her here. But don’t imagine from that you can have the field to yourself and go on persecut- ing her. No—this is not France nor Spain, nor any other old monarchy, where a woman didn't have any more to say about herself than a mule, or a pet parrot. No, sir. You've run up against the wrong proposition if you think you can scare a woman into mar- rying you in California in the nine- teenth century.” Essex rose from his chair. pale. “Look here,” he said in a low voice, “I've had enough of this. By what right, I'd like to know, do you dare to dictate to me or interfere in my ac- quaintance with another lady?” “I'd dare more than that, Barry Es- sex,” said Mrs. Willers, with her rouge standing out red on her white face, “to save that girl from a man like you. I don’t know what I wouldn’t dare. But I'm a good fighter when my blood is up, and I'll fight you on this point till'one or the other of us drops.” She saw Essex's nostrils fan softly in and out. His cheek-bones looked prom- ihent. “Will you kindly leave this room?” he said in a suppressed voice. “Yes,” she answered, “I'm going now. But understand that I'm making no idle threats. And if this persecution goes on I'll tell Winslow Shackleton of the way you're acting to a friend of his and a protegee of his mother’s.” She was at the door and had the han- dle in her hand. Essex turned on her a face of livid malignity. “Really, Mrs. Willers,” he said, “I had no idea you were entitled to speak for Winslow Shackleton. I congratulate you.™ For a moment of blind rage, Mrs. ‘Willers neither spoke nor moved. Then she felt'the door-handle turn under her hand and the door push inward. She mechanically stepped to one side, as it opened, and the -office boy intruded his head. “I knocked here twict, and y'aint answered,” he said apologetically. “There’s a man to see you, Mr. Essex, what says he’s got something to say about a new kind of balloon.” “Show him in,” said Essex, “and—oh —ah—Jack, show Mrs. Willers out.” Jack gaped at this curious order. Mrs. Willers brushed past him and walked up the hall to her own cubby-hole. She was compassed in a lurid mist of fury, and through this she felt dimly that she had done no good. “Did getting in a rage ever do any good?” she thought desperately, as she sank into her desk chair. Her article lay unnoticed and for- gotten by her side, while she sat staring at her scattered papers, trying to decide through the storm that still shook her whether she had done well in “I want a He was throwing down her gage in defense of her friend. % CHAPTER XXI. It was the afternoon of Edna Willers’ music lesson. Over a week had elapsed since Mariposa’s interview with Essex, yet to-day, as she stood at her window looking out at the threatening sky, her fears of him were as active as ever. Though he had made no further sign, her woman's intuitions warned her that this was but a temporary lull in his campaign. She went out with the fear of meeting him driving her into unfre- quented streets. The music lesson had hardly begun when the rain was lashing the window and pouring down the panes in fury., Darknees fell with it. The night seemed to drop on the city in an in- stant, coming with a whirling rush of wind and falling waters. The house- wifely little Edna drew the curtains and lit the gas, saying as she settled back on her music-stool: “You'd better stay to dinner with me, Mariposa. Mommer won’t be home till late because it's Wednesday. and the back part of the woman’s page goes to press.” “Oh, T couldn’t stay to-night,” said Mariposa hurriedly, affrighted by the thought of the walk home alone at ten o'clock, which she had often before taken without a tremor; “I must go quite soon. I fogot it was the day when the back sheet goes to press. Go on, Edna, it will be like the middle of the night by the time we finish.” This was indeed the case. When the lesson was over, the evening outside was shrouded in a midnight darkness to an accompaniment of roaring rain. It was a torrential downpour, The two girls, peering out into the street, could see by the blurred rays of the lamps a swimming highway, down which a car dashed at intervals, spattering the blackness with the broken lights of its windows. Despite the child’s urgings to remain, Mariposa insisted on going. She was well prepared for wet she said, folding her circular about her and re- moving the elastic band that held to- gether her disreputable umbrella. But she did not realize the force of the storm till she found herself in the street. By keeping in the lee of the houses on the right-hand side, she could escape the full fury of the wind, and she began slowly making her way up- ward. 3 She had gone some distance when the roll of music she carried slipped from under her arm and fell into water and darkness. She groped for it, clutched its saturated cover, and brought it up dripping. The music was of value to her, and she moved forward to where the light of an uncurtained window cut the darkness, revealing the top of a ‘wall. Here she rested the roll and tried to wipe it dry with her handkerchief. Her face, down-bent and earnest, was distinctly visible in the shaft of light. A man, standing opposite, who had been patrolling these streets for the past hour, saw it, gave a smothered exclamation, and crossed the street. He was at her side before she saw him. Several hours earlier Essex had been passing down a thoroughfare in that neighborhood, when he had met Benito, slowly wending his way homeward from school. The child recognized him and smiled, and with the smile, Essex recollected the face and saw that fate was still on his side. Pressing a quarter into Benito's readily extended palm, he had inquired if the boy knew where Miss Moreau ‘was. “Mariposa?” said Benito, with easy familiarity; “she’s at Mrs. Willers’ giv- ing Edna her lesson. This is Wednes- day, ain’t it? Well, Edna gets her les- son on. Wednesdays from half-past four till half-past five, and so that's where Mariposa is. But she's gener- ally late ’cause she stays and talks to Mrs. Willers.” At five o’clock, shelterc~ by the drip- ping dark, Essex began his furtive watch of the streets along which she might pass. He knew that every day was precious to him now, with Mrs. ‘Willers among his enemies and ready to enlist Winslow Shackleton against him. Here was an opportunity to see the girl, better than the parlor of the Garcia house offered, with its officlous boarders. There was absolute seclu- sion in these back and rain-swept streets. He had been prowling about for ai hour when he finally saw her. A dozen times he had c¢ursed under his breath fearing she had escaped him; now his relief was such that he ran toward her, and with a rough hand swept aside her umbrella. In the clear light of the un- curtained pane she saw his face, and shrank back against the wall as if she had been struck. Then a second im- puilse seized her and she tried to dash past him. He seemed prepared for this and caught her by the arm through her cloak, swinging her violently back to her place against the wall. % Keeping his grip on her he said, try- ing to smile: “What are you afraid of? Don't you know me?” “Let me go,” she said, “you're hurting me.” “I don’t want to hurt you,” he an- swered, “but I mean to keep you for a moment. I want to talk to you. And I'm going to talk to you.” “I won’t listen to you. Let me go at once. How cowardly to hold me in this way against my will!” She tried again to wrench her arm out of his grasp, but he held her like a vise. Her resistance of him and the re- pugnance in her face and voice mad- dened him. He felt for a moment that he would like to batter her against the wall. “There’s no use trying to get away, and telling me how much you hate me. I've got you here at last. I'll not let you go till I've had my say.” He put his face down under the tent of her umbrella and gazed at her with menacing eyes and tight lips. In the light of the window and against the inky blackness around them the two- faces were distinct as cameos hung on a velvet background. He saw the ‘whiteness of her chin on the bow be- neath it,‘and her mouth, with the lips that all the anger in the world could struggling, not make hard or unlovely, “Yeu've got to listen to'me,” he said, shaking her arm as if trying to shake some passion into the set antagonism of her face: “you've got to be my wife,” She suddenly seized her wumbrella and, turning it toward him, pressed it down between them. The action was 80 quick and unexpected that the man did not move bacR, and the ferrule striking him on the cheek, furrowed a long scratch on the smooth skin. A drop of blood rose to the surface. With an oath, he seized the umbrellg and, tearing it from her grasp, sent it flying into the street. Here the wind snatched it, and its inyerted shape, like a large black mushroom, went sweep- ing forward, tilted and already half full of water, before the angry gusts. Essex tried to keep his own over her, still retaining his hold on her arm. “Come, be reasonable,” he said; “there’s no use angering me for noth- ing. This is a wet place for lovers to have meetings. Give me my answer, and I swear I'll not detain you. When will you marry me?” 4 “What's the good of talking that way? You know perfectly what I'll say. It will always be the same.” “I'm not so sure of that. I've got something to say that may make you change your mind.” He pushed the umbrella. back that the light might fall directly on her. Tt fell on him also. She saw his face under the brim of his soaked hat, shining with rain, pallidly sinister, the trickle of blood on one cheek. “Nothing that you can say will ever make me change my mind. Mr. Essex, I am wet and tired; won't you please, let me go? . She tried to eliminate dislike and fear from her voice and spoke with a gentle- ness that she hoped would soften him. He heard it with a thrill; but it had an exactly contrary effect t0 what she had desired. would like never to let you go. Just to hold you here and look at you. Mari- posa, you don't know what this love is I have for you. It grows with absence, and then when I see you it grows again again with the sight of you. It's eating into me like a poison. I can’'t get away from it. You loved me once, why have you changed? What has come over you? Is it because I made a foolish mistake? I'm ready to do anything you suggest— crawl in the dust, kneel now in the rain, and ask you to forgive it. Don’t be hard and revengefu It’s not like you. Be kigd, be merciful to a man who, if he sdld what hurt you, has repented it with all his soul ever since. I am ready to give my whole life to make amends. Say you forgive me. Say you love me. He was speaking the fruth. Passion had outrun cupidity. Mariposa, poor or rich, had become the end and aim of his existence. “It's not a question of forgiveness,™ she answered, seeing he still persisted in the thought that she was hiding her love from wounded pride; “it's not a question of love. I—I—don’t like you. Can’t you understand that? I donm't like you." . not true—it’s not true,” he vocif- erated. “You love me—say you do.” He shook her by the arm as though to shake the words out of her reluctant lips. The brutal roughness of the action spurred her from fear to indignation. “It's not love. It's not even hate. It's just repulsion and dislike. I can’t bear to look at you, or have you come near me, and to have you hold me, as you're doing now, is as if some horrible thing like a spider or a snake was crawling on_me. . AmId the rustling and the splashing of the rain they again looked at each other for a flerce, pallid moment. Another drop of blood on his cheek detached it- self and ran down. He had no free hand with which to wipe it off. “Yet you're going to marry me” he said softly. “I've heard enough of this,” she cried. “I'm not going to stand here talking to 2 madman. It's early vet and these houses are full of people. If I give one cry every window will go up. I don't want to make a scene here on the street, but if you detain me any longer talking in this crazy way, that's what I'll have " to do. “Just wait one moment beforé you take such desperate measures. I want to ask you a question before you.call out the neighborhood to protect you. How do you think the story of your mother's and father's early history will look on the front page of The Era In the light of the window that fell 2cross them both he had the satisfaction of seeing her face freeze into horrified amazement. “It will be the greatest scoop The Era’s had since The Trumpef became Shackleton's property There's not a soul here that even suspects it. It will be a bombshell to the city, involving peo- ple of the highest position, like the Shackletons, and people of the most un- questioning respectability, 1ike the Mor- eaus. Oh—it will be good reading!” Her eyes, fastened on hitq, were full of anguish, but it bad not: bewildered her. 1In the stress of the moment her mind remained clear and active. “Is the world Interested in stories of the dead?” she heard herself saying in a cold voice. “Everybody's interested in scandals. And what a scandal it is! How people will smack their lips over it! Shackle- ton a Mormon, and you his only legiti- mate child. * Your mofper and father, that all the world honored, common free- lovers. Your mother sold to your father for a pair of horses, and living with him in a cabin in the Sierra for six months before they even attempted ‘to straight- en things out by a bogus marriage cere- mony. Why, it's a splendid story! The Era’s had nothing with as much ginger as that for months!” “And who'd believe you? . Who are you to know about the early histories of the pioneer families? Who'd believe the words of a man who comes from nobody %nows where, whose very name people doubt? If Mrs. Shackleton and I deny the. truth of your story, who'd believe you then?” “You forget that I have under my hand the man who was witness of the transaction whereby Moreau bought Tea: your mother from Shackleton for a pair of horses” ‘A_drunken thief! father had and ran away. Can his word carry the same weight as mine to whose interest it would be to prove my- self Shackleton’s daughter? No. The only real proof in existence-is the mar- riage certificate. And I have that. And so long as I h that any story you choose to publish I can up and deny.” He knew she was right. Even With Harney his story would be discredited, unbacked by the one piece of genuine evidence of the first marr the cer- tificate which she Her unex- pected recognition of the point stag- gered him. He had thought to break her resistance by threats which even to him seemed s eful, and only excusable be- cause of the stress he found himself in. Now he saw her as deflantly uncon- quered as ever;‘ tlfo his rage he pushed A e ‘“Deny, deny you deny or not, the.thing will have been said. Next Sunday the whole city, the whole State will be ing it—how you're Shackleton's daughter .and your mother was Moreau’s mistress. But say one word—one little word to me, and not a syllable will be written, not a ‘whisper spoken. On one side there's happiness and luxury and love, and on the other disgrace and poverty- ur disgrace alone, He stole all my