The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 4, 1906, Page 3

THE SAN TRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. yonor, seemed the feeble inventions of man, oppressed and overwhelmed primordial nature which only thized with a pagan return to it- absent contemplation of the Jerry turned and looked at his ompanion. He surveyed her with tender scrutiny, noting points in her appearance 1 Joved—the slight point with which ip, just in the middle, drocped der one, the depression of her the fineness of her skin. > clse in the world has got the of face as you,” he said at From andseape an {0 be regretted,” she mur mured Ay ¥ the dearest little mouth, the way vour upper lip comes down in a point « 1 lower one! I don't believe there’s er woman in the world with such 2 queer little fascinating mouth.” e continued to gaze at her, half-smil- , but with intent eves. Both felt the desire to talk leaving them. The silence of the landscape seemed to take posses- sion of them, to make speech seem trivial and_ unnecessary. “Why did you refuse Rion Gracey?” hes said suddenly in a lowered volice. did not reply and he repeated the question. “1 didn’t 1d are for him,” she said so low rdly hear the words. hers, gathering @p his large grasp. y he repeated, pressing them. She turned away in evident gistress and he whispered “Was ecause you loved me?” Her h drooped and he put his lips her cheek as he whis- most against pered ‘ag know silent once more, neither t the other now. Both trembled. A fear strong in their hearts. this moment a rabbit sprang from ge bush the path, and the irling backward in a spasm of s hind legs and then leap- across ose to ward along the road. It took Jerry five minutes to control him and i1ls head toward home, take you back no he said, throwing the word sldewise at her as flew onward. “I'll stop at the uth of walk nto tow zy Saunders’ Tunnel. You in from there. If I drove you some idiot would see us and I never saw anything like If Saint Cecilia and Jeph- that's daughter settled here for a week cook up some gossip about them.” no more speech between saw the timbered opening was 1 they first cottages of the town I's mouth Jerry drew up. yt her foot forward for the step, as she did so he leaned toward her =aid: n com! She looke g to see you soon.” do that” she said almost don’t want you to. You he answered in a tone of “Why shouldn't 1?2 We're no reason why I see and you now capering and pranc- nce, cut off further con- scrambled out, reiter- I don’t want you to.” ng forward Jerry call- er . Senorita. I'm not go- ead hanging. She took no the brilliant colors that were ding beauty to the crumpled skyline of »s. She did not see the peo- ed her, some of whom knew ights went back to the days at F¢ when she and Rosamund had made money w the garden and had been so full of v and healthy, innocent happiness. hought of the life in S8an Fran- h its growth of lower ambition: n and its suffering. And now so menacing, so full of sud- unfamiliar dread! phrase she had heard in church the day before rose to her recollection: feet go. down to death.” As her hts roamed somberly back over the rec epochs of her life the phrase kept recurring to her, welling continually to e surface of her mind, with sinister per- sistence— “Her feet go down to death.” CHAPTER VL The Edge of the Precipice. nce his connection with the Graceys had been buying stock in the nu- merous undeveloped and unpaying mines h had cropped up like mushrooms und the edges of the town. In the énd of July a new strike in the two-thousand- level of the Cresta Plata sent the stock of the mines in the vicinity suddenly As the vein was opened it developed into a discovery of great importance. The shares Jerry held doubled in value and inued August was not half over when he realized that: on paper at least, he was again a rich man. The reaiizatiop brought with it a puls- ing sense of exhilaration. It meant not only the joys of independent wealth, which were to him among the dearest on carth, but the liberty to do with his life wh he pleased. It was not only free- dom from the Gracey with whom his work had become a detested servitude, but an escape from the bonds his mar- riage had cast round him. Bscape from it all—the scorn of his employers, the drud- gery of his position, the meaningless tie that he'd him to an unloved wife and denfed him the woman he craved. The fever of the time and his own mounting fortunes was in his blood. Ac- tions that under normal conditions would have seemed to him base he now contem- plated with a sense of headstrong de- Jerr up co to advance. fiance. He was on fire with the lust of money and the desire of woman. The two passions carrieq him off his feet, swept away his judgment and reason. But the instinctive deceptiveness of the lover of intrigue did not desert him. While he was inwardly contemplating desperate steps, on the surface he appeared to be merely full of boyish animation and high spirits. To June alone he was different, a man of almost terrifying moods, before whom at one moment she shrank and the next meited. He had brushed aside her re- quest not to see her, as he would later on brush aside all her requests, her reti- cences and modesties, and be the master of @ broken and abject slave. Despite his desire to be with her he =aw her seldom. The mining town offer- ed few opportunities for meetings. which, however innocent - they might be, were more agreeable if they took plage in the seclusion of parks and quiet byways than e crowded sidewalks of the popu- streets. There were no wooded for man and maid to loiter in, no s with benches in sheltered corners. s hand-to-hand fight against ele- mental forces the town had no time to make concessions to the delicately de- batable diversions of social life. It only recognized a love that was honestly licit or frankly illicit. A few hurried visits at the Murchison nsion in the late afternoon when the nel was known to be busy at the of- nd Allen was still down town were the only times that Jerry had been able to have speech with her. These interviews had at first been presided over by an out- ward seeming of that coolly polite friend- ship of which Jerry liked to talk. The conversation avoided all questions of sen- timent. as the man and women seemed to avoid the proximity one of the other, sit- ting drawn apart with averted eyes, talk- ing of impersoual matters. But as his holdings advanced in value, as he saw himself day by day loosening the bonds that bound him to his employ- ers, his wife, a society of which he was weary, his restraint was relaxed. His words grew less fluent, his pose of friend changed to that of the man on whose conversation moments of silence fall while he looks with. ardent eyes on .a down- drooped face. June made a last desper- ate stand, tried with despairing struggles to draw back from the fate closing around her. Even now she did not realize how close she was to the edge of the precipice. But Jerry did. He knew they were standing on its brink. One evening, early in September, June and the colonel were sitting together at dinner in the dining-room of the Mur- chison mansion. Allen had gone to San Francisco for a week, and the colonel was to dine with June every evening till his return. He spent as much of his time as possible with the young girl in these lonely days. Even Mitty Sullivan and the baby were away, having gone to Lake Tahoe for two months. Thus ‘h» one house to which June could con- Stantly go and be cheered by the society of A woman friend was closed to her. Since Rosamund’'s wedding the colonel had seen a distinct change in his darling. He set it down to grief at her sister's departure. She was pale and listless. The joy of youth had gone completely from her. Of late he had noticed that she was often absent-minded, not answering him if he spoke to her. He worried over her with.a man’s helplessness in situations of complicated feminine tribulation. Allen, drunk half of the time, absent the other half, was no guardian for her. Yet the colonel could not take her away from him. He was her father. Sometimes when he let himself build ajr castles over his after-dinner cigar, he thought that per- haps Allen might die or marry again and then June would come to him and be his daughter. He would watch over her and lap her round with love and tenderness, and far off, in a rosy future, he would see her giving her hand to Rien, the man, he told himself, that Providence had macde for her. Her appearance to-night shocked him. She was pallid, the delicate blue blur of ins showing on her temples, her eyes avy and darkly shadowed. He noticed t! she ate little, crumbling her bread with a nervous hand, and only touching her lips to the rim of the wine glass. She was unusually distraught, often not an- swering the remarks he made to her, but sitting with her lids down, her eyes on her restlessly moving fingers. Toward the end of dinner a sense of apprehension began to pervade him. If she continued to droop - this way she might contract some ailment and die. Her mother had died of consumption and con- sumption often descended from parent to child. He knew now that her likeness to Alice went deeper than mere outward form into the secret springs of thought and action. It was one of those careful and perfect reproductions of type to which nature is now and then subject. June was her mother in looks, in char- acter, in temperament. It was so singu- larly close a resemblance that it seemed but natural to dread for her the disease that had killed the elder womar ““You feel perfectly well, Junie?” he in- quired, trying to speak easily but with anxious eyes on her. “Well?” she repeated. I've never been better. ask?” “I thought you looked pale. paler than un lous “Oh, quite well! What makes you usual. and seemed out of spirits. Are you of spirits, dearie?” e not been very cheerful since— since—Rosamund left.” She concluded the sentence with an ef- fort. The half-truth stuck in her throat. She had been in a state of confused mis- ery for days. but the pain of her de- ception pierced through it. “I hate to leave you looking like this,” he continued. “I'm sure you're not well.” “Leave me she exclaimed with a startled emphasis. “You're not going to leave me?” Her face. full of alarmed protest, as- tonished him. “Of course I'm not going to leave you. I'm going down to San Francisco ¢n Monday for two weeks, that's all. Busi- ness of Black Dan’s.” She sat upright. bracing her hands against the edge of the table and sald, almost-with violence: “Don't go. I don’t want you to go. You mustn't go.” “But, my dear little girl, it's only for two weeks, perhaps less. I expect to be back Friday evening. I know it’s lonely for you, but you know we have to put up with a good deal on our way through this world. You've found that out, honey. We've got to have our philosophy pretty handy sometimes.” ° “Oh, philosophy! T haven’t got any. 1 only seem to have feelings.” She rose from her chalr, the coionel watching her with anxiously knit brows. Her distress at the thought of his leav- ing her filled him w.th uneasy surprise. Tt seemed so disproportioned to the cause. She passed round the table and came to a halt beside him. “Can’t you put it off?’ she said, trying to speak in her old coaxing way. “Put it off til I go to England to visit Rosa- mund.” / “Oh, June!” he exclaimed, hardly able lo forbear laughing. ‘‘What a thing for a girl who's lived among mining men al- most all her life to suggest! You won't ®o for over two months yet, and this is important. Tt's about the new pumps for the two-thousand-foot level. T leave on Monday. “Monday!” she repeated with the same air of startled alarm. “Next Monday?’ ‘‘Yes. ¥f all goes well T won’t be gone two weeks. T'll be back Friday night. I'll bring vou up some new books, and any- thing else you ecan think of. You know this is business, and there’s no fooling with Black Dan. If you were sick in bed it would be a different matter. But as it is T must go.” Without more words she turned away and went slowly back to her seat. The colonel, worried and baffled. watched her apprehensively. He thought to prick her pride into llfe and safd rallyingly: “I'm beginning to think you're just a little bit spoiled. The old man’s making a baby of you. You're just as much of a child as ever. He looked at her with a twinkling eye, hoping to see her laugh. But she was grave, leaning languidly against the back of the chair. / “I'm not as much of a child as you think,”” was her answer. On the following Monday, en route to the depot, the colonel paused on the out- skirts of the ecrowd round the stock bul- letins pasted up in a broker’s window. He dié not see that Jerry was on the other side of the crowd. But Jerry saw him. and through the openings between the swaying heads, eved him warily. As the elder man turned awdy in the direction of the depot, Jerry backed from the edges of the crowd to watch the re- treating figure. His handsome face gnly showed a still curlosity, but there was malevolence in his eyes. He had quietly hated the colonel since ‘the night of the Davenport ball and awaited his opportu- nity to return that blow. “Old blackguard!” he thought to him- self, “I'll be even with you soon. now!" The month of September advanced with early darkening evenings and the clear sharpening of outlines which marks the first breath of autumn. It was easier for - Jerry now to see June. In the late after— noons the twilight came quickly and he could mount the long stairs to the Mur- chison mansion without fear of detection. The colonel was away. Allen had return- ed but was much out, and when at home was closeted in a small room of his own that he called his office. The way was clear for Jerry, but he still advanced with slow and cautious steps. The colonel had been gone over a week when one evening June entered the office to consult with her father about an un- paid household bill for which a tradesman had been dunning her. The shortness of money from which Allen had been suffer- ing since Rosamund’s marriage was be- ginning o react upon June. Several times of late the holders of accounts against her father had pald personal visits to the Murchison mansion. She had not vet grasped the hopeless na- ture of their situation. Even in the town Allen’s insolvency was not known. It was simply rumored that he was ‘‘hard-up.” As she opened the door in answer to his “Come in” she smelt the sharp odor of burning paper, and saw that the grate was full of charred fragments. Portions of a man’s wardrobe were scattered about on the various pieces of furniture, and on a sofa against the wall two half-packed valises stood open. Allen sat at his desk, amig a litter of papers, some of which he had been tearing up, others burning. As his eye fell on his daughter he lald his hand over an open letter before him. She came in, holding the bill out toward him, and timidly explaining her entrance and its cause, for of late he had been fiercely irascible. To-night, however, he greeted her with unusual gentleness, and taking the paper from her hand ‘looked at it and laid it aside. “Thompson,” he said; “tell him his ac- count wil! be settled in a few days. And any ‘of the others that send in bills like this, tell them the same thing.” *“Are you going again?” she asked, l0ok- ing at the valises. “Yes, to-morrow. You can just casually let these fellows know that F've gone down to Sgn Francisco to sell some stock, and everything will be satisfactorily set- tled up when I get back.” “When will you get back?” she asked, not from desire for his presence, but to know what to say to the uneasy trades- men. ; “You tell them mext week,” he “that’ll gulet them. But Lmay be lo It may two or even three weeks. 1" Tots. afs Wifhgs 6 arranges 5o A0 worry i even later.” g He tore the let{er he had been cover- ing with his hand into small pieges and, rising, threw them into the grate on the smoldering remnants of the others. “Uncle Jim's down below now,” sai “you'll probably see him.” But he’ll be back in a few days, won't he?" he queried, looking at her with sud- den, sharp inquiry. “If—if—I should be delayed, as T told you I might be, he'll be here and he’'ll look after you. Yousee more of him now than you do of me. He seems to be more your father than 1" “He's here oftener,” she said apologeti- cally, “you're away so much.” ‘Maybe that's it. I'm not kicking about it. He's the Graceys’ right hand man now. He's on top of the heap.. He'll al- ways look out for you, and he'll be able to do it.” He turned to throw some more papers on the burning pile, missing her look of surprise. “*Alwa; she look out for me!” she repeated. There’s no need for him to do that. You'll be back soon.” “You needn’t take me so literally. But vou ought to know by this time that the future’s a pretty uncertain thing. If any- thing should happen to me, it's just as [ say, he'd be here on the spot ready and willing to take care of you. You can’t look for much from me. If I dled to- morrow I wouldn’t leave you a cent. The Barranca’s petered.” “But the stocks you're going to San Francisco to sell? 'They must be worth a good deal. BEveryacdy’'s stocks seem to be worth something now. Mitty Sulll- van's cook says she's thirty thousand &head.” *'Oh, yes, they'll bring something.” He spoke absently, took up Thompson’s bill and thrust it on a spike with others of its kind. ‘‘“There they are, all the trades- men. Don't let them bother you. You'd beiter run along now and let me finish up.” “Can I-help you pack?’ she suggested with timid politeness. He s=hook his head, his eye traveling down a new letter he had picked up from the desk. * “‘Good-night,” she said, moving toward the dcor. He dropped the letter and, following her, put his arm around her and kissed her. It was an unexpected caress. He and his daughter had grown very far apart in this last year. “Good-by,”” he said gently, and turning from her went back to his papers. “Run along,” he said without looking up. “I'll be busy here for some hours yet.” ‘When she came down to breakfast the next morning he had already gone. The Chinaman told her he had left early, driving into Reno by private conveyance in order to catch the first morning train to the coast. That evening Jerry beat out the last spark of her resistance. He held -her close in his arms, his cheek against hers, and revealed to her his plan of elope- ment. Trembling and sobbing she clung to him, under his kisses the words of denial dying on her lips. He pald no heed to her feeble pleadings, hushing her pro- tests with caresses, whispering of their happiness, murmuring the lovers’ sen- tences that, since Eve, have been the un- doing of impassioned women, 2 ‘When he stole down the steps in the darkness of the early night, trilumph was in his heart. She was his when he chose to take her: her will as water, her resist- ance only words. A new world of love, liberty and riches lay before him. The bleak town and its bitter memories would soon be far behind, and June and he in >, N I don’t show up next Week OF ' wag ljttle risk in driving .come? 5 — a strange country and a new life would begin their dream of love. CHAPTER VIL The Colonel Comes Back. Jerry's plans had been lafd with the utmost secrecy and care. It behooved him to be wary, for he knew that detec- tion would mean death. Neither the col- onel ‘nor Black Dan would have hesitated to shoot him like a dog if they had known what he contemplated, and working day by day in an office with these men, in a town the smallness and isolation of whicn rendered every human figure a segregated and important unit, it required all the shrewdness of which he was master to mature his design and arouse no sus- picion, The time had now come when every- thing was suddenly propitious. Had the Prince of Darkness been giving Jerry's affairs his particular attention, circum- stances could not have fallen together more conveniently for the furthering of his purpose. In the office of the Cresta Plata it was arranged that every two weeks he should be given three or four days off to go to San Francisco and visit his wife. These holidays, which were grudgingly doled out by Black Dan, always included the Sun- day, as the older man was determined his son-in-law should have as little immunity from work as possible. In the mid- dle of the week Jerry was informed that he could leave for San Francisco on the following Saturday morning to report again at the office on Wednesday. The granting of this five days’ leave of absence made the elopement easy of ac- complishment, robbing it of the danger of detection that Jerry realized and shrank from. He and June could leave on Friday night and take the overland train eastward. They would have flve days' start before discovery was made, and in five days they would be so far on their journey that it would be easy for them to conceal themselves in some of the larger towns along the route. Mer- cedes, who was a bad correspondent, could be trusted not to write to her father, and Allen, according to June's art- less revelations, was gone for a much longer time than he wanted known. Finally the last and most serious obstacle was removed in the shape of the colonel. Jerry, being in the office, knew that his enemy would not be back before Tuesday or Wednesday, as the work of Inspecting the pumps had been slower than antici- pated. Months of waiting and planning could not have arranged matters more satisfac- torily. Luck, once agaln, was on his side, as it had been so often in the past. Early on the Friday morning he went to the livery stable that he always pat- ronized, and where he knew the finest team of roadsters in Nevada was for hire. Mining men of that day were particular about their horses. There were animals in the Virginia stables whose superiors could not be found west of New York. The especial pair that Jerry wanted were only leased to certain patrons of the sta- ble, but Jerry, an expert on horseflesh, besides being Black Dan Gracey’'s son- in-law, had no difficulty in securing them for that evening. He had some idea of driving into 3584: “Reno himself and letting June come in on train, but he had a fear that, left she weaken. To be sure of he must be with her. Moreover, there in together. y would not start until after dark and ‘their place of rendezvous would be a ruined cabin some distance beyond the Utah Holsting Works on the Geiger grade, The spot would be deserted at that hour, and even If it were not the spectacle of a buggy and pair of horses was so com- mon that it would be taken for that of some overworked superintendent driving into Reno on a sudden business call. From the stable he returned to the of- fice and ulone there wrote a-hasty letter to June. He had told her the outline of his plan, and that Friday would be the day, but he had given her no retails of what their movements would be. Now he wrote, telling her minutely of the place of departure and impressing upon her not . to be late. He would, of course, be there before her, waiting in the buggy. There was a party of Eastern visitors to be taken over the mine in the afternoon, and it would be easy for him to get away from them, leaving them with Marsden, the foreman, change his clothes, and be at the place indlcated before she was. He was still fearful that she might fail him. Now, as the hour approached, he was so haunted by the thought that he asked her to send at least a few words of an- swer by his messenger. a Half an hour later Black Dan en- tered the ofilce and paused by his son- in-law's desk to give him some in- structions as to the Eastern visitors and the parts of the mine they were to be shown, They were people of im- portance from New York, the men be- ing heavy shareholders-in the Cresta Plata and the Con. Virginia. The la- dies of the party were to be relegated to the care of Jerry and Marsden, the foreman, and not to be taken below the thousand-foot level. Black Dan and Barney Sulllvan would take the men farther down. Jerry was to be ready in the hoisting works at 4 o'clock. As Black Dan was concluding his in- structions Jerry’'s messenger re-entered the office and handed the young man a small, pale gray envelope. It was ob- viously a feminine communication, and its recipient, under the darkly, scruti- nizing eye of his father-in-law, flushed slightly, but he gave no other sign of consciousness, and as Black Dan passed on to the inner office, he sat down and opened the letter. It was only a few lines in June's deli- cate handwriting: y g “I will be there. I'go to my ruin, Jerry. for you. WIll there be anything in our' life together that will make me forget that? June.” ¢ Jerry read ft over several times. It certainly did not breathe an exalted gladness. Away from him she always seemed in this condition of fear and doubt. Tt was his presence, his hand upon her, that made her tremulously, submissively his. He would not be sure of her till she was beside him to- night in the buggy. esgoce i Would~that hour .ever come? He looked at the clock ticking on the wall. ‘With every passing moment his exalta- tion seemed to grow stronger. It was difficult for him to be quiet, not to stop and talk to everybody that he encoun- tered with a feverish loquacity. -The slowly gathering préssure of the last month seemed to culminate on this day of mad rebellion. Within the past two weeks his stocks had increased largely in value. He was a rich man, and to- night with the woman he loved beside him he would be free. He and she, free. in the great outside world, free love and to live as they would. Would the day never pass and the night n’e\rr In San Franclsco the colonel was “curring to him. completing the business of the pumps as quickly as he could. He felt that he was getting to be a foolish old man. but he could not shake off his worry about June. Her words and appear- ance at their last Interview kept re- Many times in the past vear he had seen her looking piti- fully fragile and known her to be un- happy, but he had never before felt the poignant anxiety abgat her that he now experienced. Despite his desire to get back with as much speed as possible, unforeseen delays occurred, and instead of return- ing on Friday, as he had hoped, he saw that he would not be back before Wednesday. He wrote this to June in a letter full of the anxious solicitude he felt. . To this he received no answer, and, his worry increasing, he was about to telegraph her when he received a piece of information that swept all minor matters from his mind. On Thursday at midday he was lunch- ing with a friend at the club, when, in the course of conversation, his companion asked him if he knew the whereabouts of Beauregard Allen. The words were accompanied with a searchingly signifi- cant look. The colonel. answering that Allen was in Virginia, paused in his meal and became quietly attentive. He knew more than others of Allen's situation. Of late he had scented catastrophe ahead of his one-time comrade. The man's face opposite him struck an arrow of suspicion through his mind. He put down his wine glass and sat listening, his expression one of frowning concentration. His friend was a merchant with a large shipping business between San Francisco and Australia. That morning he had been to the docks to sce a ship about to sail which carried a cargo of his own. The ship took few passengers, only two or three, he thought. While conversing with the captain he had seen distinctly in the doorway of an open cabin Beauregard Allen unpacking a valise. In answer to his question” the captain had said it was one of the passengers taken on that morning. He had brought no trunks, only two valises, and given his name as John Montgomery. “It was Beauregard Allen,” the colonel's informant continued. “The man's no friend of mine, but I've seen him around here for years. He looked up and saw me and drew back quickly, as If he did not want to be recognized.” “He'd taken passage this morning, you say?” asked the colonel. “Yes, to Melbourne. There was only one other passenger, a drunken boy being sent on a long sea voyage by his parents. They'll make a nice, interesting pair.” The colonel looKed at his plate silently. He was sending his thoughts back over the last year, trying to collect data that might throw some light on what he had Just ‘heard. 7 ‘““You're certain it was Allen, not a chance likeness?” he sald slowly. “I'll take my oath of it. Why, I've seen the man for the past four years dangling around here. I know his face as well as I know yours, and I had a good look at it before he saw me and jumped back. He’s got in too deep and skipped. Everybody has been wondering how he kept on his feet so long.” “He's in pretty deep, sure enough,” said the colonel absently. “You said Melbourne was the port? When do they sail?” “Midday today. They're off by now. They'll be outside the heads already with this breeze.” The colonel asked a few more questions and then rose and excused himself. His business was pressing. His first action was to send a telegram to Rion Gracey, asking him if Allen had left Virginia and where June was. The answer was to be sent to the club. Then he went forth. His intention was to in- quire at the hotels patrpnized by Allen on his frequent visits to the city. As he went from place to place the conviction that the man seen by his friend had been June's father and that he had fled strengthened with every moment. A feverish anxiety about June took possession of him. If her father had decamped, leaving her alone, she would have to face his angry creditors. He thought of her as he had last seen her, exposed to such an experience, and his heart swelled with pity and rage. Possibly she knew, had guessed what was coming and had begged him to stay with her to protect and care for her in a position for which she was so little fitted. And he had left her—left her to face it alone. He returned to the club, having heard no word of Allen, and found Rion's answer to his telegram. It ran: “Allen left for coast Wednesday morning. June here. What's amiss?” It seemed to the colomel complete confirmation of his fears. Allen leav- ing jWednesday morning would reach San Francisco some time that night. Evidently his plans had been made be- forchand, for the ship he had taken was one of the fastest merchantmen on the Pacific and was scheduled to leave at midnight Thursday. Nothing was suspected at Virginia® yet, and June was there alone. At any moment pow, the information being in the hands of more than one person, Allen’s flight might be made public, and she, his only representative, would become the victim of the rage of the petty creditors, who would swarm about her. He was the one human being upon whom she could call. No duty or busi- nvess would hold him from her. A thrill of something like joy passed through himi when he realized that now, at last, he could stand between her and all trouble—a lion with its cub be- hind it. He took the evening train for Vir- ginla, hoping to reach'Reno the next morning and catch the branch line into the mining town. But luck was against him. A snowshed was down near the Summit. Though it was only the lat- ter half of September, a premature blizzard had wrapped the mountain heights in a white mist. For eight Lours ihe train lay blocked on an ex- posed ridge, and it was late In the afternoon when it finally set the colonel down at Reno. “~ The delays had only accelerated his desire to be with June. During the long hours of waiting his imagination had bheen .active, pleturing her in various distressing positions, besleged by im- portunate creditors. He hired the fastest saddle horse in the Reno stables and rode the twenty-one miles into Virginia in an hour. It was dark when he reached there. The swift ride through the sharp autumnal air had braced; his nerv He was as anxious as ever to sce her, but he thought that before he ‘did 30 he would stop for a few minutes at the Cresta Plata and see Rion, explain his early return and learn if anything was known in Vir- ginla of Allen's flight. 3 The office was already lighted up, and behind it the great bulk of hoisting works loomed into the night, its walls cut with the squares of illuminated windows, its chimneys rising black and towering against- the .stars. A man who came forward to take his horse told him that the gentlemen were all S —_ in the niine with a party of visitors. ‘The colonel, hearing this, turned his steps from the office to the door of the hoisting works, a few yards beyond. The building, full of shadows despite the lanterns and gas jets ranged along its walls, looked vacant and enormous in its lofty spaciousness. The noise of machinery echoed through it, the vibra- tions shaking it as if it were a shell built about the intricacies of wheels, bands and sheaves that whirred and slid in complicated, humming swiftness against the ceiling. The light struck gleams from the car tracks that radi- ated from the black hole of the shaft mouth where it opened in the niiddle of the floor. It was divided into four com- partments and from these a thin column of steam arose and floated up to the roof. Here and there a few men were moving about, and aloft behind their engines were the four engineers. They were mute as statues. thelr eyes fixed on the dials in front of them which reg- istered the movements of the cages un- derground; their ears on the alert to catch the notes of their bells, to them intelligible as the words of a spoken language. Near the shaft mouth, sit- ting on an overturned box, was Rion Gracey. He saw the colonel and rose to his feet with an exclamation of surprise and pleasure. The elder man, drawing him aside, told him the reasen of his return and asked him news of June. Moving toward the door they conversed together in lowered voices. The colonel, now convinced that no suspicion of the nature of Allen's absence had yet reached Virginia, felt his anxieties diminished. He said that he might at- tend the dinner which Black Dan was giving that evening to the Easterners. Barclay and the women ought to be up at any moment; they had been under- ground nearly two hours, an unusual length of time, for even on the thou= sand-foot level the heat was intense. His anxieties soothed, the colonel léft the building, his heart feeling lighter than it had felt for two weeks. ‘With a step of youthful buoyanecy he mounted the steep cross streets which connected by a series of stairs and ter- races the few long thoroughtfares of the town. He was out of breath when he saw the dark shape of the Murchison mansion standing high on its crest of ground against a deep blue, star-dotted sky. His approach was from the side, and that no lights appeared in any of the windows in that part of the house did not strike him as unusual. But when he reached the foot of the long stairway and looking up saw that there was not a gleam of light to be seen on the entire facade his joy suddenly died and in its place a dread, sharp and dis- turbing, seized him. For a moment he stood motionless, staring up. The shrubs that grew along the sloping banks of the gayden rustled dryly in the autumn night. There was something sinister in the high form of the house, mounted aloft on its terrace, no friendly pane gleam- ing with welcoming light, no sound near it but the low, occasional whisper- ing of dying vegetation. As he ran up the steps his footfall sounded singular- 1y loud and seemed to be buffeted back from empty walls. His first and second pull of the bell brought no response. Between them he listened and his ear caught nothing but the stillness of desertion. His third furious peal was answered by a dis- tant footstep. He heard it come shuffling along the hall, pause, and them a lght broke out through the glass fanlight above the portal. The door was opened a crack, and through this aperture a sec- tlon of the Chinaman’s visage was re- vealed, lit by a warily inspecting eye. The colonel pushed the door vielently in, sending the servant back with it against the wall. Kicking it to behind him he demanded between his panting breaths: “Where's Miss Allen?" “She’s gone,” sald the Chinaman, ex- ceedingly startled by this violent entry. “All gone.” “All gone! All gone where?” “I no savvy. The, boss he gone two, thlee days. Gone San Francisco. Miss Allen she go just now.” “She only just gone? You mean she has just gonme down town to buy some- thing or see some one?” “No. She go 'way. She say, ‘Sing. I go 'way.’ She take a bag.” “She’s gone with a bag. Where the devil hag she gone to? Don’t be such a damned fool! Where'd she go?” “No savvy. She no tell me. She take bag and go just now. She give me letter for you. I get him. He tell you.” “You've got a letter. for me? Why didn’t you say that before? Go get it, and go quick.” . The Chinaman shuffled up the hall and turned into the dining-room. The colonel having caught his breath, leaned against the wall under the hall gas. He thought probably June had gone to Lake Tahoe to visit Mitty Sullivan. Considering the situation it was the best thing she could have done. As the servant reappeared with a letter in his hand he said: 1o When did she leave this?” “Now.” answered the laconic Orfental. “She give him to me and say, “Give him Colonel Pallish. He come back Tuesday. Wednesday mebbe. You give him letter sure; no forget.” You come back before, I give him now.” The colonel had not listened to the last phrases. Ie moved closer to the gas and tore open the letter. To his sur- prise he saw that it was several pages in length, covered closely with June's fine writing. His eye fell on the first sentence, and he uttered a sudden sup- pressed sound and his body stiffened. The words were: . “Dear, darling, Uncle Jim. I who love you more than anybody in the world am going to hurt you so much. Oh, so ter- ribly! Will you ever forgive me? Will you ever again think of June without sorrow and pain?” He stood motionless as a thing of stone. while his glance devoured the page. He did not read every word, ‘but from the closely written lines sentences seemed to start out and strike his eyes. He turned the sheet and saw farther down a para- saph that told him everything: ’ “The future is all dark and terrible, but I am going. I am going with Jerry. ¥ am going, wherever he wants, I am what he wants to make me. Tt's only death that can break the speil. Good-by, dearest. darlingest Uncle Jim. Oh, good-by! It I could only see you again for one minute! Even when you read this and realize what I have done I know that you will love me and excuses for me, I who will be no T worthy of your love or of your™ pity.” The colonel's hand with the letter crushed in it dropped to his side. For a second.. turned furiously on the servant, = “Where did she go? Where did she so?" ; The man cowered terrified against the wall, stammering in broken phrases: abag. She say, ‘Give him the letter’ .‘2: N NN 2 ) \‘\5 N 2/s j ‘"(/4 AN “I/p&\‘ =