The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 18, 1906, Page 4

m down to escort my niece. couldn’'t come, so I was offered up. Mercedes had a notion she had to have the males of her family grouped round her to-night and telegraphed up for one of us. Dan would rather shut down the Cresta Plata than disappoint her, 0 as he couldn’t come I had to.” “You're being broken in early. At my age it's about all a fellow's good for. I take the girls wherever they go, and what's more, I enjoy it. Have you seen them yet?” He indicated the white-robed figures of June and Rosamund In front of him. Rion nodded. Before he had spoken to the colonel he had stood just behind him watching June. Her back was toward him but as she turned he caught glimpses of her profile. He had not dared to speak to her. His stop with the colonel was a halfway halt, a pause to galn courage, cheered by & hope that the older man might break the ice of their meeting. “How are they?’ he said In a matter- of-fact tone, while his heart pounded with mingled hope and dread of June’s turning and Seeing him. “Well, very well,” said the other brisk- ly samund’s a perfect picture of heslth and happiness. And June—well, perhaps she's a little thin and not quite up to her usual spirits. But she looks very pretty to-night.” He walted to see what Rion would say to this. The colonel had wondered of late if his friend had heard any gossip of June and Barclay. He knew the min- ing man led a simple life of engrossing work among men, far from the circles where the meaner spirits of the world seek to unvell the hidden wounds of their fellows. Rion's answer struck upon his complacency with an impact of disturbing surprise. “Do you know if Barclay's here yetT Have you seen bim? Mercedes sent me to find out if he'd come. He sald he'd be late, and she seems to think it's about time for him to illuminate the place by his presence. But I can’t find him.” “Barclay!” exclalmed the older man in 2 disgusted tone. “What's Mercedes want with him? A handsome girl like that htn't to bother her head about a k like Barclay Go slow, Jim, go slow now,” sald Rion, laughing; and placing his big hand on the colonel's shoulder he pressed it hard. “Mustn’t talk that way to me about Jerry any more. He's going to become a member of the family. He and Mer- cedes are engaged. It's announced to- night, That's why I'm here. That's why Mercedes wanted the men of the family to rally round her, and lend the weight of their approval to something they don’t approve of at all.” For the first moment the colonel was too0 staggered to speak. He had expected it—as Rosamund had—but not so soon, not s0 indecently soon. His mind leaped for- ward to the certainty of June's hearing it from & partner and something essing happening. ‘Stay here, Rion, for a moment,” he d quietly. “I want to speak to Rosa- ar ot Even as he stepped forward, Rosamtind, a few yards in front of them, wheeled suddenly from the two men before her, and came toward him. One glance at her face told him that she too had heard “Uncle Jim,” she whispered, as they came together and she made a desperate clutch at him, “quick! something dread- 's happened. Mercedes and Jerry are aged and it's announced to-night. Everybody’s talking of 't, Jack Griscom’s just told me. What'll we do? June may hear it at any moment. We've got to get her away before she does.” June stood just beyond them. Breaking into Rosamund’s last words came the lit- tle blow of her fan striking the floor. Her ,gramme fluttered down beside it. Why, Miss Allen,” said her companion, a vouth who had been the first to impart the news of the evening, “what is it? You're dropping everything.” As he bent on his knees to pick up the fallen properties, the colonel roughly pushed him aside. June's stricken face eppalled him. He drew one of her hands through his arm, and sald in & low tu- itative voice: Come. We're going Nome. Walk to he door and I'll get the carriage in a min ” E ade an effort, and turning moved toward the door. In the passing in and out of laughing people, flushed with exer- se and pleasure, no one noticed her ex- cept Rion, who suddenly saw her ap- proach and sweep by, her eyes staring her, her face set llke a stone. mund had taken the fan and pro- gramme from the astonished boy, and with a rapid sentence to the effect that her sister felt faint, followed them. Rion dared to touch her arm as she passed through the doorway. “What's the matter with June?' he said bruskly. “She looks as if she were dying.” \“She’s sick. She—she—feels faint. it's—a sort of an attack.” She hurried on down the long flagged hall, at one side of which was the dress- ing-room. Rion followed and saw the three enter it. He stood outside, irreso- not liking to look In through the open doorway and unable to go away. Presently the colonel emerged, saw him, and hurrying toward him, said in quick, low-toned urgency: You're just the man I want. June's sick. I'm going to get the carriage and 1 don't want any of these fools of people round here to see her. You bring her down as soon as she's ready.” “What's the matter with her?” Rion asked again. “Is it serious?" “It's—it's—the heart,” said the colonel, bent on shielding his darling even to her lover and his own friend. “‘She's—she's— had attacks before. Yes, it's damned seri- ous.” He was gone with the words, and Rion, standing by the dressing-room door, Jooked in and caught a glimpse of June standing between Rosamund, who was fastening her cloak, and a white-capped negress who was draping a lace scarf over bher head. She looked like a sleep walker, wide eyved and pallid under their arrang- ing bhands. He did not move away this time, but instead walked to the door and said to Rosamund: “The colonel wants me to take you to the carriage.” As they moved toward him he entered, drew June’s hand inside his arm and wilked down the hall to the door. There were several short flights of marble steps leading from the porch to the street. When he came to these he threw her cloak aside, pushing it out of his way,. put his arm around her and half carried ber down. Her body in the grasp of his arm seemed pitifully small and frail. She eaid nothing, but he felt that she trem- bled like a person in a chill. At the foot of the steps the carriage stood. the colonel at the door. The hour was an auspicious one for an unseen exit. It was too late for the most dilatory guest to be arriving, and too early for the most unfestal to be leaving. The street was devold of pedestrians and vehicles, and lit by the diminishing dots of lamps and the gushes of light from the illum- inated house, presented a vista of echoing desertion. The colone! opened the carridge door, helped Rosamund in first and lifted June in after her. He was standing with the handle in his hand when a footstep he It's— had vaguely heard advancing through the silence struck loud on his ear. He turned quickly and saw & man come into view from the angle of the side street, walk rapidly toward the house, and then stop with that air of alertly poised hesitancy which suggests a suddenly caught and concentrated attention. The object of this attention was the colonel’s figure, and as the newcomer stood in that one arrested moment of motionless scrutiny, the col- onel saw by the light of an adjacent lamp that it was Jerry Barclay. They recognized each other, and the advancing man drew back quickly into the shadow of the house. “Rlon,” sald the colonel, turning to his friend, “‘wouid you mind taking the girls home? I've just remembered something I have to do that will detein me for a few minutes. I'll go round the other way and be at Folsom street almost as soon as you are.” He walted to see Rion enter and then slammed the door on him, and drew back from the curb. Asg the carriage disappeared around the corner he walked forward to the spot where Jerry was concealed. He could see his figure pressed back against the fence, faintly discernible as a darker bulk amid the darkness about it, a pale line of shist bosom showing between the stralght blackness of the loosened coat fronts. “1 knew that was you, Jerry,” he sald. “It's no good hiding. Jerry stepped forward into the light of the lamp. He was enraged and chagrined at the encounter. ““Hidin, he exclaimed “Why should I be hiding?” The colonel came close to him and said with low-toned emphasis: “Because you're a llar and a coward, Jerry Barclay; and you were afraid to meat me.” haughtily. Jerry drew back crying with amazed rage: *“‘Colonel Parrish!” “And you tried to hide from me to- night when I know what you are and what you've done. You scrub—you—"' Barclay hit furiously at him, but the older man evaded the blow, and selzing him by the loosened fronts of his coat, with his open hand struck him on both sides of the face and then flung him agalinst the fence. He squared himself to meet an onslaught but Jerry struck heav- fly and feil, a dark, sprawling mass on the sidewalk. The oath that he shouted as he reeled back was bitten in two by an ejaculation of pain and he lay mation- less, groaning in the dark. “Stay there and howl,” sald the col- onel. “If I stayed another moment I'd kick you as you lle.” And he turned and ran down the street. The rattle of a carriage struck his ear and a coupe turned the corner, its lamps glaring like two round yel- low eyes. He hailed it, thrust a hand- ful of silver into the driver’'s hand, and gave him the Allen address on Folsom street. As the carriage rattled across town he lay back, his blood singing in his ears, his heart racked with rage and pain. He had done no good, probably been very foolish. But as June's face rose on his memory, he wished he had hit harder, and the recollection of Jerry groaning against the fence soothed his pain. CHAPTER XIIL The Breaking Polnt. In the middle of the December after- noon the colonel had come in early to his rooms to change his coat and brush up a bit. He was going to call on the wife of a pioneer friend who had just returned from Europe. The colonel was punctilious and called in a black coat, which he now stood brushing beside the window and anxiously surveying, for he had been a man who was careful of his dress, and the coat looked shiny. It was a chill gray day and he looped back the lace curtains to see better. Outside, the fog was beginning to send in long advancing wisps which pro- jected a cold breath into the warmest corners of the city. A mental picture rose on his mind of the sand dunes far out with the fleecy curls and clouds sifting noiselessly over them The vision was not cheering and he put it out of his mind, and in order to en- liven his spirits, which were low, he whistled softly as he brushed. The room—the bare hotel parlor of that kind of suite which has a small windowless bedroom behind it~ looked out on the life of one of the downtown streets. The Travelers’ Hotel had not yet aquite fallen from grace, though the days of its pros- perpus prime were past. On the block opposite it a few old sheds of wood and corrugated iron (relics of the early fifties) toppled against one another and sheltered a swarming vagabond life. The hotel it- self still preserved its dignity. The shops on its ground floor were respectable and clean. There was a good deal of Spanish and Iitalian spoken 1n them, which seemed to accord with their pink and blue door frames, the Madeira vines growing in their windows, and the smell of garlic that they exhaled at midday. The colonel was giving the coat a last inspection when a knock made him start. His visitors were few, and his eyes were expectantly fixed on the door when in an- swer to his “come in” it slowly opened. A whiff of perfume and a rustle of silks heralded the entrance of June, who stood somewhat timidly on tne threshold look- ing in. “Junie!” cried the colonel in delighteq surprise. “My girl come to see the' old man in his lair!” And he took her by the hand and drew her in, kissing her as he shut the door, and rolling up his best armchair. She did not sit down at once and he said, still holding her hand by the tips of the fingers and looking her over ad- iringly: “Well, aren’t you a beautiful sight! And just the best girl in the world to come down here and see me.” She smiled faintly and answered: “Wasn't I lucky to find you? I've been coming for some days only—only—" she sat down on the arm of the chair, prod- ding at the carpet with the end of her umbrella and looking down, Only you had so many other things to do,” he suggested.. “No, not that,” still looking down at the tip of the umbrella. “Only I think quite enough courage.” She rose from the arm chair and walked to the window. As she moved the rustle of her rich cfess and the perfume it ex- haled filled the room. The colonel looked at her uneasily. M was three weeks since the Davenport ball. She had kept her room for some days after the ball, saying she was sick. After that she had ap- peared, looking miserably ill, and in man- ner cold and uncommunicative. She had spoken of Jerry's engagement to no ome, not even to Rosamund. To the colonel she had been gentle, quiet, and for the first time in their acquaintance indiffer- ent and unresponsive. What her appear- ance this afternoon portended he could not guess. t “Not enough courage!” he now repeat- ed. “Was there ever any time since I've known you when you wanted courage to come to me?” “Never before,” she answered, standing with her back to him looking out of the window. Her voice, her attitude, her profile against the pane, were expressive of the completest dejection. She was expen- sively and beautifully dressed in a crisp silken gown of several shades of blue. Every detail of her appearance was ele- gant and fastidious. In her years of city life she had developed all the ex- travagance, the studious considera- tion of her ralment, of a fashion- able woman. Now her costly dress, the jeweled ornaments she wore, her gloves, her hat with its long blue feather that rested on her bright- colored hair, the tip of the shoe that peeped from her skirt, combined to make her a figure of notable feminine finish and distinction. And surrounded by this elaboration of careful dainti- ness, her heaviness of spirit seemed thrown up into higher relief. “‘Come, sit down,” said the colgnel, rolling the chair toward her, “I can't talk comfortably to you when you stand there with your back to me look- ing out of the window as if we'd been quarreling.” She returned to the chair and obe- diently sank into it. Her hands hung over its arms, one of them languidly holding the umbrella. He had thought his suggestion about quarreling would make her laugh, but she did not seem to have heard it. “And now,” he sald, drawing a chair up beside her, “let's hear what it is you hadn’'t the courage to tell to your Uncle Jim? Have you been rdbbing or murdering, or what?"’ “I've been staying in the house most- ly, looking out of the window. I—don't feel much like going out. I—oh, Uncle Jim,” she said, suddenly turning her head as it rested on the chair-back and dwell on his, “I've been ¢ leaned forward and took her hand, He had nothing to say, Her ‘words needed no further commentary than that furnished by her appearance. ‘With the afternoon light shining on her face, she looked a woman of thirty, worn and thin. All the freshness of the young girl was gone. “That's what I've come to talk about,” she said. “I don’t feel some- times as if I could live here any longer, as if I could breathe here. I hate to go out. I hate to meet people. Every corner I turn I'm afraid that I may meet them — and —and—then—" her voice suddenly became hoarse and she sat up and cleared her throat. For a moment a heavy silence held the room. Then the colonel broke it. “How would you like to go up to Foleys for a while?” he suggested. “Your father wi telling me the other day that the superintendent of the Bar- ranca had a nice little house and a very decent sort of wife. You could stay there. It would be a change.” “Foleys! she echoed. “Oh, not Folexs! It's too full of the past be- fore anything had happened. No, I want to go away, far away, away from everything. That's what I came to talk about. I want to go to Europe.” “Burope!” he exclaimed blankly. “But—but—youw’d be gone for months.” “Yes, that's just it. That's what I want—to be gone for months, for years even. 1 want to get away from San Francisco and California and every- thing I know here.” The colonel was silent. He felt sud- denly depressed and chilled. San Fran- cisco without June! His life without June! The mean little room with its hideous wall paper and cheap furniture came upon him with its true dreary strangeness. The city out- side grew suddenly a hollow place of wind and fog. Life, that was always so full for him, grew blank with a sense of cold, nostalgic empti- ness. He had never realized before how she illumined every corner of it. “Well, dearle,” he said, trying to speak cheerfully—“that sounds a big undertaking; sort of thing you don't settle up all in a minute. You couldn’t go alorie and Resamund couldn't go with you.” “I know all that. I've thought it all out. I haven't slept well lately and I arranged it when I was awake at night. 1 could take some one with me, a sort of companion person. And then when Rosamund got married and came over there with Lionel, why, then I could stay with them. Perhaps I could live with them for a while. He has such a big house.” She paused, evidently waiting to see how the colonel would take her sug- gestions. “That's all possible enough,” he said —*“but—well, there's your father. How about him?” “Oh, my father!” the note of scorn in her voice was supplemented by a side look at him which showed she had no further {llusions as to her father. “My father can get along very well without me.” Even if she had come to know Allen at his just worth, the hardness of her tone hurt the colonel. It showed him how deep had been the change in her in the last three years. “It's hard on him just the same,” he said, “to lose his two daughters at once.” “Parents have to lose their children,” she answered in the same tone. “Sup- pose I'd married a foreigner like Rosa- mund?” The colonel did not answer. Sudden- 1y she laid the hand near him on his. “There’s only you and Rosamund,” she said. “And now Rosamund’'s going too.” “It's—it's—pretty of,” he answered. “But, Uncle Jim,” she urged in the egotism of her pain, blind to all else, “1 can’t stay here. It's too much. You must guess how I feel.” “I can guess,” he answered, nodding. “I can’t bear it. I can’t stand it. If I could die it would bé all right, but I can’t even dle. I've got to go on living, and if I stay here I've got to go on hearing everybody talking about them and saying how happy they are. Every time T go out I run the risk of meeting them, of seeing them together, with Jerry looking at her the way he used to look at me.” She spoke quietly, staring at the win- dow before her with steady eyes. “June,” he said almost roughly, *I want to talk sensibly to you. All the traveling in Europe won't make you feel better if you don’t make an effort to shalke vourself free of all this. Now listen—-Barclay's shown vou what le is. He's a blackguard. I told it to vou three years ago, and you know it now by your own experience. Why do you love him? Why do you go on caring for a dog like that? I—I—upon my word, dearest, if it was any girl but you I'd be ashamed of her.” “You don't love a man because he's good, or nobhle, or any of those things. It's not a thing you reason about. It's something that steals into you and takes possession of you. I'know what Jerry is. I supbose it's all true what you say. He may be different from what I thought he was. He may be eruel and unkind to me. But that won't make me change.” “But good God, he's treated you like hard even to think a dog—thrown you over for a girl with money, made surreptitious love to you when he was bound to a woman he'd ruined and whose husband was his friend! Heavens, June, you can’t love a dirty scrub like that! You're a good girl—honest and high-minded—you can't go on caring for him when you see now what he is!” 3 “Oh, Uncle Jimy, dear, you can't change me by talking that y. Women don’'t love men with their reason, they love them with their hearts. The Jerry that I know is not the Jerry that you know. There are two., and they're quite different. The Jerry that I know and used to meet in the plaza on Turk street was always kind and sweet to me, and I used to be 80 happy when I was with him! I know now they're both true. I guess yours is as true as mine. But even if it is, I care just the same. There's no arguing or con- vincing—only just that fact. “After he’s made a public show of vou and engaged himself to Mercedes not two months after Mrs. Newbury's death? Such a dirty record! Such a mean, cold-blooded, calculating cur! Oh, June, where's your pride?” “Dead,” she said bitterly, “dead long ago.” She suddenly sat upright, turned on him, and spoke with somber vehemence: “There's no pride, there's no question of yourself—sometimes I think there's no honor, with a girl who feels for a man as I do for him. I know him now. a1l about him. I know in my heart that he’'s what you say. I think some- times, deep down under everything, I have a feellng for him that is almost contempt. But I'm his while he’s alive and I am. I can't any more change that than I can make myself taller or shorter. If I'd known in the beginning +what I do now it would have all been different. It's too laté now to ask me where my pride s, and why I don't tear myself free from such a bondage. It's spoiled my life. It's broken my heart. Sometimes I wish Jerry was dead, because then I know I'd be myself again.” He looked at her horrified. Pallid and shrunken in her rich clothes, eaten into by the passion that now, for the first time, he heard her confess, it seemed to him that she could not be the girl he had met at Foleys three and a half years ago. To his strong, self-denying nature, her weakness was terrible. He did not know that that weakness was one of the attributes which made her so lovable, “I dare say there's something bad about me,” she went on. “I can see that other people don’t feel this way. 1 know Rosamund wouldn't. If Lionel had not really cared for her and asked her to marry him she would have gone to work and just uprooted him from her mind like a weed in a garden. She wouldn’t have let things that weren’t right get such a hold on her. But I— T never tried to stop it. And now the weed’s choked out everything else in the garden.” “Don’t let it choke out everything. Root it up! Tear it out! Don't be con- quered by a weed, June.” “'Oh, Uncle Jim,” she almost with the eternal ery of the spr-lniir\?lz‘::: and weak, f only 1 had stopped it in the teginning! 1 wouldn't have grown to love him so If I'd known. It's been such useless suffering. Nohody's gained any- thing by it. It's all been such a waste!" There was a silence. The colonel sat looking down with his heart feeling heavy as a stone. When he came against that wall of acquiescent feminine feebleness he felt that he could say nothing. She stirred in_her chair and sald, her volce suddenly low, her words coming slowly: £4 ‘re to be married in January. It's oing o Be a short engagement. Black Da ng to give them a house down “here ‘with everything new and beautiful. I'll see them all the time, everywhere. 1 know just the way they'll look, smiling into each' other's eves.” She stopped and then sat up with a rustling of crushed silks. “How do pegple bear these things? 1 haven't hurt anybody or done any harm to have to suffer this way. When I'm alone I keep thinking of them—how hap- py they are together, not caring for any- thing in the world but each other. I think of him kissing her. T think that some day they’'ll have a baby"—her volce trailed away hoarsely dnd she sank back in the chair, her head on her breast. The colonel got up and walked to the window. These same savage pangs had once torn him. In his powerful heyday it had taken all the force of his manhood to crush them. How could she wage that blasting fight? He turned and looked at her as she wsat fallen together in the embrace of the chalr. “I think you're right, June, about go- ing away,” he said. “It's the best thing for vou to do. The old man'll have to get on as well as he can for a while with- out vou.” She did not move, and answered in a dull volce: I “It's the only thing for me to do.” ‘When were you thinking of going?" “Soon—as soon as I can. Anyway be- fore January. I must go before then. And—and—Unele Jim, this was what I came to ask vou and was afrald, We've been a long time getting to it.” She looked at him with-a sort of tenta- tive uneasiness. “It's asking a good deal,” she added, “but vou've always been so good te me. “What is it, dearie?” he sald gently. “Don't you know it's my pleasure to do anything for you?”’ want you to give me the money to £o with.” For a moment the colonel was so sur- prised that be looked at her without an- swering, As she spoke the color came falntly into her face. - “Jt—it—won't be so very much,” she covering himself, “five thousand dollars? Why, of cousse—"" He paused, looking down on the floor and asking himself where he was to get five thousand dollars. “11l get it for you, only you'll have to give me a few day o She ieaned forward with a sudden en- ergy of animation and clasped his hand. ], knew vou'd do it.” she said. knew if I came to you for help I'd never be aisappointed. 1 asked father for it. and he!—" she completed the sentence with a shrug. “He hadn’'t it, perhaps,” suggested the colonel. “Phat's what he said. He said he couldn't possibly give it to me, that he was In debt now. And look at the way we live! Look at this dress! He knows how 1 feel. He has only to look at me, put he said he couldn’t give it.” “Wwill five thousand be enough. do you think?" said the colonel, who had no com- ments to make on Allen, of whose mode of life and need of money he knew more than June. “1 gon't know. I don’t know anything about traveling. I've never been any- where but in California and Nevada. But 1t ought to be enough for a while. Any- way, if I had that I could go, I could get away from all this. I could get away from San Francisco and California, and the people and things that torture me."” She rose from the chair and picked up her umbrella. Her languor of dejection had returned. She cast a listless eye to- ‘ward the pane and said: “I must go. It'll soon be dark.” Then she moved toward the window and for & moment stood looking down on the street. “It's quite easy for you to give it to me, isn’t {t?” she asked without turning. “You're not like father, always talking about your wonderful, priceless stocks. and with not a cent to give a.person who's just about got to the end of every- thing. 3 “Don’t talk about that,” he answered quickly. ‘‘There can't be a better use for my money than to help you when vou're in trouble. I'll see you in a few days and arrange then to give it to you.” She turned from the window. “Well, good-by, then,” she said. “I must go. Good-by, Uncle Jim, my own dear, dear Uncle Jim.” She extended her hand to him, and as he took it, looked with wistful eyes into his. “I feel as if you were really my father,” she said. “It's only to a father or mother that a person feels they can come and ask things from as I have from you to-day.” The colonel kissed her without speak- ing. At the doorway she turned and he waved his hand in farewell, but again sald nothing. June walked home through the soft gray damp of the later afterngon. As she looked up the lines of the long streets that climbed the hills, then sloped down toward the water front, she saw the fog blotting them out, erasing out- lines, stealthily creeping downward till the distance looked like a slate blurred by a wet sponge. She remembered evenings like this in the first year of her San Francisco life, when she walked home briskly with the chill alr moist on her face and her imagination stirred by the mystery and strangeness of the dim. many-hilled city, veiled in whirls and eddies of vaporous white. There was no beauty in it to-night, only a sense of desolation, cold and creepingly pervasive as the fog. CHAPTER XIV. Bedrock. It took the colonel a week'to raise the money. He did it by selling the second of his South Park houses. The sale being a hurried one of property already well on the decline, the house realized less than, even in the present state of eclipse, it was worth. Five years before it had been ap- praised at $15,000. To-day the best offer he could get was $9000. He placed the money in the bank, the $5000 to stay there till June had decided more definitely on her movements. The remainder he would leave on deposit to his own account. June, in Europe, with 35000 to her fortune, was not beyond the. circle of his sense of responsibility. Some one must have money to give her when she needed it, as she certainly would. Her habits of economy had long ago been sloughed off with her faded cotton dresses and her country-made boots. Rosamund would be able to give her a home, but there must be some one somewhere upon whom she could make a demand for funds. There was no need now for the colonel to study his accounts. He knew them through and through. There was so little to know. The shut-down mine in Shasta and his mortgage on the Folsom street house were all that was left to him. On the day that the sale of the South Park house was decided uporf he wrote to Rion Gracey, asking him for a position, any overground position that the owners of the Cresta Plata thought he wouid suit. It was a hard letter to write. He was nearly €, and he had never since his youth asked any onme for anything for himself. But one must live, “G. T.s widow” had to he considered, not to men- tion June, living in England and having to be dressed as June should always be dressed. Two daws later the details of the sale were completed and the money deposited. Late that afternoon the colonel, clad car fully in the shiny coat June had caught him brushing, went across town to Fol- som street. He had done what she had asked and all was ready. The servant told him she was confined to her room with a bad cold, and after a few minutes’ wait in the hall he was con- ducted upstairs and found her lying on a sofa in the great front room, with its ofty ceiling and tall, heavily draped win- ‘dows. The sofa was drawn up before a small fire that sent a fluctuating glow over her face, flushed with a slight fe- ver, and burnished the loose coll of brown hair that crowned her head. She had a heavy cold, her voice was hoarse, her words interrupted at intervals by a cough. She was delighted to see him, sitting up among the cushions on which she reclined to hold out her hand, and rallying him on the length of time since his last visit. “But I've been busy,”’ he sald, drawing a chair up to the foot of the sofa; ‘“‘busy over your affairs, young woman." “My affalrs, he answered, looking uzzled; then with sudden comprehension, ‘Oh, the money!"” “That's it,”" he nodded, *‘the money. Well, it's all ready and waiting for you in the bank. When you want it we'll open an account for you, or buy a letter of credit with it, or make whatever ar- rangement seems best. Anyway, there it is whenever you want to go.” Oh, Uncle Jim!" she breathed. ‘‘And now what do you think's happened “What?' he asked with suddenly ar- rested attention. It was on his mind that startling things might be expected to hap- pen in the Allen household at any mo- ment. m not going!" “‘You're not going? Junie, don't tell me that!" The joy in his voice and eyes was tran- figuring In its sudden radiance, He left his chair and sat down on the end of the sofa near her feet, leaning to- ward her, pathetically eager to hear. ve changed my mind,”—a gleam of her old coquetry brightened her face. “Isn’t that one of the privileges of my sex? ~ What made you change it? Good Lord, dearfe, I'm so glad!" “I'll tell you all about it. Thers are several threads to this story. In the first place, Rosamund didn't Hke it. She thought it was queer for me to go to Eurcpe alone and leave father, and just before her weddlng, too. She wouldn't hear of my not ng at the wedding. But the other n was more the real one." She sat up, her elbow in the cushions. her head on her hand, the fingers in her loosened hair. Her eyes on the fire were melancholy and contemplative. “You remember what I said to you about not being able to live here any longer? How I couidn't stand it? Well, father’'s going to Virginia City." ““What difference does that make? He's been going there for years.” “Yes, but to live, I mean. To take us and make our home there. That's the reason I've changed my mind. I needn't go so far as Europe. We're all going to leave California and live in Nevada.” The colonel was astonished. He was prepared for strange actions on Allen's part, but a bedily family removal to Vir- ginia when his affairs were in so com- plicated a condition was unlooked for and incomprehensible. “Isn't it a very sudden decision of your father's?’ he asked. “He had no idea of it last week. You didn't know it when you came to see me that day. did you? “I didn't know of It till two days ago. It's all happened in a minute. Father himself didn’t know it. I was stll think- ing about going away and arguing with Rosamund about it, when he came and told us he'd decided to move to Nevada, that he had more business there than here. and it would be much eheaper having one house in Virginia than for him to be up there, with us down here in San Francisco. What made it particu- larly easy and convenient was that some one wants to buy the house.” This was a second shock, but thers was {llumination in it. The listener feit now that he was getting to the heart of the matter. “Buy the house!” he ejaculated. ““This house?” “Yes, this house. I've forgotten the man's name. Some one from Sacramento wants to buy it just as it stands, with the furniture and everything. It is not a very good offer, but property’s gone down here, as it has all over this side of town, and father says It's not bad, consider- ing that it makes it so much easfer for us to go. “So that's why I'm not golng to Europe. Virginia's far enough away from San Francisco. I'll-I'll-not ses them up there or hear about it as I would down here. And then there was another rea- son that’s made me glad to stay. When I thought of leaving you and Rosamund —it was so hard—too hard! I dom’t seem to be one of those independent women who can go about the world alone far away from the people they love. I'd leave my roots behind me, deep down in the ground I came from. I don't think T could ever pull them up. And if I tried and pulled too hard they’d break, and then I suppose I'd wither up and dte.” She turned her eyes from the fire tog him. She was smiling siightly, her face singularly sad under the pmile. He looked at her and sald softly: “My girl!"™ He sat on with her for a space, dis- cussing the move and making plans. With some embarrassment he told her of the fact that he had written on to Rion Gracey. applying for a position. The thought that he would be in Virginia called the first real color of life and pleasure into her face that he had seen there for weeks. On his way down the stairs he decided, i Allen was not in, to wait for him In the sitting-room. But as he reached the stair foot a faint film of cigar smoke and .the mere pungent reek of whisky floated from the open doorway and told him that the master of the house was already there. Allen was sitting by the table, a de- canter and glass near his elbow, his cigar poised in a waiting hand, as he listened to the descending footsteps. “That you, Jim?” he called, as the footfall neared the end of the flight. “Glad you came. Drop in here for a minute before you go. I've something 1 want to talk to you about.” 'The colonel entering, noticed that the other was even meore flushed than he usually was at this hour, and that his glance was evasive, his manner con- strained. ‘What's this June's been telling me, he said, “about you all moviag te V ginia? Since when have you decided on that?” “Only a day or two ago. I was go- ing around to see you to-morrow about it if you hadn't come this afternoon. I've about made up my mind to go. My business is. all up there naw. There's no sense Mving in Virginia two-thirds of the time and running a house down here.” “How -@bout Rosamend's weddin, the colonel asked. “Have it up there. You can have a wedding In Virginia just as well as you ean in San Francisco. 1 can rent a house—a first-rate house, furnished and all ready, and give her just as goaod a send-off as any girl in California. That's what 1 caleulate to do. IU'll require money up there or down here, but that's an expense that's got to be.” “June says you've had an offer for Who made it, and what's “That's what I wanted to see you about,” he sald slowly. “Yes, I've had an offer. It's from a man named Spen- cer from Sacramento. Jugt come down here to settle. He's got a big family and wants a good-sized house and gar- den for his kids to play in. Fashion- able locality doesa’t count 'for much with him. He's offered $25,000 down for the place as it stands, furniture and all.” There was a slight pause and the speaker added: “It’s what decided me to go to Vir- ginla, get rid of this—and—and—get some ready money. I'm pretty close to the ragged edge, Jim." “I don’t see how it's going to benefit you,” said the colonel. “My mortgage and the interest for two years back. paid in full, doesn’t leave you much more than your fares to Virginia.” Allen got up, walked a few -steps away, then came back and stoed by the colonel’'s chair. His face was deeply flushed, but it had iost his em! air. He looked resolute and «m “Jim,” he said doggedly, “I've got to have that money.” “Beau Allen.” said the colonel in the same tone, “by what right do you dare to sav that to me?” For a silent moment they eyed each othier, then the elder man went o “Twenty-five years ago you stole my sweetheart. Four years ago you tried to steal my land and I gave it to you because you had a wife and two helpless children, and now you're trying to steal my house.” “I've got the same right as I had be- fore,” said the other; “I've still got two helpless children.” 3 “Am T to be robbed to provide for your children?” “You're using pretty strong words, Jim, but you've had provecation. You've met bad usage at my hands and you've . given back good. Give it back onee more. for the last time. Give it back for the sake of my two girls. They're as hel) now as they ever were. and God knows I'm unable to help them.” hy ‘should I keep on providing for vour children? You're their father, younger than I, and as able-bodied. Four years ago I put you on vour feet when 1 gave you the Parrish tract. You've had vour chances. the best I could give you. I'm on the ragged edge. too. I'm sixty years old and I've had to apply for a positicn.” “Listen to me., Jim,” with desperate urgence. “Let me have this money tm after Rosamund's marriage. Let me have fifteen thousand dollars of it. So help me God, I'll invest the rest in your name in any securities you mention. Don’t you see I've got to have money till after that? I ean't let Harrower know we're bust. You think he doesn’t care. But [ tell you he does. What's going to happen to Rosamund if he throws her over at the last moment?” (Continued Next Sunday.) a