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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f19de83 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #67521 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67521) diff --git a/old/67521-0.txt b/old/67521-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index c3a5e29..0000000 --- a/old/67521-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,14403 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tomorrow’s Tangle, by Geraldine -Bonner - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Tomorrow’s Tangle - -Author: Geraldine Bonner - -Illustrator: Arthur I. Keller - -Release Date: February 27, 2022 [eBook #67521] - -Language: English - -Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The - Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOMORROW’S TANGLE *** - - - - - - TOMORROW’S - TANGLE - - -[Illustration: “THAT’S MY LIFE,--TO WORK IN WILD PLACES WITH MEN”] - - - - - TOMORROW’S - TANGLE - - BY - GERALDINE BONNER - - ILLUSTRATIONS BY - ARTHUR I. KELLER - - [Illustration] - - INDIANAPOLIS - THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY - PUBLISHERS - - - - - COPYRIGHT 1903 - THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY - - OCTOBER - - - PRESS OF - BRAUNWORTH & CO. - BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS - BROOKLYN, N. Y. - - - - - TOMORROW’S - TANGLE - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PROLOGUE - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I THE DESERT 1 - - II STRIKING A BARGAIN 7 - - III HE RIDES AWAY 28 - - IV THE ENCHANTED WINTER 50 - - - MARIPOSA LILY - - I HIS SPLENDID DAUGHTER 71 - - II THE MILLIONAIRE 86 - - III RETROSPECT 100 - - IV A GALA NIGHT 119 - - V TRIAL FLIGHTS 130 - - VI THE VISION AND THE DREAM 147 - - VII THE REVELATION 157 - - VIII ITS EFFECT 172 - - IX HOW COULD HE 181 - - X THE PALE HORSE 194 - - XI BREAKS IN THE RAIN 214 - - XII DRIFT AND CROSSCUT 229 - - XIII THE SEED OF BANQUO 245 - - XIV VAIN PLEADINGS 260 - - XV THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY 276 - - XVI REBELLIOUS HEARTS 294 - - XVII FRIEND AND BROTHER 311 - - XVIII WITH ME TO HELP 331 - - XIX NOT MADE IN HEAVEN 350 - - XX THE WOMAN TALKS 366 - - XXI THE MEETING IN THE RAIN 382 - - XXII A NIGHT’S WORK 398 - - XXIII THE LOST VOICE 410 - - XXIV A BROKEN TOOL 426 - - XXV HAVE YOU COME AT LAST 435 - - - EPILOGUE - - I THE PRIMA DONNA 451 - - - - -PROLOGUE - - - - -TOMORROW’S TANGLE - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE DESERT - - “To every man a damsel or two.” - - --JUDGES. - - -The vast, gray expanse of the desert lay still as a picture in the heat -of the early afternoon. The silence of waste places held it. It was -gaunt and sterile, clad with a drab growth of sage, flat as a table, -and with the white scurf of the alkali breaking through its parched -skin. It was the earth, lean, sapless, and marked with disease. A chain -of purple hills looked down on its dead level, over which a wagon road -passed like a scar across a haggard face. From the brazen arch of the -sky heat poured down and was thrown back from the scorched surface of -the land. It was August in the Utah Desert in the early fifties. - -In the silence and deadness of the scene there was one point of life. -The canvas top of an emigrant wagon made a white spot on the monotone -of gray. At noon there had been but one shadow in the desert and this -was that beneath the wagon which was stationary in the road. Now the -sun was declining from the zenith and the shadow was broadening; first -a mere edge, then a substantial margin of shade. - -In it two women were crouched watching a child that lay gasping. Some -distance away beside his two horses, a man sat on the ground, his hat -over his eyes. - -One of the thousand tragedies the desert had seen was being enacted. -Crushed between that dead indifference of earth and sky, its -participators seemed to feel the hopelessness of movement or plaint and -sat dumb, all but the child, who was dying with that solemn aloofness -to surroundings, of which only those who are passing know the secret. -His loud breathing sounded like a defiance in the silence of that -savagely unsympathizing nature. The man, the women, the horses, were -like part of the picture in their mute immobility, only the dying child -dared defy it. - -He was a pretty boy of three, and had succumbed to one of the slight, -juvenile ailments that during the rigors of the overland march -developed tragic powers of death. His mother sat beside him staring -at him. She was nineteen years of age and had been married four years -before to the man who sat in the shadow of the horses. She looked -forty, tanned, haggard, half clad. Dazed by hardship and the blow -that had just fallen, she had the air of a stupefied animal. She -said nothing and made no attempt to alleviate the sufferings of her -first-born. - -The other woman was some ten years older, and was a buxom, handsome -creature, large-framed, capable, stalwart--a woman built for struggles -and endurance--the mate of the pioneer. She, too, was the wife of the -man who sat by the horses. He was of the Mormon faith, which he had -joined a year before for the purpose of marrying her. - -The sun sloped its burning course across the pale sky. The edges of the -desert shimmered through veils of heat. Far on the horizon the mirage -of a blue lake, with little waves creeping up a crescent of sand, -painted itself on the quivering air. The shadow of the wagon stealthily -advanced. Suddenly the child moved, drew a fluttering breath or two, -and died. The two women leaned forward, the mother helplessly; the -other, with a certain prompt decision that marked all her movements, -felt of the pulse and heart. - -“It’s all over, Lucy,” she said bruskly, but not unkindly; “I guess -you’d better get into the wagon; Jake and I’ll do everything.” - -The girl rose slowly like a person accustomed to obey, moved to the -back of the wagon, and climbed in. - -The man, who had seen this sudden flutter of activity, pushed back his -hat and looked at his wives, but did not move or speak. The second wife -covered the dead child with her apron, and approached him. - -“He’s dead,” she said. - -“Oh!” he answered. - -“We must bury him,” was her next remark. - -“Well, all right,” he assented. - -He went to the wagon and detached from beneath it a spade. Then he -walked a few rods away and, clearing a space in the sage, began to dig. -The woman prepared the child for burial. The silence that had been -disturbed resettled, broken at intervals by the thud of the spade. -The heat began to lessen and a still serenity to possess the barren -landscape. The desert had received its tribute and was appeased. - -The rites of the burial were nearly completed, when a sound from the -wagon attracted the attention of the man and the woman. They stopped, -listened and exchanged a glance of alarmed intelligence. The woman -walked to the wagon rapidly, and exchanged a few remarks with the -other wife. Her voice came to the man low and broken. He did not hear -what she said, but he thought he knew the purport of her words. As he -shoveled the earth into the grave his brow was contracted. He looked -angrily harassed. The second wife came toward him, her sunburnt face -set in an expression of frowning anxiety. - -“Yes,” she said, in answer to his look, “she feels very bad. We got to -stop here. We can’t go on now.” - -He made no answer, but went on building up the mound over the grave. -He was younger by a year or two than the woman with whom he spoke, but -it was easy to be seen that of her, as of all pertaining to him, he -was absolute master. She watched him for a moment as if waiting for an -order, then, receiving none, said: - -“I’d better go back to her. I wish a train’d come by with a doctor. She -ain’t got much strength.” - -He vouchsafed no answer, and she returned to the wagon, and this time -climbed in. - -He continued to build up and shape the mound with sedulous and -evidently absent-minded care. The sweat poured off his forehead and his -bare, brown throat and breast. He was a lean but powerful man, worn -away by the journey to bone and muscle, but of an iron fiber. He had -no patience with those who hampered his forward march by sickness or -feebleness. - -When he had finished the mound the sun was declining toward the tops -of the distant mountains. The first color of its setting was inflaming -the sky and painting the desert in tones of strange, hot brilliancy. -The vast, grim expanse took on a tropical aspect. Against the lurid -background the chain of hills turned a transparent amethyst, and the -livid earth, with its leprous eruption, was transformed into a pale -lilac-blue. Presently the thin, clear red of the sunset was pricked by -a white star-point. And in the midst of this vivid blending of limpid -primary colors, the fire the man had kindled sent a fine line of smoke -straight up into the air. - -The second wife came out of the wagon to help him get the supper and to -eat hers. They talked a little in low voices as they ate, drawn away -from the heat of the fire. The man showed symptoms of fatigue; but the -powerful woman was unconquered in her stubborn, splendid vigor. When -she had left him, he lay down on the sand with his face on his arm and -was soon asleep. The sounds of dole that came from the wagon did not -wake him, nor disturb the deep dreamlessness of his exhausted rest. -The night was half spent, when he was wakened by the woman shaking his -shoulder. He looked up at her stupidly for a minute, seeing her head -against the deep blue sky with its large white stars. - -“It’s over. It’s a little girl. But Lucy’s pretty bad.” - -He sat up, fully awake now, and in the stillness of the night heard the -cat-like mew of the new-born. The canvas arch of the wagon glowed with -a fiery effect from the lighted lanterns within. - -“Is she dying?” he said hurriedly. - -“No--not’s bad as that. But she’s terribly low. We’ll have to stay here -with her till she pulls up some. We can’t move on with her this way.” - -He rose and, going to the wagon, looked in through the opened flap. -His wife was lying with her eyes closed, waxen pale in the smoky -lantern-light. The sight of her shocked him into a sudden spasm of -feeling. She had been a fresh and pretty girl of fifteen when he had -married her, four years before at St. Louis. He wondered if her father, -who had given her to him then, would have known her now. In an excess -of careless pity he laid his hand on her and said: - -“Well, Lucy, how d’ye feel?” - -She shrank from his touch and tried to draw a corner of the blanket, on -which her head rested, over her face. - -He turned away and walked back to the fire, saying to the second wife: - -“I guess she’ll be able to go on to-morrow. She can stay in the wagon -all the time. I don’t want to run no risks ’er gittin’ caught in the -snows on the Sierra. I guess she’ll pull herself together all right in -a few days. I’ve seen her worse ’n that.” - - - - -CHAPTER II - -STRIKING A BARGAIN - - “How the world is made for each of us! - How all we perceive and know in it - Tends to some moments’ product thus, - When a soul declares itself--to wit: - By its fruit, the thing it does!” - - --BROWNING. - - -Where the foothills fold back upon one another in cool, blue shadows, -and the tops of the Sierra, brushed with snow, look down on a -rugged rampart of mountains falling away to a smiling plain, Dan -Moreau and his partner had been working a stream bed since June. -Placerville--still Hangtown--though already past the feverish days -of its first youth, was some twenty-five miles to the southwest. A -few miles to the south the emigrant trail from Carson crawled over -the shoulder of the Sierra. Small trails broke from the parent one -and trickled down from the summit, by “the line of least resistance,” -to the outposts of civilization that were planted here and there on -foothill and valley. - -The cañon where Moreau and his “pard” were at work was California, -virgin and unconquered. The forty-niners had passed it by in their -eager rush for fortune. Yet the narrow gulch, that steamed at midday -with heated airs and was steeped in the pungent fragrance which -California exhales beneath the ardors of the sun, was yielding the two -miners a good supply of gold. Their pits had honeycombed the stream’s -banks far up and down. Now, in September, the water had dwindled to a -silver thread, and they had dammed it near the rocker into a miniature -lake, into which Fletcher--Moreau’s partner--plunged his dipper with -untiring regularity, at the same time moving the rocker which filled -the hot silence of the cañon with its lazy monotonous rattle. - -They had been working with little cessation since early June. The -richness of their claim and the prospect that the first snows would put -an end to labors and profits had spurred them to unremitting exertion. -In a box under Moreau’s bunk there were six small buckskin sacks of -dust, joint profits of the summer’s toil. - -Moreau, a muscular, fair-haired giant of a man, was that familiar -figure of the early days--the gentleman miner. He was a New Englander -of birth and education, who had come to California in the first rush, -with a little fortune wherewith to make a great one. Luck had not been -with him. This was his first taste of success. Five months before he -had picked up a “pard” in Sacramento, and after the careless fashion -of the time, when no one sought to inquire too closely into another’s -antecedents, joined forces with him and spent a wandering spring, -prospecting from bar to bar and camp to camp. The casual words of an -Indian had directed them to the cañon where now the creak of their -rocker filled the hot, drowsy days. - -Of Harney Fletcher, Moreau knew nothing. He had met him in a -lodging-house in Sacramento, and the partnership proved to be a -successful one. What the New Englander furnished in money, the other -made up in practical experience and general handiness. It was Fletcher -who had constructed the rocker on an improved model of his own. His had -been the directing brain as well as the assisting hand which had built -the cabin of logs that surveyed the stream bed from a knoll above. The -last remnants of Moreau’s fortune had stocked it well, and there were -two good horses in the brush shed behind it. - -It was now September, and the leaves of the aspens that grew along -the stream bed were yellowing. But the air was warm and golden with -sunshine. Above, in the high places of the Sierra, where the emigrant -trail crept along the edges of ravines and crawled up the mighty flank -of the wall that shuts the garden of California from the desert beyond, -the snow was already deep. Fletcher, who had gone into Hangtown the -week before for provisions, had come back full of stories of the swarms -of emigrants pouring down the main road and its branching trails, -higgledy-piggledy, pell-mell, hungry, gaunt, half clad, in their wild -rush to enter the land of promise. - -There was no suggestion of winter here. The hot air was steeped in the -aromatic scents that the sun draws from the mighty pines which clothe -the foothills. At midday the little gulley where the men worked was -heavy with them. All about them was strangely silent. The pines rising -rank on rank stirred to no passing breezes. There was no bird note, -and the stream had shrunk so that its spring-time song had become a -whisper. Heat and silence held the long days, when the red dust lay -motionless on the trail above, and the noise made by the rocker sounded -strangely intrusive and loud in the enchanted stillness that held the -landscape. - -On an afternoon like this the men were working in the stream -bed--Moreau in the pit, Fletcher at his place by the rocker. There -was no conversation between them. The picture-like dumbness of their -surroundings seemed to have communicated itself to them. Far above, -glittering against the blue, the white peaks of the Sierra looked down -on them from remote, aërial heights. The tiny thread of water gleamed -in its wide, unoccupied bed. Save the men, the only moving thing in -sight was a hawk that hung poised in the sky above, its winged shadow -floating forward and pausing on the slopes of the gulch. - -Into this spellbound silence a sound suddenly broke--a sound unexpected -and unwished for--that of a human voice. It was a man’s, harsh and -loud, evidently addressing cattle. With it came the creak of wheels. -The two partners listened, amazed and irresolute. The trail that passed -their cabin was an almost unknown offshoot from the main highway. Then, -the sounds growing clearer, they scrambled up the bank. Coming down -the road they saw the curved top of a prairie schooner that formed a -background for the forms of two skeleton horses, beside which walked -a man who urged them on with shouts and blows. Wagon and horses were -enveloped in a cloud of red dust. - -At the moment that the miners saw this unwelcome sight, one of the -wretched beasts stumbled, and pitching forward, fell with what sounded -like a human groan. The man, with an oath, went to it and gave it a -kick. But it was too far spent to rally, and settling on its side, lay -gasping. A woman, stout and sunburned, ran round from the back of the -cart, with a face of angry consternation. As Moreau approached, he -heard her say to the man who, with oaths and blows, was attempting to -drag the horse to its feet: - -“Oh, it ain’t no use doing that. Don’t you see it’s dying?” - -Moreau saw that she was right. The animal was in its death throes. As -he came up he said, without preliminaries: - -“Take off its harness, the poor brute’s done for,” and began to -unbuckle the rags of harness which held it to the wagon. - -The man and woman turned, startled, and saw him. Looking back they saw -Fletcher, who was coming slowly, and evidently not very willingly, -forward. The sight of the exhausted pioneers was a too familiar one to -interest him. The dying horse claimed a lazy cast of his indifferent -eye. Moreau and the man loosed the harness, lifted the pole, and let -the creature lie free from encumbrance. The other horse, freed, too, -stood drooping, too spent to move from where it had stopped. If other -testimony were needed of the terrible journey they were ending, one saw -it in the gaunt face of the man, scorched by sun, seamed with lines, -with a fringe of ragged beard, and long locks of unkempt hair hanging -from beneath his miserable hat. - -This stoppage of his journey with the promised land in sight seemed to -exasperate him to a point where he evidently feared to speak. With eyes -full of savage despair he stood looking at the horse. Both he and the -woman seemed so overpowered by the calamity that they had no attention -to give to the two strangers, but stood side by side, staring morosely -at the animal. - -“What’ll we do?” she said hopelessly. “Spotty,” indicating the other -horse, “ain’t no use alone.” - -Moreau spoke up encouragingly. - -“Why don’t you leave the wagon and the other horse here? You can walk -into Hangtown by easy stages. The Porter ranch is only twelve miles -from here and you can stay there all night. The poor beast can’t do -much more, and we’ll feed it and take care of your other things while -you’re gone.” - -“Oh, damn it, we can’t!” said the man furiously. - -As if in explanation of this remark, a woman suddenly appeared at the -open front of the wagon. She had evidently been lying within it, and -had not risen until now. - -When Moreau looked at her he experienced a violent thrill of pity, that -the evident sufferings of the others had not evoked. He was a man of a -deeply tender and sympathetic nature toward all that was helpless and -weak. As his glance met the face of this woman, he thought she was the -most piteous object he had ever seen. - -“You’d better come into the cabin,” he said, “and see what you can do. -You can’t go on now, and you look pretty well used up.” - -The man gave a grunt of assent, and taking the other horse by the head -began to lead it toward the cabin, being noticeably careful to steer -it out of the way of all stumbling-blocks. The woman in the sunbonnet -called to her companion in the wagon: - -“Come, Lucy, get a move on! We’re going to stop and rest.” - -Thus addressed, the woman moved to the back of the cart, drew the flap -aside and slipped out. She came behind the others, and Moreau, looking -back, saw that she walked slowly, as if feeble, or in pain. - -Advancing to the sunbonneted figure in front of him he said, with a -backward jerk of his head: “What’s the matter with her? Is she sick?” - -The woman gave an indifferent glance backward. Like the man, she seemed -completely preoccupied by their disaster. - -“Not now,” she answered, “but she has been. But good Lord!”--with a -sudden burst of angry bitterness--“women like her ain’t meant to take -them sort of journeys. If it weren’t for her, Jake and I could go on -all right.” - -She relapsed into silence as the cabin revealed itself through the -trees. It appeared to interest her, and she went to the door and looked -in. - -It was the typical miner’s cabin of the period, consisting of a single -room with two bunks. Opposite the doorway was the wide-mouthed chimney, -a slab of rock before it doing duty as hearthstone. There was an -armchair formed of a barrel, cushioned with red flannel and mounted -on rockers. Moreau’s bunk was covered with a miner’s blanket, and the -ineradicable habits of the gentleman spoke in the very simple but -sufficient toilet accessories that stood on a shelf under a tiny square -of looking-glass. Over the roof a great pine spread its boughs, and in -passing through these the slightest breaths of air made soft eolian -murmurings. To the pioneers, the wild, rough place looked the ideal of -comfort and luxury. - -A small spring bubbled up near the roots of the pine and trickled -across the space in front of the cabin. To this, by common consent, the -party made its way. The exhausted horse plunged its nose in the cool -current and drank and snorted and drank again. The elder woman knelt -down and laved her face and neck and even the top of her head in the -water. The man stood looking with a moody eye at his broken animal, and -joined by Fletcher, they talked over its condition. The miner, versed -in this as in all practical matters, deemed the beast incapacitated for -journeys of any length for some time to come. Both animals had been -driven to the limit of their strength. - -The pioneer asserted: - -“I had to get acrost before the snows blocked us, and they’re heavy up -there now,” with a nod of his head toward the mountains above; “then I -wanted to get down into the settlements as soon’s I could. I knew there -weren’t two more days work in ’em, but I calk’lated they’d get me in. -After that it didn’t matter.” - -“The only thing for you to do is to walk into Hangtown, buy a mule -there, and come back.” - -The man made a despairing gesture. - -“How the hell can I, with her?” he said, indicating the younger woman. - -Fletcher turned round and surveyed her with a cold, exploring eye where -she had sunk down on the roots of the pine, with her back against its -trunk. - -“She looks pretty well tuckered out,” he said. “Your wife?” - -“Yes.” - -“And the other one’s your sister?” he continued with glib curiosity. - -“She’s my wife, too.” - -The inquirer, who was used to such plurality on the part of the Utah -emigrants, gave a whistle and said: - -“Mormons, eh?” - -The man nodded. - -Meantime Moreau had entered the cabin to get some food and drink -to offer the sick woman. In a few moments he reappeared carrying a -tin cup containing whisky diluted with water from the spring, and -approached the woman sitting by the tree trunk. Her eyes were closed -and she presented a deathlike appearance. The shawl she had worn round -her shoulders had fallen back and disclosed a small bundle that she -held with a loose carefulness. The man noticed the way her arms were -disposed about it and wondered. Coming to a standstill before her, he -said: - -“I’ve brought you something that’ll brace you up. Would you like to try -it?” - -She raised her lids and looked at him, and then at the cup. As he met -her glance he noticed that her eyes were a clear brown like a dog’s, -and for the first time he realized that she might be young. She -stretched out her hand obediently and taking the cup drank a little, -then silently gave it back. - -“You’ve had a pretty rough time I guess,” he said, holding the cup -which he intended to give her again in a minute. - -She nodded. Then suddenly the tears began to well out of her eyes, -quantities of tears that ran in a flood over her cheeks. She did not -sob or attempt to hide her face, but leaning her head against the tree, -let the tears flow as though lost to everything but her sense of misery. - -“Oh, poor thing! poor thing!” he exclaimed in a burst of sympathy, -“you’re half dead. Here take some more of this,” and he pressed the cup -into her hand, not knowing what else to do for her. - -She took it, and then, through the tears, he saw her cast a look of -furtive alarm toward her husband. She was within his line of vision and -tried to shift herself behind Moreau. - -With a sensation of angry disgust he understood that she feared this -unkempt and haggard creature to whom she belonged. He moved so that he -sheltered her and watched her try to drink again. But her tears blinded -her and she handed the cup back with a shaking hand. - -“It’s been too much,” she gasped. “If I could only have died! My boy -did. Out there on them awful plains where there ain’t a tree and it’s -hot like a furnace. And they buried him there--Bessie and he.” - -“Bessie and he?” he repeated vaguely, his pity entirely preoccupying -his mind for the moment. - -“Yes, Bessie,--the second wife. I’m the first.” - -“Oh,” he said, comprehending, “you’re from Utah?” - -“Not me,” she answered quickly, “I’m from Indiana. I’m no Mormon. He -wasn’t neither till he married Bessie. He wanted her and he did it.” - -Here she was suddenly interrupted by a weak whining cry from the bundle -that one arm still curved about. She bent her head and drew back the -covering, and Moreau saw a strange wizened face and a tiny, claw-like -hand feeling feebly about. He had never seen a very young infant before -and it seemed to him a weirdly hideous thing. - -“Is it yours?” he said, amazed. - -“Yes,” she answered, “it was born in the desert three weeks ago.” - -Her tears were dry, and she bent over the feeble thing that squirmed -weakly and made small, cat-like noises, with something in her attitude -that changed her and made her still a woman who had a life above her -miseries. - -“Wouldn’t you like to go into the cabin?” said the man, feeling -suddenly abashed by his ignorance of all pertaining to this -infinitesimal bit of life. “You might want to wash it or put it -to sleep or give it something to eat. There’s a basin and soap -and--er--some flour and bacon in there.” - -The woman responded to the invitation with a slight show of alacrity. -She stumbled as she rose, and he took her arm and guided her. At the -cabin door he left her and as he passed to the back where the rest -of the party had gone, the baby’s feeble cry, weak, but insistent, -followed him. - -The emigrant, Bessie and Fletcher, had repaired to the brush shed where -Moreau’s horses were stabled and had put the half-dead Spotty under -its shelter. Here the exhausted beast had lain down. The trio had then -betaken themselves to a bare spot on the shaded slope of the knoll -and were eating ship’s biscuits and drinking whisky and water from a -tin cup, that circulated from hand to hand. As Moreau approached he -could hear his partner volubly expatiating on the barrenness of the -stream-beds in the vicinity. The stranger was listening to him with a -cogitating eye, his seamed, weather-worn face set in an expression of -frowning attention. Her hunger appeased, Bessie had curled up on her -side, and with her sunbonnet still on, had fallen into a deep, healthy -sleep. - -Moreau joined them, and listened with mingled surprise and amusement to -Fletcher’s glib lies. Then, when his partner’s fluency was exhausted, -he questioned the emigrant on his trip. The man’s answers were short -and non-committal. He seemed in a morose, savage state at his ill luck, -his mind still engrossed by the question of moving on. - -“If I’d money,” he said, “I’d give you anything you’d ask for them two -horses ’er your’n in the shed. But I ain’t a thing to give--not a red.” - -“Your wife, your other wife,” said Moreau, “doesn’t seem to me fit to -go on. She’s dead beat.” - -The man gave an angry snort. - -“She’s been like that pretty near the whole way,” he said. -“Everything’s been put back because of her.” - -He relapsed into moody silence and then said suddenly: “We’re goin’ if -she’s got to walk.” - -Moreau went back to the cabin. They had half killed the woman already; -now if they insisted on her walking the wretched creature might -collapse altogether. Would they leave her on the mountain roads, he -wondered? - -He reached the cabin door, knocked and heard her answering “come in.” -She was sitting on an upturned box beside the bunk on which the baby -slept. Her sunbonnet was off, and he noticed that she had bright -hair, rippled and thick, and of the same reddish-brown color as her -eyes. She had washed away the traces of her tears, but her clothes, -hardly sufficient covering for her lean, toil-worn body, were dirty -and ragged. No beggar he had ever seen in the distant New England -town where he had spent his boyhood, had presented a more miserable -appearance. She looked timidly at him and rose from the box, pushing it -toward him. - -“I put the baby on the bunk,” she said apologetically, “but I can hold -her.” - -“Oh, don’t disturb her,” he said quickly. “It’s the only place you -could have put her.” Then, seeing her standing, he said, “Why don’t you -sit down?” - -She sat charily and evidently ill at ease. - -“They’ve been eating out there,” he said, “and I thought you might like -something, too. There’s some stuff over there in the corner if you’ll -wait a moment.” - -He went to the corner where the supplies were stored and rifled them -for more ship’s biscuit and a wedge of cheese, a delicacy which -Fletcher had brought from Hangtown on his last visit, and which he -carefully refrained from offering to the hungry emigrants. Coming back -with these he drew out another box and spread them on it before her. -She looked on in heavy, silent surprise. When he had finished he said: - -“Now--fall to. You want food as much as anything.” - -She made no effort to eat, and he said, disappointed: “Don’t you want -it? Oh, make a try.” - -She “made a try,” and bit off a piece of cracker, while he again -retired to the supply corner for the tin cup and the whisky. He tried -to step softly so as not to wake the child, and there was something -ludicrous in the sight of this vast, bearded man, with his mighty, -half-bared arms and muscular throat, trying to be noiseless, with as -much success as one might expect of a bear. - -Suddenly, in the midst of her repast, the woman broke down completely; -and, with bowed head, she was shaken by a tempest of some violent -emotion. It was not like her tears of an hour before, which seemed -merely an indication of physical exhaustion. This was an expression -of spiritual tumult. Sobs rent her and she rocked back and forth -struggling with some fierce paroxysm. - -Moreau, cup in hand, gazed at her in distracted helplessness. - -“Come now, eat a little,” he said coaxingly, not knowing what else to -suggest, and then getting no response: “Suppose you lie down on the -bunk? Rest is what you want.” - -“Oh, I can’t go on,” she groaned. “I can’t. How can I? Oh, it’s too -much! I can’t go on.” - -He was silent before this ill for which he had no remedy, and she -wailed again in the agony of her spirit: - -“I can’t, I can’t. If I could only die! But now there’s the baby, and I -can’t even die.” - -He got up feeling sick at heart at sight of this hopeless despair. What -could he suggest to the unfortunate creature? He felt that anything he -could say would be an insult in the face of such a position. - -“Oh God, why can’t we die?” she groaned--“why can’t we die?” - -As she said the words the sound of approaching voices came through the -open door. Her husband’s struck through her agony and froze it. She -stiffened and lifted her face full of an animal look of listening. -Moreau noticed her blunt and knotted hands, pitiful in their record -of toil, as she held them up in the transfixed attitude of strained -attention. - -“What now?” she said to herself. - -The pioneer, Fletcher and Bessie came slowly round the corner of the -cabin. Bessie looked sleepily anxious, Fletcher lazily amused. As -Moreau stepped out of the doorway toward them he realized that they had -come to some decision. - -“Well,” said the man, “we got to travel.” - -“You’re going on?” said Moreau. “How about the wagon?” - -“We’re goin’ to leave the wagon, and I’ll come back for it from -Hangtown. It’s the only thing to do.” - -“And the horse?” - -“He calk’lates,” said Fletcher, “to mount his wife--the peaked one--on -the horse and take her along till one or other of ’em drops.” - -“Take your wife on that horse?” exclaimed Moreau. “Why, it can’t go two -miles.” - -“Well, maybe it can’t,” returned the man with an immovable face. - -There was a pause. Moreau was conscious that the woman was standing -behind him in the doorway. He could hear her breathing. - -“Come on, Lucy,” said the husband. “We got to move on sometime.” - -Here the second wife spoke up: - -“I don’t see how the horse is goin’ to get Lucy twelve miles, and this -man says the first place we can stop is twelve miles farther along.” - -“Don’t you begin with your everlasting objections,” said the husband, -furiously. “Get the horse.” - -The woman evidently knew the time had passed for trifling and turned -away toward the brush shed. Fletcher followed her with a grin. The -situation appealed to his sense of humor, and he was curious as to the -outcome. - -Moreau and the emigrant were left facing each other, with the first -wife in the doorway. - -“Your wife’s not able to go on,” said the miner--his manner becoming -suddenly authoritative; “no more than your horse is.” - -“Maybe not,” said the other, “but they’re both goin’ to try.” - -“But can’t you see the horse can’t carry her? She certainly can’t walk -into Hangtown, or even to Porter’s Ranch.” - -“No, I can’t see. And how’s it come to be your business--what they can -do or what they can’t?” - -[Illustration: “YOUR WIFE’S NOT ABLE TO GO ON, NO MORE THAN YOUR HORSE -IS”] - -“It’s any one’s business to prevent a woman from being half killed.” - -“Since you seem to think so much about her, why don’t you keep her here -yourself?” - -The man spoke with a savage sneer, his eyes full of steely defiance. - -Before he had realized the full import of his words, burning with rage -against the brutal tyrant to whom the wife was of no more moment than -the horse, Moreau answered: - -“I will--let her stay!” - -There was a moment’s pause. The emigrant’s face, dark with rage, was -suddenly lightened by a curiously alert expression of intelligence. He -looked at the woman in the background and then at the miner. - -“I’m not giving anything away just now,” he answered. “When she’s well -she’s of use. But I’ll swap her for your two horses.” - -In the heat of his indignation and disgust Moreau turned and looked at -the woman. She was leaning against the door frame, chalk-white, and -staring at him. She made no sound, but her dog-like eyes seemed to -speak for his mercy more eloquently than her tongue ever could. - -“All right,” he said quietly. “It’s a bargain.” - -“Done,” said the emigrant. “You’ll find her a good worker when she -pulls herself together. You stay on here, Lucy. Bessie,” he sang out, -“bring around them horses.” - -Under the phlegm of his manner there was a sudden expanding heat of -shame that he strove to hide. The woman neither stirred nor spoke, and -Moreau stood with his back to her, struggling with his passion against -the man who had been her owner. The impulse under which he had spoken -had full possession of him, and his main feeling was his desire to rid -himself of the emigrant and his other wife. - -“Here,” he said, “go on and tell them that you’ll take the horses. -Hurry up!” - -The man needed no second bidding and made off rapidly round the corner -of the cabin. - -Moreau and the woman were silent. For the moment he had forgotten her -presence, engrossed by the rage that filled his warmly generous nature. -Instinctively he followed the man to the angle of the cabin whence he -could command the brush shed. The trio were standing there, Fletcher -and the woman listening amazed to the emigrant’s explanation. Moreau -turned back to the cabin and his eye fell on the woman in the doorway. - -“Well,” he said--trying to speak easily--“you don’t mind staying on -here for a while, do you? I guess we can make you comfortable.” - -She made no answer, and after waiting a moment he said: - -“When you get stronger I’ll be able to find you something to do in -Hangtown. You know you couldn’t go on, feeling so bad. And this air -round here”--with a wave of his hand to the surrounding pines--“will -brace you up finely.” - -She gave a murmured sound of assent, but more than this made no reply. -Only her dog-like eyes again seemed to speak. Their miserable look of -gratitude made Moreau uncomfortable and he could think of nothing more -to say. - -The sound of the trio advancing from the shed came as a welcome -interruption. They appeared round the corner of the cabin, leading the -miner’s two powerful and well-fed horses. Evidently the situation had -been explained. Fletcher’s face was enigmatical. The humorousness of -the novel exchange had come a little too close to his own comfort to -be quite as full of zest as it had been earlier in the afternoon. He -had insisted that the emigrant leave his horse, which the man had no -objection to doing. Bessie looked flushed and excited. Moreau thought -he detected shame and disapproval under her agitated demeanor. But -to her work was a matter of second nature. She put the horses to the -tongue of the wagon and buckled the rags of harness together before she -turned for a last word to her companion. This was characteristically -brief: - -“So long, Lucy,” she said, “let’s see the baby again.” - -It was shown her and she kissed it on the forehead with some -tenderness. Then she climbed on the wheel of the wagon and took from -the interior a bundle tied up in printed calico and laid it on the -ground. It contained all the personal belongings and wardrobe of the -first wife. There were a few murmured sentences between them and then -she turned to ascend to her seat. But before she had fairly mounted a -sudden impulse seized her and whirled her back to give Lucy a good-by -kiss. - -There was more feeling in this action than in anything that had passed -between the trio during the afternoon. The two wives had been women who -had mutually suffered. There were tears in Bessie’s eyes as she climbed -to her place. The husband never turned his head in the direction of his -first wife. But as he took the reins and prepared to start the team, he -called: - -“Good by, Lucy.” - -He clucked at the horses, and the wagon moved forward amid a stir of -red dust. The woman on the front seat drew her sunbonnet over her face. -The man beside her looked neither to the right nor the left, but stared -out over his newly-acquired team with an impassively set visage. His -long whip curled out with a hiss, the spirited animals gave a forward -bound, and the wagon went clattering and jolting down the trail. - -Moreau stood watching its canvas arch go swinging downward under the -dark boughs of the pines and the flickering foliage of the aspens. He -watched until a bend in the road hid it. Then he turned toward the -cabin. Fletcher was standing behind him, surveying him with a cold and -sardonic eye: - -“Well, you’ve done it!” - -“I guess I have.” - -“What the devil are you going to do with her?” - -“Don’t know.” - -“And the horses gone; nothin’ but that busted cayuse left!” - -They stood looking at each other, Fletcher angrily incredulous, Moreau -smilingly deprecating and apologetic. - -As they stood thus, neither knowing what to say, the emigrant’s wife -appeared at the doorway of the cabin. - -“I’ll get your supper now if it’s the right time,” she said timidly. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -HE RIDES AWAY - - “Alas, my Lord, my life is not a thing - Worthy your noble thoughts! ’Tis not a life, - ’Tis but a piece of childhood thrown away.” - - --BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. - - -That night the two miners rolled themselves in their blankets and lay -down on the expanse of slippery grass under the pine. Moreau did not -sleep soon. The day’s incidents were the first interruption to the -monotony of their uneventful summer. - -Now, the strong man, lying on his back, looking at the large white -stars between the pine boughs, thought of what he had done with -perplexity, but without regret. In the still peacefulness of the night -he turned over in his mind what he should do when the woman grew -stronger. Women were rare in the mining districts, and he knew that the -emigrant wife could earn high wages as a servant either in Hangtown or -the growing metropolis of Sacramento. The child might hamper her, but -he could help her to take care of the child until she got fairly on her -feet. He had nothing much to do with his “dust.” Strong and young and -in California, that always meant money enough. - -So he thought, pushing uneasiness from his mind. Turning on his hard -bed he could see the dark bulk of the cabin with a glint of starlight -on its window. Above, the black boughs of the pine made a network -against the sky sown with stars of an extraordinary size and luster. He -could hear the river sleepily murmuring to itself. Once, far off, in -the higher mountains, the shrill, weird cry of a California lion tore -the silence. He rose on his elbow, looking toward the cabin. The sound -was a terrifying one, and he was prepared to see the woman come out, -frightened, and had the words of reassurance ready to call to her. But -there was no movement from the little hut. She was evidently wrapped in -the sleep of utter fatigue. - -In the morning he was down at a basin scooped in the stream bed making -a hasty toilet, when Fletcher, sleepy-eyed and yawning, came slipping -over the bank. - -“What are we goin’ to do for breakfast?” he said. “Is that purchase o’ -your’n goin’ to git it? She’d oughter do something to show she’s worth -the two best horses this side er Hangtown.” - -Moreau, with his hair and beard bedewed with his ducking, was about to -answer when a sound from above attracted them. - -Lucy was standing on the bank. In the clear morning light she looked -white and pinched. Her wretched clothes of yesterday, a calico sack and -skirt, were augmented by a clean apron of blue check. Her skirt was -short and showed her feet in a pair of rusty shoes that were so large -they might have been her husband’s. - -“Are you comin’ to breakfast?” she said; “it’s ready.” Then she -disappeared. The men looked at each other and Moreau shook the drops -from his beard and began to try to pat his hair into order. The -civilizing influence of woman--even such an unlovely woman as the -emigrant’s wife--was beginning its work. - -Lucy had evidently been busy. The litter that had disfigured the ground -in front of the cabin was cleared away. Through the open door and -window a current of resinous mountain air passed which counteracted -the effect of the fire. Nevertheless she had evidently feared its heat -would be oppressive, and had brought two of the boxes to the rude bench -outside the doorway, and on these the breakfast was laid. It was of the -simplest--fried bacon, coffee and hot biscuits--but the scent of these, -hot and appetizing, was sweet in the nostrils of the hungry men. - -Sitting on the bench, they fell to and were not disappointed. The -emigrant’s wife had evidently great skill in the preparation of the -simple food of the pioneer. With the scanty means at her hand she had -concocted a meal that to the men, used to their own primitive cooking, -seemed the most toothsome they had eaten since they left San Francisco. - -As she retired into the cabin, Fletcher--his mouth full of -biscuit--said: - -“Well, she can cook anyway. I wonder how she gets her biscuits so -all-fired light? They ain’t all saleratus, neither.” - -Here she reappeared, carrying the coffee-pot, and, leaning over -Fletcher’s shoulder, prepared to refill his tin cup. - -“Put it down on the table. He can do it himself,” commanded Moreau -suddenly. - -She set it down instantly, with her invariable frightened obedience. - -“We’re not used to being waited on,” he continued. “Now you sit down -here,”--he rose from his end of the bench and pointed to it,--“and next -thing we want I’ll go in and get it. You’ve had your own breakfast, of -course?” - -“No--I ain’t had mine yet,” she answered meekly. - -“Well, why ain’t you?” he almost shouted. “What d’ye mean by giving us -ours first?” - -She looked terrified and shrank a little on the bench. Moreau had a -dreadful idea that for a moment she was afraid of being struck. - -“Here, take this cup,” he said, giving her his,--“and this bacon,” -picking from the pan, which stood in the middle of the table, the -choicest pieces, and a biscuit. “There--now eat. I’m done.” - -She tried to eat, but it was evidently difficult. Her hands, bent -and disfigured with work, shook. At intervals she cast a furtive, -questioning look at him where he sat on an overturned box, eying her -with good-humored interest. As he met the frightened dog-eyes he smiled -encouragingly, but she was grave and returned to her breakfast with -nervous haste. - -As the men descended the bank to the stream bed, Fletcher said: - -“Well, she’s some use in the world. That’s the first decent meal we’ve -had since we left Sacramento.” - -“She didn’t eat much of it herself,” returned his pard as he began the -morning’s work. - -“She is the gol-darnedest lookin’ woman I ever seen. Looks as if she’d -been fed on shavings. I’ll lay ten to one that emigrant cuss she -b’longs to has ’most beat the life out er her.” - -Ascending to the cabin an hour later, Moreau came upon the woman, -washing the breakfast dishes in the stream that trickled from the -spring. She did not hear him approach, and, watching her, he saw that -she was slow and feeble in her movements. The sun spattered down -through the pine boughs on her thick, brilliant-colored hair, and on -the nape of her neck, where the skin was tanned to a coarse, russet -brown. - -“What are you doing that for?” he said, coming to a standstill in front -of her. “You needn’t bother about the pans.” - -“They’d oughter be cleaned,” she answered. - -“You don’t want to feel,” he said, “that you’ve got to work all the -time. I wanted you to rest up a bit. It’s a good place to rest here.” - -She made no answer, drying the tin cups on a piece of flour sack. - -“I ain’t so awful tired,” she said presently in a low voice. - -“Well, don’t you worry about having everything so clean; they’ll do -anyway. And the cabin’s pretty clean,--isn’t it?” he asked, somewhat -anxiously. - -“Yes--awful clean,” she said. Then, after a moment, she continued: -“I hadn’t oughter have stayed in the cabin. It’s your’n. Me and the -baby’ll be all right in the brush shed with Spotty.” - -“What nonsense!” retorted Moreau. “Do you suppose I’d let you and that -baby stay in the brush shed, the place where the horses have been kept -all summer? You’re going to keep the cabin, and if there’s anything you -want--anything that’s short, or that you might need for the baby--why, -Fletcher’ll go to Hangtown and get it. Just say what you want. Not -having women around, we’re probably short of all sorts of little -fixings.” - -“I don’t want nothing,” she said with her head down--“I ain’t never -been so comfortable sence I was married.” - -“Have you been married long?” he asked, less from curiosity than from -the desire to make her talk. - -“Four years,” she replied; “I was married in St. Louis, just before -dad and I was startin’ to cross the plains. Dad was taken sick. He was -consumpted, and some one tol’ him to go to California, so we was goin’ -to start along with a heap of other folks. We was all waitin’ ’round -St. Louis for the weather to settle and that’s how I met Jake.” - -“Jake?” said Moreau, interrogatively; “who was Jake?” - -“My husband--Jake Shackleton. He was one o’ the drivers of the train. -He drove McGinnes’ teams. He was there in camp with us, and up and -asked me, and dad was glad to get any one to take care of me, bein’ as -he was so consumpted. We was married a week afore the train started. I -didn’t favor it much, but dad thought it was a good thing. My father -was a Methodist preacher, and knowin’ as how he couldn’t last long, he -was powerful glad to get some one to look after me. I was pretty young -to be left--just fifteen.” - -“Fifteen!” echoed Moreau--then piecing together her scant bits of -biography--“Then you’re only _nineteen_ now?” - -“That’s my age,” she said with her laconic dryness. - -He looked at her in incredulous amaze. Nineteen! A girl, almost a -child! A gush of pity and horror welled up in him, and for the moment -he could find no words. She went on, evidently desirous of telling him -of herself as in duty bound to her new master. - -“Dad died before we got to Salt Lake. Then Jake and I settled there and -Willie was born, and for two years it wern’t so bad. Jake liked me and -was good to me. But he got to know the Mormons and kep’ sayin’ all the -time it weren’t no good doin’ anything not bein’ a Mormon. He said they -had no use for him, bein’ a Gentile. And then he seen Bessie,--she was -a waitress in the Sunset Hotel,--and got powerful set on her. She was a -big, strong woman, and could work. Not like me. I couldn’t never work -except in the house. I was no good for outdoor work. I was always a -sort er drag, he said. So he turned Mormon and married Bessie, and she -came to live with us.” She stopped and began rubbing a pan with a piece -of flour sack. - -“Don’t tell any more if you don’t want to,” said the man, hearing his -voice slightly husky. - -“Oh, I don’t mind,” she answered with her colorless, unemotional -intonation; “I couldn’t ever come to feel she was his wife, too. I -hadn’t them notions. My father was a preacher. I hated it all, but I -couldn’t seem to think of anything else to do. I had to stay. There was -no one to go to. Dad was dead and he didn’t have no relations. Then we -started to come here, and on the way my little boy died. That was all I -had, and I didn’t care then what happened. And only for the other baby -I’d er crep’ out er the wagon some night and run away and got lost on -them plains. But--” - -She stopped and made a gesture of extending her hands outward and -then letting them fall at her sides. It was tragic in its complete -hopelessness. Of gratitude to Moreau she seemed to have little. She -had been so beaten down by misfortune that nothing was left in her but -acquiescence. Her very service to him seemed an instinctive thing, the -result of rigorous training. - -“Well,” he said after a pause, “you’ve had a hard time. But it’s over -now. Don’t you think about it any more. You’re going to rest up here, -and when you’re strong and well again we’ll think about something for -you to do. Time enough for that then. But you can always get work and -high pay in Hangtown or Sacramento. Or if you don’t fancy it at any of -those places I’ll see to it that you go down to San Francisco. Don’t -bother any more anyhow. You’d about got to the bottom of things and now -you’re coming up.” - -She gathered up her pans and said dully: “Thank you, sir.” - -The cry of the baby struck on her ear and she scrambled to her feet, -and without more words turned and walked to the cabin. - -At dinner she again made her appearance on the bank and called the two -men. Again they were greeted by a meal that was singularly appetizing, -considering the limited resources. Obeying Moreau’s order, she sat -down with them, but ate nothing, at intervals starting to her feet to -return to the cabin, then restraining the impulse and sitting rigid and -uncomfortable on the upturned box. To wait on the men seemed the only -thing she knew how to do, or that gave her ease in the doing. - -The child cried once or twice during dinner, and, in the afternoon, -working in the pit which was in the stream bed just below the cabin -window, Moreau heard it crying again. It seemed a louder and more -imperious cry than it had given previously. The miner, whose knowledge -of infancy and its ills was of the most limited, wondered if it could -be sick. - -At sunset, the day’s work over, both men mounted the bank, their -takings of dust in two tin cups, from which it was transferred to the -buckskin sacks in the box under the bunk. Moreau entered the cabin to -get the sacks and found Lucy there curled on the end of the bunk where -the baby slept. As his great bulk darkened the door she started up, -with her invariable frightened look of apology. - -“Don’t move--don’t move,” he said, kneeling by her; “I want to get the -box under the bunk.” - -She started up, and being nearer the box than he, thrust her hand under -and tried to pull it out. It was heavy with the sacks of dust and -required a wrench. She rose from the effort, gave a gasp, and, reeling, -fell against him. He caught her in his arms, and as her head fell back -against his shoulder saw that she was death-white and unconscious. - -With terrified care he laid her on Fletcher’s bunk, and, seizing a pan -of water, sprinkled her face and hands, then tore one of the tin cups -off its nail, and, pouring whisky into it, tried to force it between -her lips. A little entered her mouth, though most of it ran down her -chin. As he stood staring at her, Fletcher appeared in the doorway. - -“Hullo!” he said; “what’s the matter with her? By gum, but she looks -bad!” And then, with a quick and practised hand, he pulled her up to a -sitting posture, and, prying her mouth open with a fork, poured some -of the whisky down. It revived her quickly. She sat up, felt for her -sunbonnet, and then said: - -“I hadn’t oughter have done that, but it came so quick.” - -She tried to get up, but Moreau pushed her back. - -“Oh, I ain’t sick,” she said, trying to speak bravely; “I’ve been took -like that before. It’s just tiredness. I’m all right now.” - -She again tried to rise, stood on her feet for a moment, then reeled -back on the bunk, with white lips. - -“It’s such a weakness,” she whispered; “such a weakness!” - -At this moment the baby woke up, and, lifting up its voice, began a -loud, violent wail. The woman looked in terror from one man to the -other. - -“Oh, my poor baby!” she cried; “what’ll I do? Is that one goin’ to go, -too?” - -“The baby’s all right,” said Moreau. “Don’t begin to worry about that. -All babies cry, don’t they?” - -“Oh, my poor baby!” she wailed, unheeding, and suddenly beginning to -wring her hands. “It’ll die like Willie. It’ll die, too.” - -“Why should it die? What’s the matter with it? It was all right this -morning, wasn’t it?” he answered, feeling that there were mysteries -here he did not grasp. - -“It’ll die because it don’t get nothing to eat,” she cried desperately. -“I’ve nothing for it. I’m too sick! I’m too sick! And it’ll starve. Oh, -my poor baby!” - -She burst into the wild, weak tears of exhaustion, her sobs mingling -with the now strident yells of the hungry baby. - -The two men looked at each other, sheepishly, beginning to understand -the situation. The enfeebled condition of the mother made it impossible -for her to nourish the child. It was a predicament for which even the -resourceful mind of Fletcher had no remedy. He pushed back his cap, -and, scratching slowly at the front of his head, looked at his mate -with solemn perplexity, while the cabin echoed to sounds of misery -unlike any that had ever before resounded within its peaceful walls. - -“Can--can--we get anything?” said Moreau at length--“any--any--sort of -food, meat, eggs--er--er any sort of stuff for it to eat?” - -“Eat?” exclaimed Fletcher scornfully; “how can it eat? It hasn’t a -tooth.” - -“How would it do if Fletcher went into Hangtown and brought the -doctor?” suggested Moreau, soothingly. “It’ll take twenty-four hours, -but he’s a good doctor.” - -The woman shook her head. - -“A goat,” she sobbed, the menace to her offspring having given her a -fictitious courage. “If you could get a goat.” - -“A goat!” - -The two men looked at each other, horror-stricken at the magnitude of -the suggestion. - -“She might as well ask us to get an elephant,” muttered Fletcher -morosely. “There’s not a goat nearer than San Francisco.” - -“And it would take us two weeks anyway to get one up from there and -across the mountains from Sacramento,” said Moreau. - -“By the time you got it here it’d be the most expensive goat you ever -bucked up against,” said his partner disdainfully. - -“A cow!” exclaimed Moreau. “Say, Lucy, would a cow do?” - -“A cow!” came the muffled answer; “oh, it don’t need a whole cow.” - -“But a cow would do? If I could get a cow the baby could be fed on the -milk, couldn’t it?” - -“Oh, yes; it ’ud do first-rate.” - -“Very well, I’ll get a cow. Don’t you bother any more; I’ll have a cow -here by to-morrow noon. The baby’ll have to hold out till then, for, -not having a decent horse, I can’t get it here any sooner.” - -“And where do you calk’late to get a cow?” demanded Fletcher; “cows -ain’t much more common than goats round these parts.” - -“On the Porter ranch. It’s twelve miles off. I can go in to-night, rest -there a bit, and by noon be here with the cow.” - -“And is that baby goin’ to yell like this from now till to-morrow noon? -You might’s well have a mountain lion tied up in the bunk.” - -The difficulty was indeed only half solved. The infant’s lusty cries -were unabated. The miserable mother, with tear-drenched face and -quivering chin, sat up in the bunk and tried to rise and go to it, but -was restrained by Moreau’s hand on her shoulder. - -“You stay here and I’ll get it,” he said, then crossed to the other -bunk, and gingerly lifted with his huge, hairy hands the shrieking -bundle, from which protruded two tiny, red fists, jerking and clawing -about, and carried it to its mother. Her practised hand hushed it for a -moment, but its pangs were beyond temporary alleviation, and its cries -soon broke forth. - -“If I could git up and mix it some flour and water,” she said, feebly -attempting to rise. - -“What’s the matter with us doing that?” queried Moreau. “How do you do -it? Just give us the proportions and we’ll dish it up as if we were -born to it.” - -Under her direction he put flour in one of the dippers, and handed -Fletcher a tin cup with the order to fill it with water at the spring. -Both men were deeply interested, and Fletcher rushed back from the -spring with a dripping cup, as if fearful that the infant would die -unless the work of feeding was promptly begun. - -“Now go on,” said Moreau, armed with the dipper and a tin teaspoon; -“what’s next?” - -“Sugar,” she said; “if you put a touch of sugar in it tastes better to -them.” - -“Here, sugar. Hand it over quick. Now, there we are. How do you mix -’em, Lucy?” - -She gave the directions, which the men carefully followed, compounding -a white, milky-looking liquid. The crucial moment came when they had to -feed this to the crimson and convulsively screaming baby. - -To forward matters better they moved two boxes to the doorway, where -the glow of sunset streamed in, and seated themselves, Fletcher with -the dipper and spoon, Moreau with the baby. Both heads were lowered, -both faces eagerly earnest when the first spoonful was administered. -It was a tense moment till the tip of the spoon was inserted between -the infant’s lips. Her puckered face took on a look of rather annoyed -surprise; she caught at it, and then, with an audible smack, slowly -drew in the counterfeit. The men looked at each other with heated -triumph. - -“Takes it like a little man, doesn’t she?” said Moreau proudly. - -“She wasn’t hungry,” said Fletcher. “Oh-h, no! Listen to her smack.” - -“Here, hold up the dipper. Don’t keep her waiting when she’s so blamed -hungry.” - -“You’re spilling half of it. You’re getting it on her clothes.” - -“Well, she don’t want to eat any faster. That’s the way she likes to -eat--just slowly suck it out of the spoon. Take your time, old girl, -even if you don’t swallow it all.” - -“My! don’t she take it down nice! Look alive there, it’s running outer -the corner of her mouth.” - -“Give us that bit of flour sack behind you. We ought to have put -something round her neck.” - -The baby, its round eyes intent, one small red fist still fanning the -air, sucked noisily at the tip of the spoon. The mother, sitting up on -the bunk in the background, watched it with craned neck and jealous eye. - -Finally, when the meal was over, it was triumphantly handed back to -her, sticky from end to end, but sleepy and satisfied. - -A few hours later, in the star-sown darkness of the early night, Moreau -started on his twelve-mile walk to the Porter ranch. The next morning, -some time before midday, he reappeared, red and perspiring, but proudly -leading by a rope a lean and dejected-looking cow. - -The problem of the baby’s nutriment was now satisfactorily solved. The -cow proved eminently fitted for the purpose of its purchase, and though -the two miners had several unsuccessful bouts in learning to milk it, -the handy Fletcher soon overcame this difficulty, and the stock of the -cabin was augmented by fresh milk. - -The baby throve upon this nourishment. Its cries no longer disturbed -the serenity of the cañon. It slept and ate most of the time, but -kindly consented to keep awake in the late afternoon and be gentle -and patient when the men charily passed it from hand to hand during -the rest before supper. Fletcher regarded it tolerantly as an object -of amusement. But Moreau, especially since the feeding episode, had -developed a deep, delighted affection for it. Its helplessness appealed -to all that was tender in him, and the first faint indications of a -tiny formed character were miraculous to his fascinated and wondering -observation. He was secretly ashamed of letting the sneeringly -indifferent Fletcher guess his sudden attachment, and made foolish -excuses to account for the trips to the cabin which frequently -interrupted his morning’s work in the stream bed. - -Lucy’s recovery was slow. The collapse from which she suffered was as -much mental as physical. The anguish of the last two years had preyed -on the bruised spirit as the hardships of the journey had broken the -feeble body. No particular form of ailment developed in her, but she -lay for days silent and almost motionless on the bunk, too feeble to -move or to speak beyond short sentences. The men watched and tended -her, Moreau with clumsy solicitude, Fletcher dutifully, but more -through fear of his powerful mate than especial interest in Lucy as a -woman or a human being. - -In his heart he still violently resented Moreau’s action in acquiring -her and parting with the valuable horses. Had she possessed any of the -attractions of the human female, he could have understood and probably -condoned. But as she now was, plain, helpless, sick, unable even to -cook for them, demanding care which took from their work and lessened -their profits, his resentment grew instead of diminishing. Moreau saw -nothing of this, for Fletcher had long ago read the simple secrets of -that generous but impractical nature, and knew too much to bring down -on himself wrath which, once aroused, he felt would be implacable. - -At the end of two weeks Lucy began to show signs of improvement. The -fragrant air that blew through the cabin, the soothing silence of the -foothills, broken only by the drowsy prattle of the river or the sad -murmuring of the great pine, began its work of healing. The autumn -was late that year. The days were still warm and dreamily brilliant, -especially in the little cañon, where the sun drew the aromatic odors -from the pines till at midday they exhaled a heavy, pungent fragrance -like incense rising to the worship of some sylvan god. - -Sometimes now, on warm afternoons, Lucy crept out and sat at the root -of the pine where she had found her first place of refuge. There her -dulled eyes began to note the beauties that surrounded her, the pines -mounting in dark rows on the slopes, the blue distances where the cañon -folded on itself, the glimpses of chaste, white summits far above -against the blue. Her lungs breathed deep of the revivifying air, clean -and untainted as the water in the little spring at her feet. The peace -of it all entered her soul. Something in her forbade her to look back -on the terrible past. A new life was here, and her youth rose up and -whispered that it was not yet dead. - -During the period of her illness Moreau had begun to see both himself -and the cabin through feminine eyes. Discrepancies revealed themselves. -He wanted many things heretofore regarded as luxuries. From the tin -cups of the table service to the towels made of ripped flour sacks, -his domestic arrangements seemed mean and inadequate. They were all -right for two prospectors, but not fitting for a woman and child. -Lucy’s illness also revealed wants in her equipment that struck him as -piteous. Her only boots were the ones he had seen her in on the morning -after her arrival. She had no shawl or covering for cold weather. The -baby’s clothes were a few torn pieces of calico and flannel. Moreau had -washed these many times himself, doing them up in an old flour sack, -which was attached to an aspen on the stream’s bank, and then placed in -one of the deepest parts of the current. Here it remained for two days, -the percolating water cleansing its contents as no washboard could. - -One evening, smoking under the pine, he acquainted Fletcher with a -design he had been some days formulating. This was that Fletcher -should ride into Hangtown the next day and not only replenish the -commissariat, but buy all things needful for Lucy and the baby. Spotty -was now also recovered, and, though hardly a mettlesome steed, was at -least a useful pack horse. But the numerous list of articles suggested -by Moreau would have weighted Spotty to the ground. So Fletcher was -commissioned to buy a pack burro, and upon it to bring all needful food -stuffs for the cabin and the habiliments for Lucy and the baby. - -“She’s got no shoes. You want to buy her some shoes, one useful pair -and one fancy pair with heels.” - -“What size do I git? I ain’t never bought shoes for a woman before.” - -This was a poser, and both men cogitated till Moreau suggested leaving -it to the shoe dealer, who should be told that Lucy was a woman of -average size. - -“But her feet ain’t,” said Fletcher spitefully, never having been able -to forgive Lucy her lack of beauty. - -“Never mind; you’ll have to make a bluff at it. Get the best you can. -Then I want a shawl for her. It’ll be cold soon, and she’s got nothing -to keep her warm.” - -“What kind of a shawl? I don’t know no more about shawls than I do -about shoes.” - -“A pink crochet shawl,” said Moreau slowly, and with evident sheepish -reluctance at having to make this exhibition of unexpected knowledge. - -“And what’s that? I dunno what crochet is.” - -“I don’t, either”--and then, with desperate courage--“well, anyway, -that’s what she said she’d like. I asked her yesterday and she said -that. You go into the store and ask for it. That’ll be enough.” - -Fletcher grunted. - -“And then I want some toys for the kid. Anything you can get that seems -the right kind. She’s a girl, so you don’t want a drum, or soldiers, or -guns, or things of that kind. Get a doll if you can, and a musical box, -or anything tasty and that’s likely to catch a baby’s eye.” - -“Why, she can’t hardly see yet. She’s like a blind kitten. Lucy told me -herself yesterday she were only six weeks old.” - -“Never you mind. She’s a smart kid; knows more now than most babies at -six months. You might get a rattle--a nice one with bells; she might -fancy that.” - -“Silver or gold?” sneered Fletcher, whom this conversation was making -meditative. - -“The best you can get. Don’t stint yourself for money; everything of -the best. Then clothes for her; she is going to be as well dressed as -any baby in California. I take it you’d better go to Mrs. Wingate, at -the Eldorado Hotel, and get her to make you out a list; then go to the -store and buy the list right down.” - -“Seems to me you’ll want a pack train, not a burro, to carry it all.” - -“Well, if you can’t get everything on Spotty and one burro, buy two. -I’ll give you a sack of dust and you can spend it all.” - -Fletcher was silent after this, and as he lay rolled in his blanket -that night he looked at the stars for many hours, thinking. - -Early in the morning he departed on the now brisk and rejuvenated -Spotty. Besides his instructions he carried one of Moreau’s buckskin -sacks, roughly estimated to contain twelve hundred dollars’ worth of -dust, and, he told Moreau, one of his own. He was due to return the -next morning. With a short word of farewell, he touched Spotty with -the single Mexican spur he wore, and darted away down the rough trail. -Moreau watched him out of sight. - -The day passed as quietly as its predecessors. The main events that -marked their course had been the men’s clean-up, Lucy’s gain in -strength and the evidences of increasing intelligence in the child. - -To-day Lucy had walked to a point a little distance up the cañon, -rested there, and in the afternoon came creeping back with the flush of -returning health on her face. It was still there when Moreau ascended -from the stream bed with his cup. He had had a good day’s work and was -joyful, showing the fine yellow grains in the bottom of the rusty tin. -Then he noticed her improved appearance and cried: - -“Why, you look blooming. A fellow’d think you’d panned a good day’s -work, too.” - -To himself he said with a sudden inward wonder: - -“She looks almost pretty. And she _is_ only nineteen, I believe.” - -The next morning he awaited the coming of Fletcher with impatience. He -had wanted to surprise Lucy, having only told her Fletcher had gone to -buy a burro and some supplies. But the morning passed away and he had -not returned. Then the afternoon slipped by, and Lucy and Moreau took -their supper without him, the latter rather taciturn. The delay wore on -his patience. His knowledge of Fletcher was limited. He had seen him -drunk once in Sacramento, and he wondered if he had gone on a spree and -was now lying senseless somewhere, the contents of the sacks squandered. - -When the next morning had passed and Fletcher had still not come, his -suspicions strengthened and he began to think uneasily of his dust. One -sack full was a good deal to lose, now that he had a woman and child -on his hands. Lucy, he could see, was also uneasy. Twice he surprised -her standing by the trail, evidently listening. When evening drew in -and there were still no signs of him, both were frankly anxious and -oppressed. Suddenly, as they sat by the box that answered as dinner -table, she said: - -“Did he have much dust?” - -“Yes--one sack of mine and one of his own. They’re equal to about -twelve hundred dollars each.” - -She gave a startled look at him and sat with her mouth a little open, -fear and amaze on her face. - -“Where’s the rest?” she asked. - -Moreau indicated the box under the bunk. At the same moment her -suspicion seized him and he pulled it out and threw up the lid. It was -empty of all save a few clothes. Every sack was gone. - -Moreau shut down the lid quietly, a little pale. He was not a man of -quick mind, and he hardly could realize what had happened. It was -Lucy’s voice that explained it as she said: - -“He did it while I was out in the morning. I went up the stream to that -pool to wash some things at sun-up. He took it then.” - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE ENCHANTED WINTER - - “I choose to be yours for my proper part, - Yours, leave me or take, or mar or make; - If I acquiesce, why should you be teased - With the conscience prick and the memory smart?” - - --BROWNING. - - -Fletcher had gone silently and without leaving a trace, and with him -the money. It was a startling situation for Moreau. From comparative -affluence he suddenly found himself without a cent or an ounce of dust. -This, had he had only himself to look after, would not have affected -his free and jovial spirit, but now the woman and the child he had so -carelessly come into possession of loomed before him in their true -light of a heavy responsibility. Lucy, as far as supporting herself -went, was still a long way off from the state of health where that -would be possible. And at the thought of sending her forth, even though -she were cured of her infirmities, Moreau experienced a sensation of -depression. He felt that the cabin would be unbearably lonely when she -and the baby were gone. - -That night under the pine he turned over the situation in his mind. The -conclusion he arrived at was that there was nothing better to be done -than stay by the stream bed and work it for all it was worth. Lucy -would continue to improve in the fine air and the child was thriving. -If the snows would hold off till late, as they had done in the open -winter of ’50, he could amass a fair share of dust before it would be -necessary to move Lucy and the baby to the superior accommodations -of Hangtown or Sacramento. It was now October. In November one might -expect the first snows. - -He must do a good deal in the next six weeks. This he started to do. -The next day he spent in raising a brush shed against the back of the -cabin where the chimney would offer warmth on cold nights. Into this -he moved such few belongings as he had retained after Lucy and the -baby had taken possession of the cabin. Then the working of the stream -bed went on with renewed vigor. The water was low, hardly more than a -thread, rendering the washing of the dirt harder labor than during the -earlier summer when the watercourses were still full. But he toiled -mightily, rejoicing in the splendor of his man’s work, not with the -same knightly freedom that he felt when he had been that king of men, -the miner with his pick on his shoulder and all the world before him, -but with the soberer joy of the man into whose life others have entered -to lay hold upon it with light, clinging hands. - -Against the complete and perfect loneliness of his life the woman -and child, who had started up from nowhere, stood out as figures of -vital significance. They had grown closer to him in that one month’s -isolation than they would have done in a year of city life. The child -became the object of his secret but deep devotion. He had been ashamed -to let Fletcher see it. Now that Fletcher was gone, Moreau often stole -up from his work in the creek to look at it as it slept in a box by the -open door. It was as fresh as a rosebud, its skin clean and satiny, its -tiny hands, crumpled, white and pink, like the petals of flowers. The -big man leaned on his shovel to watch it adoringly. The miracle of its -growth in beauty never lost its wonder for him. - -Lucy, too, grew and bloomed in these quiet autumn days. Never -talkative, she became less laconic after the departure of Fletcher. -She seemed relieved by his absence. Moreau began to understand, as he -saw her daily increase in freshness and youthful charm, that she was -as young in nature as she was in years. Points of character that were -touchingly childish appeared in her. Her casting of all responsibility -on him was as absolute as if she had been ten years of age. She obeyed -him with trustful obedience and waited on him silently, her eyes always -on him to try to read his unexpressed wish. Sometimes he caught these -watching eyes and read in them something that vaguely disturbed him. - -One day, coming up from the creek for one of his surreptitious views -of the baby, he found its cradle empty, and was about to return to his -work, when he heard a laugh rising from a small knoll among the aspens. -It was a laugh of the most infectious, fresh sweetness, and made -Moreau’s own lips part. He stole in its direction, and as he advanced -it sounded again, rippling deliciously on the crystal air. He brushed -through the aspens and came on Lucy and her baby. She was holding it in -her lap, one hand on the back of its head. Something had touched its -unknown sense of the ludicrous, and its lips were parting in a slow but -intensely amused smile over its toothless gums. Each smile was answered -by its mother with a run of the laughter Moreau had heard. - -He looked at them for a moment, and then, advancing, his foot cracked a -dry branch, and Lucy turned. Her face was flushed, her eyes still full -of their past merriment, her smiling lips looked a coral red against -the whiteness of her small, even teeth. Her sunbonnet was off and her -rich hair glowed like copper in the sun. He had never seen her look -like this, and stopped, regarding her with a curious, sudden gravity. -The thought was in his heart: - -“She’s only a girl, and--and--almost beautiful.” - -Lucy looked confused. - -“Oh, I was just laughing at the baby,” she said apologetically; “she -looked so sorter cute smiling that way.” - -“I never heard you laugh like that before. Why don’t you do it oftener?” - -She seemed embarrassed and murmured: - -“I didn’t think you’d like to hear me.” - -“I think you’re sometimes afraid of me,” he said; “is that true?” - -She bent her face over the baby and said very low: - -“I’m afraid as how you might get mad at me. I don’t know much and--I’m -different, and you’ve been more good to me than--” - -She stopped, her face hidden over the child. Moreau felt a sudden sense -of embarrassed discomfort. - -“Oh, don’t talk that way,” he said, hastily, “or I may get mad. That’s -the sort of talk that annoys me. Laugh and be happy--that’s the way I -want you to be. Enjoy yourself; that’s the way to please me.” - -He swung himself down from the knoll into the creek bed and went back -to his rocker. He found it hard to collect his thoughts. The music of -Lucy’s laugh haunted him. - -A week, and then two, passed away. The golden days slipped by, still -warm, still scented with the healing pine balsam. The nights were white -with great stars, which Moreau could see between the pine boughs, for -it was still warm enough to sleep on the knoll. His nights’ rests were -now often disturbed. A change had come over the situation in the cabin. -The peace and serenity of the first days after Fletcher’s departure -had gone, leaving a sense of constraint and uneasiness in their stead. -Moreau now looked up at the stars not with the calm content of the days -when Lucy had first come, but with the trouble of a man who begins to -realize menace in what he thought were harmless things. - -Nearly a month had passed since Fletcher’s departure when one day, -walking down the stream with an idea of trying diggings farther down, -he came upon Lucy washing in a pool of water enlarged by a rough dam -she herself had constructed. She was kneeling on a flat stone on the -bank, her sunbonnet off, her sleeves rolled up, laving in the water the -few articles of dress that made up the baby’s wardrobe. Her arms above -the sunburned wrists shone snow-white, her roughened hair lay low on -her forehead in damp, curly strands. The sight of her engaged in this -menial toil irritated Moreau and he called: - -“What are you doing there, Lucy? Get up.” - -She started with one of her old nervous movements and sat back on the -stone. Then, seeing who it was, smiled confidently, and brushed the -hair back from her forehead with one wet hand. - -“I was washing the baby’s things. That’s the dam I made.” - -Moreau stood looking, not at the dam, but at the woman, flushed, -breathless and smiling, a blooming girl. - -“No one would ever think you were the same woman who came here two -months ago,” he said, more to himself than to her. - -“I don’t feel like the same,” she answered, beginning to wring her -clothes. “I don’t feel now as if that was me.” - -“I thought you were quite an old woman then. Do you know that? I’d no -idea you were young.” - -“I felt old. Oh, God--!” she said, suddenly dropping her hands and -looking across the pool with darkly reminiscent eyes--“how awful I -felt!” - -“But you’re quite well now? You’re really well, aren’t you?” he asked. - -“Oh, I’m all right,” she said, returning to her tone of gaiety. “I -ain’t never been like this before. Not sence I was married, anyway.” - -The allusion to her marriage made Moreau wince. Of late the subject had -become hateful to him. Standing, leaning on his shovel, he said: - -“You know it’ll be winter here soon, so it’s a good thing we’ve got you -well and nicely rested up.” - -“Yes, I guess ’twill be winter soon,” she said, looking vaguely round; -“does it snow?” - -“Sometimes tons of it, if it’s a hard winter. But we’ve got to get out -before that. Or you have, anyhow. Can’t run any risks with the baby. -Got to get her out and into some decent shelter before the snow falls.” - -For a moment Lucy made no answer. She had stopped wringing the clothes -and was kneeling on the stone, her eyes on the water, a faint line -drawn between her brows. - -“Where to--? What sort o’ place?” she said slowly. - -Moreau shifted his eyes from her face to the earth in which the point -of his shovel had imbedded itself. - -“I told you as soon as you got well I’d take you to Hangtown or -Sacramento, or even ’Frisco if they didn’t suit. Now I haven’t got dust -enough to do that. Fletcher put that spoke in my wheel. But I’ll take -you and the baby into Hangtown.” - -“Hangtown?” she repeated faintly. - -“Yes; it’s quite a ways off. I’ll have to go in myself and get a horse -first, and then I’ll take you both in on that. I thought I’d go to Mrs. -Wingate. Her husband runs the Eldorado Hotel, and she isn’t strong, -and told me last time I was there she’d give a fancy salary if she -could get a housekeeper. How’d you like to try that? It would be a -first-class home for you and the baby.” - -Lucy had bent her face over the wet clothes. - -“Ain’t it all right here?” she said in a scarcely audible voice. - -“No,” said Moreau irritably; “I just told you there was danger of being -snowed in after the first of November. You don’t want to be snowed in -here with the baby, do you?” - -“I don’t care,” said Lucy. - -“If you don’t feel strong enough to do work like that,” he continued, -“you can stay on in the hotel. I can make the dust for that easily. -Then in the spring, when the streams are full, I’ll have enough to send -you to Sacramento or San Francisco, and you can look about you and see -how you’d like it there.” - -“Why can’t I stay here?” she said suddenly, her voice quavering, but -full of protest. - -Its note thrilled Moreau. - -“I’ve just told you why,” he said quietly. - -“Well, I’m not afraid. I don’t mind snow. You can get things to eat -from Hangtown. Oh, let me stay.” - -She turned toward him, still kneeling on the stone. Her face was -quivering with the most violent emotions he had ever seen on it. The -dead apathy was gone forever, at least as far as he was concerned. - -“Oh, let me stay,” she implored; “don’t send me away from you.” - -“Oh, Lucy,” he almost groaned, “don’t you see that won’t do?” - -“Let me stay,” she reiterated, and stretched out her hands toward -him. The tears began to pour down her cheeks, and suddenly with the -outstretched hands she seized him, and burst forth into a stream of -impassioned words: - -“Let me stay. Let me be with you. Don’t send me away. There ain’t no -use in anything if I’m not with you. Let me work for you. Let me be -where I can see you--that’s all I want. I don’t want no money nor -clothes. If you’ll just let me be near by! And I kin always work and -cook, and you know you like things clean, and I kin keep ’em clean. Oh, -you can’t mean to send me off. I ain’t never been happy before. I ain’t -never had no one treat me so kind before. I ain’t never known what it -was like to be treated decent. I can’t leave you--I can’t--I can’t--” - -She sank down at his feet in a quivering heap. - -Moreau raised her and held her in his arms, pressed against his breast, -his cheek against her hair. He had no thought for the moment but an -ecstasy of pity and joy. Clinging close to him, she reiterated between -broken breaths: - -“I kin stay? Oh! I kin stay?” - -“Lucy,” he said, “how can you? Do you know what you’re asking?” - -“But I kin stay?” she repeated. - -She slid one arm round his neck, and he felt her wet cheek against his. - -“Let me just stay and work,” she whispered, “just where I can see you.” - -“Do you forget that you’re married?” he said huskily. - -“I’ll not be in your way. I’ll not ask for anything or be any trouble,” -was her whispered answer, “so long’s you let me be near you.” - -They walked back to the cabin silently. Lucy knew that she had gained -her point and would stay. Her childish nature invaded and possessed -by a great passion built on gratitude and reverence, asked no more -than to be allowed to work for and worship the man who was to her a -god. She did not look into the future, nor demand its secrets. The -perfect joy of the present filled her. In the days that followed she -grew in beauty, and in some subtile way acquired a new girlishness. -Her past seemed wiped out. The blighting effects of the four previous -years fell away from her and she seemed to revert to the sweet and -simple youthfulness that had been hers when Jake Shackleton had married -her at St. Louis. Silent and gentle as ever, it was plain to be seen -that whatever Moreau asked for--service, friendship, love--she would -unquestioningly give. - -Early in November a cold evening came with a red sunset and a -sharpening of every outline. For the first time they were driven into -the cabin for supper. A fire of boughs and dried cones burned in the -chimney and before this, supper being over, they sat, Lucy in the -rocker made of a barrel, Moreau on the end of an upturned box, staring -at the flames. - -Finally the man broke the silence by telling her that he was going to -take his dust and walk into Hangtown the next day, remaining there over -night and returning in the morning with fresh supplies and a burro. - -“Lucy,” he said, drawing his box nearer to her, “I want to talk to you -of something.” - -She looked up, saw that the moment both had been dreading had come, and -paled. - -“Lucy, the winter’s coming. The snow may be here now at any moment. -Have you thought of what we’re to do?” - -She shook her head and began to tremble. His words called up the -specter of separation--what she feared most in the world. - -“You know we can’t live on this way. Will you, if I go into Hangtown -and bring back a mule, ride there with me the day after to-morrow and -marry me? There are two or three preachers there who will do it.” - -She looked at him with surprised eyes. - -“I’m married already to Jake,” she said. “How kin I get married again?” - -“I know it, and it’s no good trying to break that marriage. But in your -eyes and mine that was none. You and your baby are mine to take care -of and support and love for the rest of our lives. Though you can’t be -my lawful wife, I can protect you from scandal and insult by making -you what all the world will think is my lawful wife. Only you, and I -and Jake and his second wife will know that there has been a previous -marriage and not one of that four will ever tell.” - -She put her rough hand out and felt his great fist close over it, like -a symbol of the protection he was offering her. - -“We can be married in Hangtown by your maiden name. If any one asks I -can say I am marrying a young widow whose husband died on the Sierra. -Your husband _did_ die there when he sold you to me for a pair of -horses.” - -She nodded, not quite understanding his meaning. - -“Kin Jake ever come and claim me?” she asked in a frightened voice. - -“How could he? How could he dare tell the world how he left you and -his child sick, almost dying, in the hut of an unknown miner in the -foothills? This is California, where men don’t forgive that sort of -thing.” - -She was silent, and then said: “Yes, let’s go to Hangtown and be -married.” - -“Was your first marriage perfectly legal? Have you got the marriage -certificate?” - -She rose, dragged out the bundle she had brought with her, and from it -drew a long dirty envelope which she handed to him. - -He opened it and found the certificate. It was accurate in every -detail. His eye ran over the ages and names of the contracting -parties--Lucy Fraser, fifteen, to Jacob Shackleton, twenty-four, at St. -Louis. - -Twisting the paper in his hands he sat moodily eying the fire. The -second marriage was the only way he could think of by which he could -lend a semblance of right to the impossible position in which his -generous action had placed him. Divorce, in that remote locality and at -that early day of laws, half administered and chaotic, was impossible, -and even had it been easily obtained he shrank from dragging into -publicity the piteous story of how the woman he loved had been sold to -him. - -That a marriage with Jake Shackleton’s wife was a legal offense he -knew, but with one of those strange whimsies of character which mark -mankind, he felt that the reading of the marriage service over Lucy -and himself would in some way sanctify what could never be a lawful tie. - -In a spasm of rage and disgust he held out the paper to the flames, -when Lucy, with a smothered cry sprang forward and seized it. It was -the first violent action into which he had ever seen her betrayed. He -looked in surprise into her flushed and alarmed face. - -“Why not? Why not destroy everything that could connect you with such a -past?” he said, almost angrily. - -She hesitated, smoothing out the paper with trembling hands. Then she -said falteringly: - -“I don’t know--but--but--he was her father,” indicating the sleeping -baby. “I was married to him all right.” - -He understood the instinct that made her wish to keep the paper as a -record of her child’s legitimacy, and made no further comment. - -The next morning at dawn he started for his long walk into Hangtown, -taking with him all the dust he had accumulated since Fletcher’s -departure. He was absent till the afternoon of the following day, when -he reappeared leading a small pack-mule, laden with supplies, among -which were several articles of dress for Lucy and the baby, so that -they might make a fitting appearance when they rode into camp for the -wedding. Lucy was overjoyed at her finery, and arrayed in it looked so -pretty and so girlish that Moreau, for the first time since the scene -by the creek, took her in his arms and kissed her. It was the kiss of -the bridegroom and the master. - -The next morning when she woke the cabin was curiously dark. Going to -the door to open it, she found it resisted, and went to the window. The -world was wrapped in a blinding fall of snow. When Moreau came in for -breakfast, he reported a blizzard outside. The cold was intense, the -wind high, and the snow so fine and so torn by the gale that it was -like a mist of whiteness enveloping the cabin. Already it was piled -high about the walls and had to be shoveled from the door to permit of -its opening. Fortunately they had collected a large amount of fire wood -which was piled in the brush shed in which the man lived. During the -morning Moreau took the animals from their shelter and stabled them in -his. There was fodder for them and a bed of leaves, and the heat of the -chimney warmed the fragile hut. - -All day the storm raged, and in the evening, as he and Lucy sat before -the fire, they could hear the turmoil of the tempest outside, moaning -through the ranks of the sentinel pines. They were silent, listening to -this shouting of the unloosed elements, and feeling an indescribably -sweet sense of home and shelter in their rugged cabin and each other’s -society. - -The storm was one of those unexpected blizzards which sometimes visit -the Sierras in the early winter. With brief intervals of sunshine, -the snow fell off and on for nearly a month. Moreau had to exercise -almost superhuman effort to keep the cabin from being buried, and, as -it was, the drifts nearly covered the window. It was impossible to -travel any distance, as the snow was of a fine, feathery texture which -did not pack tight, and into which the wanderer sank to the arm-pits. -Fortunately the last trip into Hangtown had stocked the cabin well -with provisions. No cares menaced its inmates, who, warm and happy -in the vast snow-buried solitudes of the mountains, led an enchanted -existence, forgetting and forgotten by the world. - -When the storm ended the miner attempted to get into the settlements -with the mule. But the beast, exhausted by the insufficient food, as -the best part of the fodder had to be given to the cow, fell by the -way, dying in one of the drifts. This seemed to sever their last link -with the world. Nature had drawn an unbroken circle of loneliness -around them. Under its spell they were drawn closer together till their -lives merged--the primitive man and woman living for and by love in the -primitive wilderness. - -So the enchanted winter passed. The man, at intervals, making his way -into the settlements for food and the few articles of clothing that -they needed. It was a terrible winter, nearly as fierce as that of ’46, -but between the storms Moreau fitfully worked the stream, obtaining -enough dust to pay for their provisions. The outside world seemed to -fade from their lives, which were bounded by the walls of the cabin. -Here, in the long fire-lit evenings, Moreau read to Lucy, taught her -from his few books, strove to develop the mind that misfortune had -almost crushed. She responded to his teachings with the quickness of -love. Without much mental ability she improved because she lived only -for what he desired. She smoothed the roughness of her speech and -studied to correct her grammatical errors. She made him set her little -tasks such as a child studies, and in the evenings he watched her with -surreptitious amusement, as she conned over her spelling, or traced -letters in her copy-book. She was passionately desirous of being worthy -of him, and of leaving her old chrysalis behind her when she issued -from the cabin. - -This was not to be until the early spring. It was nearly six months -from the time the emigrant wagon had stopped at his door, that Moreau, -having accumulated enough dust to buy another mule and another -outfit--took Lucy and the child into Hangtown for the marriage. This -ceremony, about which in the beginning she had been somewhat apathetic, -she now earnestly desired. It was accomplished without publicity or -difficulty, Lucy assuming her maiden name of Fraser, and passing as a -young widow. In the afternoon they started back for the cabin, Moreau -on foot, with his wife and baby on the mule. They had decided to stay -by their claim during the spring and early summer when the streams were -high. - -Thus the spring passed and the summer came. During this season Lucy, -for the first time, saw that most lovely of Californian wild-flowers, -the mariposa lily, and called her baby after it. As time went on and -no other child was born, Moreau came to regard the little Mariposa as -more and more his own. His affection for her became a paternal passion. -It was decided between himself and Lucy that she should never know the -secret of her parentage, but be called by his name and be brought up -as his child. As the happiness of the union grew in depth and strength -both the man and woman desired more ardently to forget beyond all -recall the terrible past from which she had entered his life. It grew -to be a subject to which Moreau could bear no allusion, and their life -was purposely quiet and secluded, for fear of a chance encounter with -some disturbing reminder. - -So the time passed. In the course of the next few years Moreau moved -from the smaller camps into Sacramento. Though a man of little -commercial ability, he was always able, in those halcyon days, to -make a good living for the woman and child to whom he had given his -life. Years of prosperity made it possible to give to Mariposa every -educational advantage the period and town offered. The child showed -musical talent, and for the development of this he was keenly ambitious. - -Across their tranquil life, now and then, came a lurid gleam from the -career of the man who was Lucy Moreau’s lawful husband. Jake Shackleton -was soon a marked figure in the new state. But his rise to sensational -fortune began with the booming days of the Comstock. Then his star rose -blazing above the horizon. He was one of the original exploiters of the -great lode and was one of those who owned that solid cone of silver -which has gone down to history as the Reydel Monte. Ten years from his -entrance into the state he was a rich man. In twenty, he was one of -that group of millionaires, whose names were sounded from end to end of -an astonished country. - -A quarter of a century from the time when he had crossed the desert -in an emigrant wagon, with his two wives, he read in the paper he had -recently bought as an occupation and investment, a notice of the death -of Daniel Moreau in Santa Barbara. It was brief, as befitted a pioneer -who had sunk so completely out of sight and memory, leaving neither -vast wealth nor picturesque record. The paragraph stated that “the -pioneer’s devoted wife and daughter attended his last hours, which were -tranquil and free from pain. It is understood that the deceased leaves -but little fortune, having during the last two or three years been -incapacitated for work by enfeebled health.” - - - - -MARIPOSA LILY - - - - -CHAPTER I - -HIS SPLENDID DAUGHTER - - “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” - - --KINGS. - - -Four months after the death of Dan Moreau his adopted daughter, -Mariposa, sat at the piano, in a small cottage on Pine Street, in San -Francisco, singing. Her performance was less melodious than remarkable, -for she was engaged in “trying her voice.” This was Mariposa’s greatest -claim to distinction, and, she hoped, to fortune. With it she dreamed -of conquering fame and bringing riches to her mother and herself. - -She was so far from either of these goals that she permitted herself to -speculate on them as one does on impossible glories. The merits of her -voice were as unknown in San Francisco as she was. Its cultivation had -been a short and exciting episode, relinquished for lack of means. Now -it was not only given up, but Mariposa was teaching piano herself, and -was feverishly exalted when, the week before, her three pupils had been -augmented by a fourth. Four pupils, at fifty cents a lesson, brought in -four dollars a week--sixteen a month. - -“If I make sixteen dollars a week after four months’ work,” Mariposa -had said to her mother, on the acquisition of this fourth pupil, “then -in one year I ought to make thirty-two dollars a month. Don’t you -think that’s a reasonable way of reckoning?” - -From which it will be seen that Mariposa was not only young in years, -but a novice at the work of wage-earning. - -She was in reality twenty-five years of age, but passed as, and -believed herself to be, twenty-four. She had developed into one of -those lordly women, stately of carriage, wide of shoulder and deep of -breast, that California grows so triumphantly. She had her mother’s -thick, red-brown hair, with its flat loose ripple and the dog’s brown -eyes to match, a skin as white as a blanched almond with a slight -powdering of freckles over her nose, and lips that were freshly red -and delicately defined against the warm pallor surrounding them. She -was, in fact, a beautified likeness of the Lucy that Moreau saw come -gropingly back to youth and desirableness in the cabin on the flank -of the Sierra. Only happiness and refinement and a youth passed in an -atmosphere of love, had given her all that richness of girlhood, that -effervescent confidence and joy of youth that poor Lucy had never known. - -Despite her air of a young princess, her proudly-held head, her almost -Spanish dignity, where only her brown eyes looked full of alertness -and laughter, she was in character and knowledge of life foolishly -young--in reality, a little girl masquerading in the guise of a -triumphantly maturing womanhood. Her life had been one of quietude -and seclusion. Her parents had been agreed in their desire for this; -the father in the fear of a reëncounter with some phantom from the -past. Lucy’s ostensible reason was her own delicate health; but -her dread was that Shackleton might see his child and claim her. It -seemed impossible to the adoring mother that any father could see this -splendid daughter and not rise up and call her his before all men. - -The afternoon was cold and Mariposa wore a jacket as she sang. The -cottage in Pine Street was all that a cottage ought not to be,--on -the wrong side of the street, “too far out,” cold, badly built, and -with only one window to catch the western sun. It had one advantage -which went a long way with the widow and her daughter--the rent was -twenty dollars a month. Mariposa had paid ten dollars of this with -her earnings, and kept the other six for pocket-money. But the happy -day was dawning, so she thought, when she could pay the whole twenty. -She cogitated on this and the affluence it would indicate, as her -real father might have cogitated when he and the inner ring of his -associates began to realize that the Reydel Monte was not a pocket, but -a solid mound of mineral. - -On this gray afternoon the cold little parlor, with its bulge of bay -window looking out on the dreariness of the street, seemed impregnated -with an air of dejection. In common with many poor dwellings in that -city of extravagant reverses, it was full of the costly relics of -better days. San Francisco has more of such parlors than any city in -the country. The pieces of buhl and marquetry hiding their shame in -twenty-dollar cottages and eighteen-dollar flats furnish pathetic -commentary on many a story of fallen fortunes. The furniture looks -abashed and humbled. Sometimes its rich designs have found a grateful -seclusion under the dust of a quarter century, which finally will be -removed by the restoring processes of the second-hand dealer, who will -eventually become its owner. - -There was a beautiful marquetry sideboard in the gray front parlor and -a fine scarlet lacquer Chinese cabinet facing it. Moreau had had the -tall, gilt-framed mirror and console brought round The Horn from New -York when he had been in the flush of good times in Sacramento. The -piano Mariposa was playing dated from a second period of prosperity, -and had cost what would have now kept them for a year. It had been -considered cheap at the time, and had been bought when the little -Mariposa began to show musical tastes. She had played her first -“pieces” on it, and in that halcyon period when she had had the singing -lessons, had heard the big voice in her chest slowly shaking itself -loose to the accompaniment of its encouraging notes. - -Now she was singing in single tones, from note to note, higher and -higher, then lower and lower. Her voice was a mezzo, with a “break” in -the middle, below which it had a haunting, bell-like depth. As it went -down it gained a peculiar emotional quality which seemed to thrill with -passion and tears. As it began to ascend it was noticeable that her -upper tones, though full, were harsh. There was astounding volume in -them. It was evidently a big voice, a thing of noble promise, but now -crude and unmanageable. - -She emitted a loud vibrant note that rolled restlessly between the four -walls, as if in an effort to find more space wherein to expand, and her -hands fell upon the keys. In the room opening off the parlor there was -an uncertain play of light from an unseen fire, and a muffled shape -lying on the sofa. To this she now addressed a query in a voice in -which dejection was veiled by uneasy inquiry: - -“Well, does it seem to improve? Or is it still like a cow when she’s -lost her calf?” - -“It’s wonderfully improved,” came the answer from the room beyond; “I -don’t think any one sings like you. Anyway, no one has such a powerful -voice.” - -“No one howls so, you mean! Oh, mother, do you suppose I _ever_ shall -be able to take any more lessons?” - -“Oh, yes, of course. We are in a large city now. Even if you don’t make -enough money yourself, there are often people who become interested -in fine voices and educate them. Perhaps you’ll meet one of them some -day. And anyway--” with cheerfulness caught on the upward breath of a -sigh--“you’ll make money enough soon yourself.” - -Mariposa’s head bent over the keys. When she came to view it this way, -her sixteen dollars a month did not seem so big with promise as it did -when ten dollars for rent was all it had to yield up. - -“I’ve heard about those rich people who are looking for prima donnas -to develop, but I don’t know where to find them, and I don’t see how -they’re to find me. The only way I can ever attract their notice is to -sing on the street corner with a guitar, like Rachel. And then I’d have -to have a license, and I’ve got no money for that.” - -She rose, and swept with the gait of a queen into the next room. Her -mother was lying on a sofa drawn closely to a tiny grate, in which a -handful of fire flickered. - -Lucy was still a pretty woman, with a thin, faded delicacy of aspect. -Her skin was singularly white, especially on her hands, which were -waxen. Though love and happiness had given her back her youth, her -health had never recovered her child’s rude birth in the desert and the -subsequent journey across the Sierra. She had twined round and clung -to the man whom she had called her husband, and with his loss she was -slowly sinking out of the world his presence had made sweet for her. -Her daughter--next in adoration to the hero who had succored her in her -hour of extremity--had no power to hold her. Lucy was slowly fading -out of life. The girl had no knowledge of this. Her mother had been a -semi-invalid for several years, and her own youth was so rich in its -superb vigor, that she did not notice the elder woman’s gradual decline -of vitality. But the mother knew, and her nights were wakeful and -agonized with the thought of her child, left alone, poor and unfriended. - -Mariposa sat down on the end of the sofa at the invalid’s feet and took -one of her hands. She had loved both parents deeply, but the fragile -mother, so simple and unworldly, so dependent on affection for her -being, was the object of her special devotion. They were silent, the -girl with an abstracted glance fixed on the fire, meditating on the -future of her voice; the mother regarding her with pensive admiration. - -As they sat thus, a footfall on the steps outside broke upon their -thoughts. The cottage was so built that one of its conveniences was, -that one could always hear the caller or the man with the bill mounting -the steps before he rang. The former were rarer than the latter, and -Mariposa, in whose eventless life a visit from any one was a thing of -value, pricked up her ears expectantly. - -The bell pealed stridently and the servant could be heard rattling -pans in the kitchen, evidently preparatory to emerging. Presently she -came creaking down the hall, the door opened and a female voice was -heard asking for the ladies. It _was_ a visitor. Mariposa was glad she -had stayed in that afternoon, and with her hand still clasping her -mother’s, craned her neck toward the door. - -The visitor was a tall, thin woman of forty years, her cheaply -fashionable dress telling of many a wrestle between love of personal -adornment and a lean purse. She was one of those slightly known and -unquestioningly accepted people that women, in the friendless and -unknown condition of the Moreaus, constantly meet in the free and easy -social life of western cities. - -She was a Mrs. Willers, long divorced from a worthless husband, and -supporting, with a desperate and gallant courage, herself and her -child, who was one of Mariposa’s piano pupils. Her appearance gave -no clue to the real force and indomitable bravery of the woman, who, -against blows and rebuffs, had fought her way with a smile on her -lips. Her appearance and manner, especially in this, her society pose, -were against her. The former was flashy and over-dressed, the latter -loud-voiced and effusive. A large hat, flaunting with funeral plumes, -was set jauntily on one side of her head, and a spotted veil was drawn -over a complexion that was carelessly made up. Her corsets were so long -and so tight that she could hardly bend, and when she did they emitted -protesting creaks. No one would have thought from her flamboyantly -stylish get-up that she was a reporter and “special” writer on Jake -Shackleton’s newly-acquired paper, _The Morning Trumpet_! But in -reality she was an energetic and able journalist. It was only when -adorned with her best clothes and her “society” manners that she -affected a sort of gushing silliness. - -“Well,” she said, rustling in, “here’s the lady! How’s everybody? Just -as cozy and cute as a doll’s house.” - -She pressed Mrs. Moreau’s hand and then sent an eagle glance--the -glance of the reporter that is trained to take in every salient object -in one sweep--about the room. She could have written a good description -of it from that moment’s survey. - -“Better? Of course you’re better,” she interrupted Lucy, who had been -speaking of improved health. “Don’t San Francisco cure everybody? -And daughter there?” her bright tired eye rested on Mariposa for one -inspecting moment. “She looks nice enough to eat.” - -“Mariposa’s always well,” said Lucy, pressing the hand she still held. -“She was always a prize child ever since she was a baby.” - -Mrs. Willers leaned back and folded her white-gloved hands over her -creaking waist. - -“You know she’s the handsomest thing I’ve seen in a coon’s age,” she -said, nodding her head at Mariposa. “There ain’t a girl in society that -compares to her.” - -Lucy smiled indulgently at her daughter. Mariposa, though embarrassed, -was not displeased by these sledge-hammer compliments. They were -a novelty to her, and she regarded Mrs. Willers--despite a few -peculiarities of style--as a woman of vast knowledge and experience in -that wonderful world of gaiety and fashion, of which she herself knew -so little. - -“I go to most of the big balls here,” continued the visitor. “It’s -always the same thing on _The Trumpet_--‘Send up Mrs. Willers to the -Cotillion Club to-night; we don’t want any other reporter but her. -If you send up any of those other jay women we’ll turn ’em down.’ So -up I have to hop. The other night at the Lorley’s big blow-out, when -Genevieve Lorley had her début, it was the same old war-cry--‘We want -Mrs. Willers to-night to do the Society, and don’t try and work off any -incompetents on us. Send her up early so’s Mrs. Lorley can give her the -dresses herself.’ So up I went, and was in the dressing-room for an -hour and saw ’em all, black and white and brown, heiresses and beggars, -and not one of ’em, Mrs. Moreau, to touch daughter here--not one.” - -“But there are so many beautiful girls in San Francisco. Mariposa has -seen them on the cars and down town. She often tells me of them.” - -“Beauties--yes, lots of ’em; dead loads of ’em. But there’s a lot that -get their beauty out of boxes and bottles. There’s a lot--I don’t say -who, I’m not one to mention names--but there’s a lot that when they go -to bed the beauty all comes off and lies in layers on the floor. Not -that I blame them--make yourself as good-looking as you can, that’s my -motto. It’s every woman’s duty. But you don’t want to begin so young. -I rouge myself,” said Mrs. Willers, with the careless truthfulness of -one whose reputation is beyond attack, “but I don’t like it in a young -girl.” - -“Who was the prettiest girl at the ball?” said Mariposa, -deeply interested. She had the curiosity of seventeen on such -subjects--subjects of which her girlhood had been unusually barren. - -“My dear, I’ll tell you all that later--talk for an hour if you can -stand it. But that’s not what I came to say to-day. It’s business -to-day--real business, and I don’t know but what all your future hangs -on it.” - -She gave a triumphant look at the startled mother and daughter. With -the introduction of serious matter her worn face took on a certain -sharp intelligence and her language grew more masculine and less -slovenly. - -“It’s this,” she said, leaning forward impressively: “I’m not sure that -I haven’t found Mariposa’s backer.” - -“Backer,” said Lucy, faintly, finding the word objectionable. “What’s -that?” - -“The person who’s to hear her sing and offer to educate the finest -voice he’s likely to hear in the next ten years.” - -Mariposa gave a suppressed exclamation and looked at her mother. Lucy -had paled. She was trembling at what she felt she was to hear. - -“It’s Jake Shackleton,” said Mrs. Willers, proudly launching her -bombshell. - -“Jake Shackleton,” breathed Mariposa, to whom the name meant only -vaguely fabulous wealth. “The Bonanza Man?” - -Lucy was sitting up, deadly pale, but she said nothing. - -“The Bonanza Man,” said Mrs. Willers. “My chief.” - -“But what does he know of me?” said Mariposa. “He’s never even heard of -me.” - -“That’s where you’re off, my dear. Jake Shackleton’s heard of -everybody. He has every one ticketed and put away in some little cell -in his brain. He never forgets a face. Some people say that’s one of -the secrets of his success; that, and the way he knows the man or -woman who’s going to get on and the one who’s going to fall out of the -procession and quit at the first obstacle. He’s got no use for those -people. Get up and hustle, or get out--that’s his motto.” - -“But about me?” Mariposa entreated. “Go on.” - -“Well, it’s a queer story, anyhow. The other morning I was sent for to -the sanctum. There was a little talk about work and then he says to -me, ‘Didn’t you tell me your daughter was taking piano lessons, Mrs. -Willers?’ Never forgets a word you say. I told him yes; and he says: -‘Isn’t her teacher that Miss Moreau, whose father died a few months ago -in Santa Barbara?’ I told him yes again, and then he wheels round on -the swivel chair, looks at me so, from under his eyebrows, and says: ‘I -knew her father once; a fine man!’” - -“Oh, how odd,” breathed Mariposa, quivering with interest. “I never -heard father speak of him.” - -“It was a long time ago. He knew your father up in the mines some time -in the fifties, and he said he admired him considerably. Then he went -on and asked me a lot of questions about you, your circumstances, -where you lived and if you were as good-looking as your father. He -said he’d heard you were an accomplished young lady. Then I saw my cue -and I said, as carelessly as you please, that Miss Moreau had a fine -voice and plenty of musical ability, but unfortunately was not able to -cultivate either, because her means were small, and it was a great pity -some one with money didn’t help her. I says--just as casual as could -be--it’s a great shame to see a voice like that lying idle for want of -tuition.” - -“What did he say then?” said Mariposa. - -“Well, that’s the point I’m working up to. He thought a while, asked a -few more questions, and then said: ‘I’d like to meet the young lady and -hear her sing. It goes against me to have Dan Moreau’s daughter lack -for anything. Her father’d have left a fortune if he hadn’t been a man -that thought of every one else before himself.’” - -“That was father exactly. He must have known him well. Mother, isn’t it -odd he never spoke of him? What did you say then?” - -“I? Why, of course, I saw my opening and jumped in. I said, ‘Well, I -guess I can arrange for you to meet Miss Moreau at my rooms. I see her -twice a week when she comes to give Edna her piano lesson. I’ll ask her -when she can come, and let you know and then she’ll sing for you.’ He -was pleased, he was real pleased, and said he’d come whenever I said. -And now, young woman,” laying a large white-gloved hand on Mariposa’s -knee, “that ought to be the beginning of a career for you!” - -“Good gracious!” said Mariposa, whose cheeks were crimson, “I never -heard anything so exciting in my life, and we were just talking about -it. I’ll probably sing like a dog baying the moon.” - -“Don’t you talk that way. You’ll sing your best. And he’s not a man -that you wouldn’t like Mariposa to meet”--turning to the pale and -silent Lucy. “Whatever other faults he’s had he’s always been a -straight man with women. There’s never been that sort of scandal about -Jake Shackleton. There’s a story you’ve probably heard, that he was -originally a Mormon. I don’t believe much in that myself. He had, -anyway, only one wife when he entered California, and she’s been his -wife ever since, and she ain’t the kind to have stood any nonsense of -the Mormon sort.” - -Lucy gave a sudden gasping breath and sat up. The light of the gray -afternoon was dying outside, and by the glow of the fire her unusual -pallor was not noticeable. - -“It was very good of you,” she said. “Mariposa will be glad to go.” - -“And you’ll come, too?” said Mrs. Willers. “He asked about you.” - -“Did he say he’d ever known me?” said Lucy, quietly. - -“No--not exactly that. No, I don’t believe he said that. But he was -interested in you as the wife of the man he’d known so long ago.” - -“Of course it would be only in that way,” murmured Lucy, sinking back. -“No, I can’t come. It wouldn’t be possible. I’m not well enough.” - -“Oh, mother, do. You know you go out on the cars sometimes, and the -Sutter Street line is only two blocks from here. I know you’d enjoy it -when you got there.” - -“No, dearest. No, Mrs. Willers. Don’t, please, urge me. I am not able -to meet new people. No-- Oh, please don’t talk any more about my going.” - -Something of pain and protest in her voice made them desist. She was -silent again, while Mariposa and Mrs. Willers arranged the details of -the party. This was to be small and choice. Only one other person, -a man referred to as Essex, was to come. At the name of Essex, Mrs. -Willers shot a side look of inspection at Mariposa, who did what was -expected of her in displaying a fine blush. - -It was decided that Mrs. Willers’ hospitality should take the form of -wine and cake. There was a consultation about other and lesser viands, -and finally an animated discussion as to the proper garb in which -Mariposa should present herself to the first truly distinguished person -she had ever met. During the conversation over these varied questions -Lucy lay back among her cushions, sunk in the same pale silence. - -Darkness had fallen when the guest, having threshed out the subject -to the last grain, took herself off. Mariposa looked from the opened -doorway into a black street, dotted with the yellow blurs of lighted -lamps. The air was cold with that penetrating, marrow-searching -coldness of a foggy evening in San Francisco. As the night swallowed -Mrs. Willers, Mariposa shut the door and came rushing back. - -“Mother!” she cried, before she got into her room, “isn’t that the most -thrilling thing? Oh, did you ever know of anything so unexpected and -wonderful and exciting. _Do_ you think he’ll like my voice? _Do_ you -think he really could be interested in me because he knew father? And -he can’t have known him so very well, or father would have said more of -him. Did _you_ ever hear father speak about him?” - -The mother gave no answer, and the girl bent over her. Lucy, motionless -and white, was lying among her cushions, unconscious. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE MILLIONAIRE - - “And one man in his time plays many parts.” - - --SHAKESPEARE. - - -At two o’clock on the afternoon of her party Mrs. Willers was giving -the finishing touches to her rooms. These were a sitting and bedroom -in one of the large boarding-houses that already had begun to make -their appearance along Sutter Street. “To reside” on Sutter Street, as -she would have expressed it, was a step in fashion for Mrs. Willers, -who previously had lived in such ignominious localities as North -Beach and upper Market Street, renting the surplus rooms in dingy -“private families.” Her rise to fairer fortunes was signalized by the -move to Sutter Street. Her parlor announced it in its over-furnished -brilliancy. All the best furniture of the poor lady’s many migrations -had been squeezed into the little room. The Japanese fans and -umbrellas, flattened against the walls with pins, were accumulated at -some cost, for they represented one of those strange and unaccountable -vagaries of popular taste that from time to time seize a community with -blighting force. Silk scarfs were twisted about everything whereon they -could twist. - -The “lunch,” as the hostess called it, had already been prepared and -stood on a side table. Edna, Mrs. Willers’ daughter, had made many -trips up and down the street that morning collecting its component -parts and bringing them home in paper bags. The ladies in the lower -windows of the house had been aware of these goings and comings, and so -were partly prepared when, at luncheon, Mrs. Willers casually told them -of the distinguished guest she expected. The newspaper woman had not -lived her life with her eyes shut and her ears closed, and she knew the -value to the fraction of a hair of this information, and just how much -it would add to her prestige. - -She was now fluttering about in a wrapper, and with a piece of black -net tied tight over her forehead. Through this the forms of dark -circular curls outlined themselves like silhouettes. Mrs. Willers had -no war-paint on, and though she looked a trifle worn, was much more -attractive in appearance than when decorated with her pink and white -complexion and her spotted veil. Edna, who was already dressed, was -a beautiful, fair-haired child of twelve. The struggles she had seen -her mother pass through, with her eyes bright and her head high, had -developed in her a precocity of mind that had not spoiled the sweet -childishness of a charming nature. It would be many years yet before -Edna would understand that she had been the sheet-anchor of the mother -who was to her so clever and so brave; the mother, who, in her moments -of weakness and temptation, had found her child the one rock to cling -to in the welter of life. - -Mrs. Willers retired to the bedroom to dress, occasionally coming to -the doorway in various stages of déshabille to give instructions to the -child. Her toilet was accomplished with mutilated rites, and by the -time the sacrificial moment came of laying on the rouge her cheeks were -too flushed with excitement to need it. When she did appear it would -have been difficult to recognize her as the woman of an hour earlier. -Even the black silhouettes had passed through a metamorphosis and -appeared as a fluff of careless curls. - -The first guest to arrive was the man she had spoken of as Essex. The -ladies at the windows below had been struck into whispering surprise -by his appearance. San Francisco was still enjoying its original -reputation as a land of picturesque millionaires, who lived lives of -lawlessness and splendor. Men of position still wore soft felt hats and -buttoned themselves tight into prince-albert coats when they went down -to business in the morning. Perhaps in the traveled circles, where the -Bonanza kings and their associates lived after European models, there -were men who bore the stamp of metropolitan finish, as Barry Essex did. -But they did not visit Sutter Street boarding-houses nor wear silk -hats when they paid afternoon calls. San Francisco was still in that -stage when this form of headgear was principally associated in its mind -with the men who drew teeth and sold patent medicines on the sand lots -behind the city hall. - -Barry Essex, anywhere, would have been a striking figure. He was a -handsome man of some thirty years, tall and spare, and with a dark, -smooth-shaven face where the nose was high and the eyes veiled and -cold. He looked like a person of high birth, and there were stories -that he was, though by the left hand. He spoke with an English accent, -and, when asked his nationality, shrugged his shoulders and said it was -hard to say what it was--his father had been a Spaniard, his mother an -Englishwoman, and he had been born and reared in France. - -That he was a man of ability and education, superior to the work he -was doing as special writer on Jake Shackleton’s paper, _The Trumpet_, -was obvious. But San Francisco had become so used to mysteriously -interesting strangers, that come from no one knows where, and suggest -an attractively unconventional history, that the particular curiosity -excited by Essex soon died, and he was merely of moment as the author -of some excellent articles on art, literature and music in _The Sunday -Trumpet_. - -He greeted Mrs. Willers with a friendly fellowship, then let a quick, -surreptitious glance sweep the room. She saw it, knew what he was -looking for, but affected unconsciousness. His manner was touched by -the slightest suggestion of something elaborate and theatrical, which, -in Mrs. Willers’ mind, seemed to have some esoteric connection with the -silk hat. This he now--after slowly looking about for a safe place of -deposit--handed to Edna with the careless remark: “Will you put this -down somewhere, Edna?” - -The child took it, flushing slightly. She was accustomed to being made -much of by her mother’s guests, and Essex’s manner stung her little -girl’s pride. But she put the hat on the piano and retired to her -corner, behind the refreshment table. - -A few moments later she opened the door to Jake Shackleton. Mrs. -Willers, red-cheeked and triumphant, felt that this was indeed a proud -moment for her. She said as much, drawing an amused laugh from her -second guest. He, too, had swept the room with a quick, investigating -glance. This time Mrs. Willers did not affect unconsciousness, and said -briskly: - -“No, our young lady hasn’t come yet. You’ll have to try and put up with -me for a while.” - -It would have been difficult for the eye of the deepest affection to -see in the Comstock millionaire the emigrant of twenty-five years -before. A mother might have been deceived. The lean figure had grown -chunky and heavy. The drawn face was now not full--it was the type of -face that would never be full--but was lacking in the seams that had -then furrowed it. The hair was gray, worn thin on the temples, and the -beard, trimmed and well-tended, was gray, too. Perhaps the strongest -tie with the past was that the man suggested the same hard, fine-drawn, -wiry energy. It still shone in his narrow, light-colored eyes, and -still was to be seen in his lean, muscular hand, that was frequently -used in gesticulation. - -In manner the change was equally apparent. Though colloquial, his -speech showed none of the coarse illiterateness of the past. His manner -was quiet, abruptly natural, and not lacking in a sort of easy dignity, -the dignity of the man who has won his place among men. He was dressed -with the utmost simplicity. His soft felt wide-awake was not new, -his black prince-albert coat did not fit him with anything like the -elegance with which Barry Essex’s outlined his fine shape. A little -purple cravat tied in a bow appeared from beneath his turned-down -collar. It was somewhat shiny from the brushing of his beard. - -“You must suppose I’m anxious to see this young lady,” he said, “after -what you’ve told me about her.” - -“Well, ask Mr. Essex if I’ve exaggerated,” said Mrs. Willers. “He knows -her, too.” - -“I don’t know what you’ve said,” he returned, “but I don’t think -anything could be too complimentary that was said of Miss Moreau.” - -“Eh!--better and better,” said the elder man. “I didn’t know you knew -her, Essex?” - -He turned his gray eyes, absolutely cold and non-committal on Essex, -who answered them with an equally expressionless gaze. - -“I’ve known Miss Moreau for three months,” he replied. “I met her here.” - -Shackleton turned back to Mrs. Willers. - -“I understand from you, Mrs. Willers, that these ladies are left -extremely badly off. Are they absolutely without means?” - -“No-o,” she answered, “not exactly that. Mr. Moreau left a life -insurance policy of five thousand dollars. Mariposa tells me that three -thousand of that went to pay his doctors’ bills and funeral expenses. -He was sick a long time. They are now living on their capital, and -they’ve been here four months, and Mrs. Moreau has constant medical -attendance.” - -The millionaire gave a little click of his tongue significant of -annoyance. - -“Moreau had a dozen chances of making his pile, as every man did in -those days,” he said. “He was the sort of man who is predestined to -leave his family poor.” - -“Yet they worship his memory,” said Mrs. Willers. “He must have been -very good to them.” - -Shackleton made no answer. She was used to reading his expression, -and the odd thought crossed her mind that this remark of hers was -unpleasant to him. - -Before she had time to reply a knock at the door announced the arrival -of Mariposa. As she entered the two men stood up, both looking at her -with veiled eagerness. To Essex his feeling for her was making her -every appearance an event. To Shackleton it was a moment of quivering -interest in a career full of tumultuous moments. - -A slight flush mounted to his face as he met her eyes. She -instinctively looked at him first, with a charming look, girlish, shy, -and deprecating. Her likeness to her mother struck him like a blow, -but she was an Amazonian Lucy, with all that Lucy had lacked. He saw -himself in the stronger jaw and the firm lips. Physically she was -molded of them both. His heart swelled with a passionate pride. This, -indeed, was his own child, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh. - -The introductions over, they resettled themselves, and Mariposa found -herself beside this quiet, gray-haired man, talking quite volubly. She -was not shy nor nervous, as she had expected to be, but felt peculiarly -at her ease. Looking at her with intent eyes, he spoke to her of the -early days in California, when he and her parents had come across. - -“You know, I knew your father in the Sierra, long ago,” he said. - -[Illustration: “TO SHACKLETON IT WAS A MOMENT OF QUIVERING INTEREST”] - -“Yes,” she answered rather hurriedly, fearful lest he should ask her if -her father had not spoken of him, “so Mrs. Willers said. It must have -been a long time ago. Was I there?” she added with a little smile. - -He was taken aback by the question and said, stammeringly: - -“Well, really now, I--I--don’t quite remember.” - -“I guess I wasn’t,” she said laughing. “You must have known father -before that. _He_ came over in forty-nine, you know. I was born -twenty-four years ago up in the mountains, in Eldorado County, in a -little cabin miles above Placerville. Mother’s often described the -place to me. They left soon after.” - -He lowered his eyes. He was a man of no sentiment or tenderness, yet -something in this false statement, uttered so innocently by these -fresh young lips, and taught with all the solicitude of love to this -simple nature, pierced like an arrow to the live spot in his deadened -conscience. - -“It was more than twenty-five years ago that I was there,” he said. -“You evidently were not born then.” - -“But my mother was there then. Do you think I look like her? My father -thought I was wonderfully like her.” - -He looked into the candid face. Memories of Lucy before his own harsh -treatment and the hardships of her life had broken her, stirred in him. - -“Yes,” he said slowly, “you’re very like her. But you’re like your -father, too.” - -“Am I?” she cried, evidently delighted. “Do you really think so? I do -want to look like my father.” - -“Why?” he could not help asking. - -She stared at him surprised. - -“Wouldn’t you like to look like both your parents, if they were the two -finest people in the world?” - -Here Mrs. Willers cut short the conversation by asking Mariposa to -sing. The girl rose and went directly to the piano. For days this -moment had been looming before her in nightmare proportions. She -was feverishly anxious to do her best and sickeningly fearful of -failure. Now her confidence was unshaken. Something--impossible to -say just what--had reassured her. Her hands were trembling a little -as she struck the keys, and her first notes showed the oscillation of -nervousness, but soon the powerful voice began to come more under her -control, and she poured it out exultantly. She never sang better. Her -voice, much too large for the small space, was almost painful in its -resonant force. - -Of the two men the elder was without musical knowledge of any kind. -He was amazed and delighted at what seemed to him an astonishing -performance. But Essex knew that with the proper training and guidance -there were possibilities of a brilliant future for this handsome and -penniless young woman. He had lived much among professional singers, -and he knew that Mariposa Moreau possessed an unusual voice. For -reasons of his own he did not desire her to know her own power, and he -was secretly irritated that she had sung so well. - -She continued, Shackleton requesting another, and yet another song. -Only the clock chiming four roused him to the fact that he must go. -He was living at his country place at Menlo Park and had to catch a -train. He left them with assurances of his delight in the performance. -To Mariposa, as he pressed her hand in farewell, he said: - -“I’ll see you again. You’ve a wonderful voice, there’s no mistake about -that. It’s a gift, a great gift, and it must have its chance.” - -The girl, carried away with the triumph of the afternoon, said gaily: - -“I’ll sing for you whenever you like. Could you never come up to our -cottage on Pine Street and meet my mother? I know she would like to see -you.” - -The slightest possible look of surprise passed over his face, gone -almost as soon as it had come. Mariposa saw it, however, and felt -embarrassed. She evidently had been too forward, and looked down, -blushing and uncomfortable. He recovered himself immediately, and said: - -“Not now, much as I should like to, Miss Moreau. I am living at Menlo -Park, and all my spare time when business is over is spent in catching -trains. But give your mother my compliments on the possession of such a -daughter.” - -Mariposa and Essex stayed chatting with Mrs. Willers for some time -after Shackleton’s departure. The clock had chimed more than once, when -finally they left, and their hostess, exhausted, but exultant, threw -herself back in a chair and watched Edna gather up the remains of the -lunch. - -“Put the cakes in the tin, dearie. They’ll do for to-morrow, and be -sure and cork the bottle tight. There’s enough for another time.” - -“Several other times,” said Edna, holding the bottle of port wine up -to the light and squinting at it with her head on one side. “It was a -cheap party--they hardly drank anything.” - -Mariposa and her companion walked up Sutter Street with the lagging -step of people who find each other excellent company. - -It was the end of a warm afternoon in September, one of those still, -deeply flushed evenings when the air is tepid and smells of distant -fires, and the winged ants come out of the rotting sidewalks by the -thousand. The west was a clear, thin red smudged with brown smoke. The -houses grew dark and ever darker, and seemed to loom more solidly black -every moment. They looked dreamlike and mysterious against the fiery -background. - -“How did you like it?” said Mariposa, as they loitered on, “my singing, -I mean?” - -“It was excellent, of course. You’ve got a voice. But the room was too -small--and such a room to sing in, all crowded with ridiculous things.” - -Mariposa felt hurt. She thought Essex was the finest, the most elegant -and finished person she had ever met. He seemed to her to breathe the -atmosphere of those great sophisticated cities she had never seen. In -his talks with her he now and then chilled her by his suggestion of -belonging to another and a wiser world, to which she was a provincial -outsider. - -This quality was in his manner now, and she began to feel how raw her -poor performance must have seemed to the man who had heard the great -prima donnas of London and Paris. - -“It was a small room, of course,” she assented, “but I had to sing -somewhere, and I couldn’t hire a place.” - -“Shackleton wanted to hear you, as I understand it. Mrs. Willers said -something about his knowing your father.” - -There was no question about the coldness of his voice now. Had Mariposa -known more about men she would have seen he was irritated. - -She repeated the fable of her father’s early acquaintance with Jake -Shackleton, and of the latter’s desire expressed to Mrs. Willers, of -hearing her sing. - -“Mrs. Willers is such an ass!” he said suddenly and vindictively. - -Mariposa was this time hurt for her friend and spoke up: - -“I don’t see why you say that. I don’t think a woman’s an ass who can -support herself and a child as she does,”--she thought of her sixteen -dollars and added: “It’s very hard for a woman to make money.” - -“Oh, she’s not an ass that way,” he answered. “She’s an ass to try and -work Shackleton up to the point of becoming a patron of the arts--as -represented by you.” - -He turned on her with a slight smile, that brought no suggestion of -amusement to his somewhat saturnine face. - -“Isn’t that her idea?” he asked. - -Mariposa felt her hopes as to the training of her voice becoming mean -and vulgar. - -“He said he wanted to hear me,” she said stumblingly, “and she said it -would be a good thing. And I have no money to educate my voice, and -it’s all I have. Why do you seem to disapprove of it?” - -“I?--disapprove? That would hardly do. Why even if I wanted to, I have -not the right to, have I?” - -Mariposa’s face flushed. She felt now, that she had presupposed an -intimacy between them which he wanted politely to suggest did not -exist. This was not by any means the first time Essex had baffled and -embarrassed her. It amused him to do it, but to-day he was in a bad -temper and did it from spleen. - -“Somehow Jake Shackleton doesn’t suggest himself to me as a patron of -the arts,” he said. “I don’t think he knows Yankee Doodle from God Save -the Queen.” - -Mariposa thought of the brilliant article on the Italian opera, from -Bellini to Verdi, that the man beside her had contributed to last -Sunday’s _Trumpet_, and Jake Shackleton’s enthusiastic admiration of -her singing immediately seemed the worthless praise of sodden ignorance. - -“Then,” she said desperately, “you wouldn’t attach any importance, if -you were I, to his liking my singing? It was just the way some people -like a street organ simply because it plays tunes.” - -“Oh, I wouldn’t think that. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t know a -good voice when he hears it.” - -“Do _you_ think I’ve got a good voice?” said Mariposa, stopping in the -street and staring morosely at him. - -“Of course I do, dear lady.” - -“Do you, really?” - -“Yes, really.” - -She smiled, and tried to hide it by looking down. - -It was hardly in man to continue bad-humored before this naïve display -of pleasure at his commending word. - -“You really think I might some day become a singer, a professional -singer?” - -“I really do.” - -The smile broadened and lit her face. - -“You always make me feel so stupid--and--and--as if I didn’t amount to -anything,” she murmured. - -It was so sweet, so childishly candid, that it melted the last remnant -of his bad temper. - -“You little goose,” he said softly, “don’t you know I think more of you -than I do of any one in San Francisco? It’s getting dark; take my arm -till we get to the car.” - -She did so and they moved forward. - -“Or anywhere else,” he murmured. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -RETROSPECT - - “Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream - dreams.”--THE ACTS. - - -After he had put Mariposa on her car, Essex went down town to the -paper with some copy. He was making a fair living on _The Trumpet_, -and the work he was doing suited him. He thought it might last the -winter and he had no objections to passing the winter in San Francisco. -Like many of his kind, he felt the lazy Bohemian charm of the diverse, -many-colored, cosmopolitan city sprawled on its sand dunes. The -restaurants alone made life more worth while than anywhere else in the -country except New York. - -To-night he went to one, for dinner, that stood in Clay Street, a short -distance below Kearney. He had a word to say to the white-clothed -chef, who cooked the dinner in plain sight, on a small oven and grill, -beneath which the charcoal gleamed redly. He stopped for a moment’s -badinage with the buxom, fresh-faced French woman who sat at the desk. -She was the chef’s wife, Madame Bertrand, and liked “Monsieur Esseex,” -who spoke her natal tongue as well as she did. There was evidently -truth in one piece of Essex’s autobiography. Only a childhood spent in -France could teach the kind of French he spoke with Madame Bertrand. - -He sat long over his dinner, smoking and reading the evening papers. It -was so late when he left that Bertrand himself came out of his cooking -corner and talked with him about Paris. “Monsieur Esseex” knew Paris as -well as Bertrand, some parts of it better. He had been educated there -at one of the large _lycées_, and had gone back many times, living now -on one side of the river, now on the other. Bertrand, in his white cap -and apron, conversing with his guest, retained a curious manner of -deference unusual in California. - -“Monsieur is a gentleman of some kind or other,” he told madame. - -“There are many different kinds of gentlemen in California,” returned -that lady, oracularly. - -It was nearly nine when Essex left the restaurant, and passing down -Kearney Street for a few blocks, turned to his right and began to mount -the ascending sidewalk that led to his lodgings. These were in an -humble and unfashionable neighborhood in Bush Street. The house was of -a kind whence gentility has departed. It stood back on the top of two -small terraces, up which mounted two wooden flights of stairs, one with -a list to starboard so pronounced that Essex had, once or twice, while -ascending, thought the city in the throes of an earthquake. - -The darkness of night wrapped it now. As it was early a light within -shone out dimly through two narrow panes of glass flanking the hall -door. He let himself in and mounted a dirtily carpeted stairway. The -place smelled evilly of old cooking and the smoke of many and various -cigarettes, cigars and pipes. It was a man’s rooming-house, and the men -evidently smoked where and what they listed. Essex had no idea who they -were and had seen only one of them: a man on the same floor with him -who, he surmised, by the occasional boisterousness of his entrances, -frequently came home drunk. - -His room was one of the best in the house, on the front, and with a -large bay window commanding the street. It was fairly comfortable and -well furnished, and the draft of soft, chill air that crossed it from -the opened window kept it fresh. Essex, after lighting the gases in the -pendent chandelier, bent and kindled the fire laid in the grate. Like -many foreigners he found San Francisco cold, and after the manner of -his bringing up would no more have denied himself a fire when he was -chilly, than a glass of wine when he was thirsty. Different nations -have their different extravagances, and Essex’s French boyhood had -stamped him with respect for the little comforts of that intelligent -race. - -He pulled up an easy-chair and sat down in front of the small blaze, -with his hands out. Its warmth was pleasant, and he stayed thus, -thinking. Presently he smiled slightly, his ear having caught the -sounds of his fellow lodger’s stumbling ascent of the stairs. The man -was evidently drunk again, and he wondered vaguely how he ever managed -to mount the terrace steps with the list to starboard. - -The lodger’s door opened, shut, and there was silence. Essex--an -earnest reader--was soon deep in his book. From this he was interrupted -by a step in the passage and a light knock on the door. In response -to his “Come in,” the door opened hesitantly, and the man from across -the hall thrust in his head. It was a head of wild gray hair, with an -old yellow face, seamed and shriveled beneath it. The eyes, which were -beadily dark and set close to the nose, were bloodshot, the lips slack -and uncertain. A very dirty hand was curled round the edge of the door. - -“Well, what is it?” said Essex. - -“I’ve lost my matches agin,” said the man, in a whiningly apologetic -tone. - -“There are some,” said Essex, designating his box on the mantelpiece. -“Take what you want.” - -The stranger shambled in, and after scratching about the box with a -tremulous hand, secured a bunch. Essex looked at him with cynical -interest. He was miserably dressed, dirty and ragged. He walked with an -apologetic slouch, as if continually expecting a kick in the rear. He -was evidently very drunk, and the odor of the liquids he had imbibed -compassed him in an ambulating reek. - -“Thanks to you, Doc,” he said, as he went out. “So long.” - -A few minutes later Essex heard a crash from his neighbor’s room, and -then exclamations of anger and dole. These continuing with an increased -volume, Essex rose and went to the source of sound. The room was pitch -dark, and from it, as from the entrance to the cave of the damned, -imprecations and lamentations were issuing in a strenuous flood. With -the match he had brought he lit the gas, and turning, saw his late -visitor holding by the foot-board of the bed, having overturned a -small stand, which had evidently been surmounted by a nickel clock. - -“What the devil do you mean by making such a noise?” he said angrily. - -“Pardon, pardon!” said the other humbly, “but I couldn’t find the gas -this time, Doc. This is a small room, but things do get away somehow.” - -He looked stupidly about with his bleared eyes. The room was small and -miserably dirty and uninviting. - -“There’s a room,” he said suddenly in a loud, dramatic tone and with a -sweep of his arm, “for a man who might er been a bonanza king!” - -Essex turned to go. - -“If you make any more of this row to-night I’ll see that you’re turned -out to-morrow,” he said haughtily. - -He wheeled about on the drunkard as he spoke. The man’s sodden face -was lit with a flash of malevolent intelligence, to be superseded -immediately by a wheedling smile. - -“I seen you before to-day,” he said. - -“Well, you’ll see me again to-night if you don’t keep quiet, and this -time you won’t like it.” - -“You was with a lady, a fine-looking lady.” - -“Here--no more of that talk,” said Essex threateningly. - -The man stopped, looking furtively at him as if half expecting to be -struck. Essex turned toward the door and passed out. As he did so he -heard him mutter: “And I’d seen her before, too.” - -Back in his room the young man took up his book again, but the thread -of his interest was broken. His mind refused to return to the -prescribed channels before it, but began to drift here and there on the -wayward currents of memory. - -The house was now perfectly quiet. The little fire had fallen together -into a pleasant core of warmth that genially diffused its heat through -the room. Essex, sprawling in his chair, his long arms following its -arms, his finely-formed, loose-jointed hands depending over the rounded -ends, let his dreaming gaze rest on this red heart of living coal, -while his pipe smoke lay between it and his face in delicate layers. - -His thoughts slipped back over childish memories to his first ones, -when he had lived a French boy’s life with his mother in Paris. - -He remembered her far back in the days when he sat on her knee and was -read to out of fairy books. She had been very pretty then and very -happy, and had always talked English with him while every one else -spoke French. She had been an Englishwoman, an actress of beauty and -promise, who in the zenith of her popularity had made what the world -called a fine marriage with a rich Venezuelan, who lived in Paris. The -stories of Essex’s doubtful paternity were false. Rose Barry--Rose -Essex, on the stage--had been the lawful wife of Antonio Perez, and for -ten years was the happy wife as well. - -They were very prosperous in those days. Barry had gone to the _lycée_ -all week and come back every Friday to the beautiful apartment in the -Rue de Ponthieu. There were lovely spring Sundays when they drove in -the Bois and sometimes got out of the carriage and walked down the -sun-flecked _allées_ under the budding trees. And there were even -lovelier winter Sundays when they loitered along the boulevards in the -crisp, clear cold, with the sky showing leaden gray through the barring -of black boughs, and when they came home to a parlor lit with fire and -lamplight and had oranges and hard green grapes after dinner. - -He had loved his pretty mother devotedly in those happy days, but for -his saturnine, dark-visaged father he had only a sentiment of uneasy -fear. He was twelve, when at his mother’s request he was sent to -England to school. He could remember, looking back afterward, that his -mother had not been so pretty or so happy then. - -When he came home from school for vacations she was living at -Versailles in a little house that presented a secret, non-committal -front to the stony street, but that in the back had a delightful garden -full of miniature fountains and summer-houses and grottoes. From the -wall he could see the mossy trees and stretches of sun-bathed sward of -the Trianon. His father was not always there when he came. One Easter -vacation he was not there at all, and when he had asked his mother why, -she had burst into sudden, terrible tears that frightened him. - -During the long summer holidays after that Antonio Perez was only there -once over a Sunday. Then he did not come again, and Barry was glad, for -he had never cared for his father. He passed delightful days in the -Trianon Park with his mother, who was very silent and had gray hair on -her temples. She walked beside him with a slow step, dragging her rich -lace skirts and with her parasol hanging indolently over her shoulder. -It pleased him to see that many people looked at her, but she took no -notice of them. - -When Barry went back to England to school that year he began to feel -that he knew what was coming. It came the next vacation. His mother -had not dared to tell him by letter. Her husband had deserted her and -disappeared, leaving her with a few thousand francs in the bank, and -not a friend. - -After that there were three miserable years when they lived in a little -apartment on the Rue de Sèvres, up four flights of stairs with a _bonne -à tout faire_. His mother had had to conquer the extravagant habits -of a lifetime, and she did it ill. During the last year of her life -the sale of her jewels kept them. Barry was eighteen when she died, -and those long last days when she lay on the sofa in the remnants of -the rich and splendid clothes she found it so hard to do without were -burned into his memory forever. - -Their furniture--some of which was rare and handsome--brought them in -a few hundred francs, and on this he lived for another year, eking out -his substance with his first tentative attempts at journalism. When -he was twenty-one he received a legal notice that his father had died -in Venezuela, leaving him all he possessed, which, debts paid and the -estate settled, amounted to about ten thousand dollars. - -This might have been a fortune to the youth, but the bitter bread he -had eaten had soured the best in him. He took his legacy and resolved -to taste of the joy of life. For several years he lived on the crest -of the wave, now and then diverting himself with journalism, the only -profession that attracted him and one in which his talents were -readily recognized. He saw much of the world and its ways, living in -many cities and among many peoples. He tried to cut himself off from -the past, adopting, after his mother’s death, her old stage name of -Essex. - -Then, his money spent, there had been a dark interval of bad luck and -despondency, when Barry Essex, the brilliant amateur journalist, had -fallen out of the ranks of people that are seen and talked about. -Without means, he sank to the level of a battered and out-at-elbows -Bohemian. There was a year or two when he swung between London and -Paris, making money as he could and not always frequenting creditable -company. Then the tide of change struck him and he went to New York, -worked there successfully till once again the _Wanderlust_ carried him -farther afield. - -He had now arrived at the crucial point of his career. In his vagabond -past there were many episodes best left in darkness, but nothing that -stamped him as an outcast by individual selection. Shady things were -behind him in that dark, morose year when he found disreputable company -to his taste. But he had never stepped quite outside the pale. There -had always been a margin. - -Now he stood on that margin. He was thirty years old with shame and -bitterness behind him, and before him the dead monotony of a lifetime -of work. He hated it all. No memory sustained him. The past was as sore -to dwell on as the future was sterile. It was the parting of the ways. -And where they parted he saw Mariposa standing drawing him by the hand -one way, while he gently but persistently drew her the other. - -In his softly lit library in his great house at Menlo Park another man -was at that time also thinking of Mariposa. He had been thinking of her -off and on ever since he had bidden her good by that afternoon at Mrs. -Willers’. - -As the train had whirled him over the parched, thirsty country, burnt -to a leathern dryness by the summer’s drouth, he had no thought for -anything but his newly discovered daughter. His glance dwelt unseeing -on the tanned fields with their belts of olive eucalyptus woods, and -the turquoise blue of the bay beyond the painted marsh. Men descending -at way stations raised their hats to him as they mounted into the -handsome carriages drawn up by the platform. His return to their -salutes was a preoccupied nod. His mind was full of his child--his -splendid daughter. - -Jake Shackleton had not forgotten his first wife and child, as Dan -Moreau and Lucy had always hoped. He was a man of many and secret -interests, pulling many wires, following many trails. He knew their -movements and fortunes from the period of their marriage in Hangtown. -At first this secret espionage was due to fear of their betraying him. -He had begun to prosper shortly after his entrance into the state, and -with prosperity and the slackening of the strain of the trip across the -desert came a realization of what he had done. He saw quickly how the -selling of his wife would appeal to the California mind in those days -fantastically chivalrous to women. He would be undone. - -With stealthy persistence he followed the steps of the peaceful couple -who had it in their power to ruin him. Serenity began to come to him as -he heard that the union was singularly happy; that Moreau, confident -no one would molest them, had gone through a ceremony of marriage with -Lucy, and that the child was being brought up as their own. - -As wealth came to Shackleton he thought of them with a sort of jealous -triumph. With his remarkable insight into men he knew that Dan Moreau -would never make money; that he was one of the world’s predestined poor -men. Then as riches grew and grew, and the emigrant of the fifties -became the bonanza king of the seventies, he wondered if the time might -not come when they would turn to him. - -He would have liked it, for under the cold indifference of his manner -the transaction at the cabin in the Sierra forever haunted him with its -savage shamelessness. It was the one debasing blot on a career which, -hard, selfish, often unprincipled, had yet never, before or after, sunk -to the level of that base action. - -When Moreau died at Santa Barbara Shackleton heard it with a sense of -relief. He was secretly becoming very anxious to see his child. Bessie -had borne him two children, a boy and a girl, and it was partly the -disappointment in these that made him desirous of seeing Mariposa. He -knew and Bessie knew that she was his only legitimate child. Though he -had virtually entered California with but one wife, and the blot of -Mormonism had been wiped from his record before he had been two days in -the state, the rumor that he had once been a Mormon still carelessly -passed from mouth to mouth. Should it ever become known that there had -been a former wife, Bessie and her children would have no lawful claim -on him, though the children, as acknowledged and brought up by him, -would inherit part of his estate. - -With his great wealth the pride that was one of the dominant -characteristics of his hard and driving nature grew apace. He had -money by millions, but no one to do it credit. It would have been the -crowning delight of his tumultuous career to have a beautiful daughter -or talented son to grace the luxury that surrounded him. But Bessie’s -children were neither of these things. They were dull and commonplace. -Maud was fat and heavy both in mind and body, while Winslow was, to -his father, a slow-witted, characterless youth, without the will, -energy or initiative of either of his parents. Affection not grounded -on admiration was impossible to Shackleton, who sometimes in his -exasperation,--for the successful man bore disappointment ill,--would -say to himself: - -“But they are not my real children; I have only one child--Dan Moreau’s -daughter.” - -After the death of Moreau he learned that Lucy and Mariposa were in -San Francisco. There he lost trace of them and was forced to consult -a private detective who had done work for him before. It was an easy -matter to find them, and only a few letters passed between him and the -detective. In these the man gave the address and financial condition -of the ladies and added that the daughter was said to be “a beautiful, -estimable and accomplished young woman.” This fired still further -the father’s desire to see her. He learned, too, of their crippled -means and it pleased him to think that now they might be dependent on -him. But he shrank with an unspeakable repugnance from the thought of -seeing Lucy again, and he was for weeks trying to find some way of -meeting Mariposa and not meeting her mother. It was at this stage that, -purely by accident, he learned that Mrs. Willers’ daughter was one of -Mariposa’s pupils. A day or two after he summoned Mrs. Willers to the -interview that finally brought about the meeting. - -Satisfied pride was still seething in him when he alighted from the -train and entered the waiting carriage. This magnificent girl was -worthy of him, worthy of the millions that were really hers. She had -everything the others lacked--beauty, charm, talents. Her whole air, -that regalness of aspect which sometimes curiously distinguishes the -simple women of the West, appealed passionately to his ambition and -love of success. She was born to conquer, to be a queen of men. The -image of Maud rose beside her, and seemed clumsier and commoner than -ever. The father felt a slight movement of distaste and irritation -against his second daughter, who had supplanted in his home and in the -world’s regard his elder and fairer child. - -The carriage turned in through a lofty gate and rolled at a slackened -pace up a long winding drive. Jacob Shackleton’s Menlo Park estate was -one of the showy ones of that gathering place of rich men’s mansions. - -The road wound for some half mile through a stretch of uncultivated -land, dotted with the forms of huge live-oaks. The grass beneath them -was burnt gray and was brittle and slippery. The massive trees, some -round and compact and so densely leaved that they were as impervious -to rain as an umbrella, others throwing out long, gnarled arms as if -spellbound in some giant throe of pain, cast vast slanting shadows -upon the parched ground. Some seemed, like trees in Doré’s drawings, -to be endowed with a grotesque, weird humanness of aspect, as though -an imprisoned dryad or gnome were struggling to escape, causing the -mighty trunk to bow and writhe, and sending tremors of life along each -convulsed limb. A mellow hoariness marked them all, due to their own -richly subdued coloring and the long garlands of silvery moss that hung -from their boughs like an eldrich growth of hair. - -A sudden greenness in the sward and brilliant glimpses of flower-beds -pieced in between dark tree-trunks, told of the proximity of the house. -It was a massive structure, architecturally ugly, but gaining a sort of -majesty from its own ponderous bulk and from the splendor of lawns and -trees about it. The last level rays of the sun were now flooding grass -and garden, piercing bosky thickets where greens melted into greens, -and sleeping on stretches of close-cropped emerald turf. From among the -smaller trees the lordly blue pines--that with the oaks were once the -only denizens of the long rich valley--soared up, lonely and somber. -Their crests, stirred by passing airs, emitted eolian murmurings, -infinitely mournful, as if repining for the days when they had ruled -alone. - -At the bend in the drive where the road turned off to the stables -Shackleton alighted and walked over the grass toward the house. The -curious silence that is so marked a characteristic of the California -landscape wrapped the place and made it seem like an enchanted palace -held in a spell of sleep. Not a leaf nor pendent flower-bell stirred. -In this hour of warmth and stillness evanescent breaths of fragrance -rose from the carpets of violets that were beginning to bloom about the -roots of the live-oaks. - -As he reached the house Maud and a young man came round the corner and -approached him. The girl was dressed in a delicate and elaborate gown -of pale pink frilled with much lace, and with the glint of falling -ribbons gleaming here and there. She carried a pink parasol over her -shoulder, and against the background of variegated greens her figure -looked modish as a fashion-plate. It was a very becoming and elegant -costume, and one in which most young girls would have looked their best. - -Maud, who was not pretty, was the type of woman who looks least well in -handsome habiliments. Her irremediable commonness seemed thrown into -higher prominence by adornment. The softly-tinted dress robbed her pale -skin of all glow and made her lifeless brown hair look duller. She had -a round, expressionless face, prominent pale-blue eyes, and a chin that -receded slightly. She was not so plain as she was without vivacity, -interest, or sparkle of youth. With her matter-of-fact manner, heavy -figure, and large, unanimated face she might have been forty instead of -twenty-one. - -She was somewhat laboriously coquetting with her companion, a tall, -handsome young Southerner, some six or seven years her senior, whom -her father recognized as one of his superior clerks and shrewdly -suspected of matrimonial designs. At sight of her parent a slight -change passed over her face. She smiled, but not so spontaneously; her -speech faltered, and she said, coming awkwardly forward: - -“Oh, Popper! you’re late to-day; were you delayed?” - -“Evidently, considering I’m an hour later than usual. Howdy, Latimer; -glad to see you down.” - -He stopped and looked at them with the slightest inquiring smile. -Though he said nothing to indicate it, both, knowing him in different -aspects, felt he was not pleased. His whole personality seemed to -radiate a cold antagonism. - -“It’s good you got down anyhow,” said Maud constrainedly; “this is much -nicer than town, isn’t it, Mr. Latimer?” - -All the joy had been taken out of Latimer by his chief’s obvious and -somewhat terrifying displeasure. Had he been alone with Maud, he would -have known well how to respond to her remark with Southern fervency of -phrase. But now he only said with stiff politeness: - -“Oh, this is quite ideal!” and lapsed into uncomfortable silence. - -“Was it some one interesting that made you late?” queried Maud, as her -father made no attempt to continue the conversation. - -“Very,” he responded; “handsome and interesting.” - -“Won’t you tell us about them?” the girl asked, feeling that the word -“handsome” contained a covert allusion to her own lack of beauty of -which she was extremely sensitive. - -“Not now, and I don’t think it would interest you much, anyway. Is your -mother indoors?” - -The girl nodded and he turned away and disappeared round the corner of -the house. She and Latimer sauntered on. - -“The handsome and interesting person doesn’t seem to have made your -paternal any fuller than usual of the milk of human kindness,” said the -young man, whose suit had progressed further than people guessed. - -“Popper’s often like that,” said Maud slowly,--and in a prettier and -more attractive girl the tone and manner of the remark would have been -charmingly plaintive,--“I don’t know what makes him so.” - -“He can be more like a patent congealing ice-box when he wants to be -than anybody I ever saw. But I don’t see why he should be so to you.” - -“I don’t, either, but he is often. He never says anything exactly -disagreeable, but he makes me feel sort of--of--mean. Sometimes I think -he doesn’t like me at all.” - -“Oh, bosh!” said Latimer gallantly; “if that’s the case he’s ripe for a -commission of lunacy.” - -Shackleton meantime had entered the house and ascended to his -dressing-room. He was in there making the small change which marked his -dinner from his business toilet when his wife entered. - -The years had turned Bessie into a buxom, fine-looking matron, -fashionably dressed, but inclined to be very stout. Her eye and -its glance were sharp and keen-edged, still alight with vigor and -alertness. It was easy to see why Jake Shackleton, the reader of -character, had set aside his feeble first wife for this dominating and -forceful partner. He had been faithful to her; after a fashion had -loved her, and certainly admired her, for she had the characteristics -he most respected. - -In his success she had been the same assistance that she had been in -his poverty. She had climbed the social heights and conquered the -impregnable position they now occupied. Her rich dress, her handsome -appearance, her agreeably modulated voice, all were in keeping with the -position and great wealth that were theirs. The house of which she was -the mistress was admirably ordered and sumptuously furnished. She had -only disappointed him in one way--her children. - -“What made you late?” she, too, asked; “several people came down this -afternoon.” - -“I was detained--a girl Mrs. Willers wanted me to see; who’s here?” - -“Latimer, and Count de Lamolle, and George Herron and the Thurston -girls; and the Delanceys are coming over to dinner.” - -He nodded at the names--Bessie knew well how to arrange her parties. -The Thurstons were two impoverished sisters of great beauty and that -proud Southern stock of which early California thought so highly -and rewarded in most cases with poverty. Count de Lamolle was a -distinguished foreigner that she was considering for Maud. The other -two young men filled in nicely. The Delanceys were a brother and -sister, claimants of the great Delancey Grant, which was now in -litigation. It had come into their possession by the marriage of their -grandmother, the Senorita Concepcion de Briones, in ’36, to the Yankee -skipper, Jeremiah Delancey. - -“Who was the girl Mrs. Willers wanted you to see?” Bessie asked. - -“Oh, I’ll tell you about her to-morrow. It’s a long story, and I don’t -want to be hurried over it.” - -He had made up his mind that he would tell Bessie he had seen and -intended to assist his eldest child. He had always been frank with her -and he was not going to dissemble now. He knew that with all her faults -she was a generous woman. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -A GALA NIGHT - - “He looked at her as a lover can; - She looked at him as one who awakes.” - - --BROWNING. - - -From his first meeting with her, Barry Essex had conceived a deep -interest in Mariposa. He had known women of many and divers sorts, -and loved a few after the manner of his kind, which was to foster -indolently a selfish caprice. Marriage was out of the question for -him unless with money, and some instinct, perhaps inherited from his -romantic and deeply-loving mother, made this singularly repugnant to -his nature, which was neither sensitive nor scrupulous. The mystery and -hazard of life appealed passionately to him, and to exchange this for -the dull monotony of a rich marriage was an unbearably irksome thought -to his unrestrained and adventurous spirit. - -Mariposa’s charm had struck him deep. He had never before met that -combination of extreme simplicity of character with the unconscious -majesty of appearance which marked the child of the far West. He saw -her in that Europe, which was his home, as a conquering queen; and he -thought proudly of himself as the owner of such a woman. Moreover he -was certain that her voice, properly trained and directed, would be a -source of wealth. She seemed to him the real vocal artist, stupid in -all but one great gift; in that, preëminent. - -Mariposa was trembling on the verge of a first love. She had never -seen any one like Essex and regarded him as the most distinguished and -brilliant of beings. His attentions flattered her as she had never been -flattered before, and she found herself constantly wondering what he -saw in a girl who must appear to him so raw. - -Her experience of men was small. Once in Sacramento, when she was -eighteen, she had received an offer from a young lawyer, and two years -ago, in Santa Barbara, she had been the recipient of a second, from a -prosperous rancher. Both had been refused without hesitation, and had -left no mark on imagination or heart. Then, at a critical period of -her life--lonely, poor, a stranger in a strange city--she had fallen -in with Essex, and for the first time felt the thrill at the sound of -a footstep, the quickening pulse and flushing cheek at the touch of -a hand, that she had read of in novels. She thought that nobody had -seen this; but the eyes of the dangerous man under whose spell she had -fallen were watching her with wary yet ardent interest. - -He had known her now for three months and had seen her frequently. His -visits at the Pine Street cottage were augmented by occasional meetings -at Mrs. Willers’, when that lady was at home and receiving company, and -by walks together. Of late, too, he had asked her to go to the theater -with him. Lucy was always included in these invitations, but was -unable to go. The theater was an untarnished delight to Mariposa, and -to refuse her the joy of an evening spent there was not in the mother’s -heart. Moreover, Lucy, in her agony at the thought of leaving the girl -alone in the world, watched Essex with a desperate anxiety trying -to fathom his feelings. It seemed to the unworldly woman, that this -attractive gentleman might have been sent by fate to be the husband who -was to love and guard the child when the mother was gone. - -A few days after the party at Mrs. Willers’ rooms Essex had invited -Mariposa to go with him to a performance of “Il Trovatore,” to be given -at Wade’s opera-house. The company, managed by a Frenchman called -Lepine, was one of those small foreign ones that in those days toured -the West to their own profit and the pleasure of their audiences. The -star was advertised as a French diva of European renown. Essex had -heard her on the continent, and pronounced her well worth hearing, if -rather too fat to be satisfying to the esthetic demands of the part of -Leonora. Grand opera was still something of a rarity in San Francisco -and it promised to be an occasion. The papers printed the names of -those who had bought boxes. Mariposa had read that evening that Jacob -Shackleton would occupy the left-hand proscenium box with his wife and -family. - -“His daughter,” said Mariposa, standing in front of the glass as she -put on finishing touches, “is ugly, Mrs. Willers says. I think that’s -the way it ought to be. It wouldn’t be fair to be an heiress and -handsome.” - -“It wouldn’t be fair for you to be an heiress, certainly,” commented -the mother from her armchair. - -“You don’t think I abuse the privilege a penniless girl has of being -good-looking?” said Mariposa, turning from the glass with a twinkling -eye. - -She looked her best and knew it. Relics of better days lingered in -the bureau drawers and jewel boxes of these ladies as they did in the -small parlor. That night they had been mustered in their might for -Mariposa’s decking. She was proud in the consciousness that the dress -of fine black lace she wore, through the meshes of which her statuesque -arms and neck gleamed like ivory, was made from a shawl that in its day -had been a costly possession. Her throat was bare, the lace leaving it -free and closing below it. Where the black edges came together over the -white skin a small brooch of diamonds was fastened. Below the rim of -her hat, her hair glowed like copper, and the coloring of her lips and -cheeks was deepened by excitement into varying shades of coral. - -As they entered the theater, Essex was aware that many heads were -turned in their direction. But Mariposa was too imbued with the joyous -unusualness of the moment to notice it. She had forgotten herself -entirely, and sitting a little forward, her lips parted, surveyed the -rustling and fast-filling house. - -The glow of the days of Comstock glory was still in the air. San -Francisco was still the city of gold and silver. The bonanza kings had -not left it, but were trying to accommodate themselves to the palaces -they were rearing with their loose millions. Society yet retained its -cosmopolitan tone, careless, brilliant, and unconventional. There were -figures in it that had made it famous--men who began life with a pick -and shovel and ended it in an orgy of luxury; women, whose habits of -early poverty dropped from them like a garment, and who, carried away -by their power, displayed the barbaric caprices of Roman empresses. - -The sudden possession of vast wealth had intoxicated this people, -lifting them from the level of the commonplace into a saturnalia of -extravagance. Poverty, the only restraint many of them had ever felt, -was gone. Money had made them lawless, whimsical, bizarre. It had -developed all-conquering personalities, potent individualities. They -were still playing with it, wondering at it, throwing it about. - -Essex let his glance roam over the audience, that filled the parquet, -and the three horseshoes above it. It struck him as being more Latin -than American. That foreignness which has always clung to California -was curiously pronounced in this gathering of varied classes. He -saw many faces with the ebon hair and olive skins of the Spanish -Californians, lovely women, languid and fawn-eyed, badly dressed--for -they were almost all poor now, who once were lords of the soil. - -The great Southern element which, in its day, set the tone of the city -and contributed much to its traditions of birth and breeding, was -already falling into the background. Many of its women had only their -beauty left, and this they had adorned, as Mariposa had hers, with such -remnants of the days when Plancus was consul, as remained--bits of -jewelry, old and unmodish but cumbrously handsome, edgings of lace, -a pale-colored feather in an old hat, a crape shawl worn with an air, -a string of beads carried bravely, though beads were no longer in the -mode. - -An arrogant air of triumph marked the Irish Californians. With the -opening up of the Comstock they had stuck their flag on the summit -of the heights. They had always found California kindly, but by the -discovery of that mountain of silver they had become kings where they -were once content to serve. The Irish face, sometimes in its primeval, -monkey-like ugliness, sometimes showing the fresh colored, blowsy -prettiness of the colleens by their native bogs, repeated itself -on every side. Now and then one of them shone out like a painting -by Titian--the Hibernian of the red-gold hair and milk-white skin, -refined by luxury and delicate surroundings into a sumptuous and -arresting beauty. Many showed the metal that had carried their fathers -on to victory. Others were only sleek, smooth-skinned animals, lazy, -sensuous, and sly. And these women, whose mothers had run barefoot, -were dressed with the careless splendor of those to whom a diamond is a -detail. - -Essex raised his glass from the perusal of the sea of faces, to the -box which the Shackleton party had just entered. There was no question -about the Americanism of this group, the young man thought, as he -stared at Jake Shackleton. Square-set and unadorned, in the evening -dress which Bessie made him wear, he sat back from the velvet railing, -an uncompromising figure of dynamic force, unbeautiful, shrewd, the -most puissant presence in that brilliant assemblage. - -The two ladies in the front of the box were Mrs. and Miss Shackleton. -The former was floridly handsome, almost aristocratic, the gazer -thought, looking at her firmly-modeled, composed face under its roll -of gray hair. The daughter was very like her father, but ugly. Even -in the costly French costume she wore, with the gleam of diamonds in -her hair, about her neck, in the lace on her bosom, she was ugly. -Essex, with that thought of marrying money in the background of his -mind, scrutinized her. To rectify his fortune in such a way became -more repugnant than ever. If Mariposa had only been Jake Shackleton’s -daughter instead! - -He turned and looked at her. She met his glance with eyes darkened by -excitement. - -“There’s Mr. Shackleton in the box,” she said eagerly, in a -half-whisper. “Did you see?” - -“Yes, I’ve been looking, and that’s his daughter, Maud Shackleton, in -the white with diamonds.” - -“Is it? Oh, what a beautiful dress! and quantities of diamonds. Almost -too many; they twinkle like water, as if some one had squeezed a sponge -over her.” - -“What can you do when you’re a bonanza king’s daughter and as ugly -as that? You’ve got to keep up your end of the line some way. She -evidently thinks diamonds are the best way.” - -Essex took the glass and looked at the bedecked heiress again. After -some moments he put it down and turned to Mariposa with a quizzical -smile. - -“Do you know I’m going to say something very funny, but look at her -well. Does she look like anybody you know?” - -The girl looked and shook her head: - -“Like her father a little,” she said, “but no one else I can think of.” - -“No, not her father. Some one you know intimately and see often--very -often, if you’re as vain as you ought to be.” - -“Who?” she demanded, frowning and looking puzzled; “I can’t think whom -you mean.” - -“Yourself; she looks like you.” - -Mariposa gave a quick look at the girl and then at Essex. For the -moment she thought he was mocking her, but with her second look at the -box, the likeness suddenly struck her. - -“She is,” she said slowly, reaching for the glass; “yes,” putting it -down, “I see it--she is. How funny! and fancy your telling me on top of -the statement that she was so ugly! I don’t see how I can smile again -this evening.” - -She smiled with the words on her lips, the charming smile of a woman -who knows her silliest phrases are delightful to one man at least. - -“I’m not entirely like her?” she asked, with a somewhat anxious air; “I -haven’t got those pale-gray, prominent eyes, have I?” - -“No, you’ve got mysterious dark eyes, as deep as wells, and when I look -into them, down, down, I sometimes wonder if I can see your heart at -the bottom. Can I? Let me see.” - -He leaned forward as if to look straight into her eyes. Mariposa -suddenly flushing and feeling uncomfortable, dropped them. The -sensation she so often experienced with Essex, of being awkward and -raw, was intensified now by the annoyed embarrassment provoked by the -florid gallantry of his words. But she was too inexperienced a little -fly to deal with this cunning spider, and tangled herself worse in the -web by saying nervously: - -“And my nose! I haven’t got that kind of nose? Oh, surely not,” putting -up a gloved hand to feel of its unsatisfactoriness. - -“You have the dearest little nose in the world, straight as a Greek -statue’s. It’s a little bit haughty, but I like it that way. And your -mouth,” he dropped his voice slightly, “your mouth--” - -Mariposa made a sudden movement of annoyance. She threw up her head and -looked at the curtain with frowning brows. - -“Don’t,” she said sharply, “I don’t like you to talk about me like -that.” - -Essex was silent, regarding her profile with a deliberating eye and -a slight, amused smile. How crude she was and how handsome! After a -moment’s silence, he leaned toward her and said in a voice full of -good-humored banter: - -“Butterfly! Butterfly! Why did they call you Butterfly?” - -The change in his tone and manner put her back at once on the old -footing of gay bonhomie. - -“In English, that way, it sounds dreadful, doesn’t it? Fancy me being -called Butterfly! I was called after the flower. My whole name is -Mariposa Lily.” - -“Mariposa Lily!” he repeated in amused amazement; “what an absurd name!” - -“Absurd!” said Mariposa indignantly. “I don’t see anything absurd -about it. I think it very pretty. My mother called me after the flower, -the first time she saw it. They couldn’t find a suitable name for me -for a long time, and then when she saw the flower she decided at once -to call me after it. It’s the most beautiful wild flower in California.” - -“It’s fortunate you were not called Eschscholtzia,” said Essex, who -thought the name extremely ridiculous, and who found a somewhat mean -amusement in teasing the girl; “you might just as well have been called -Eschscholtzia Poppy.” - -The spirited reply which was on Mariposa’s lips was stopped by the -rising of the curtain. The crowded, rustling house settled itself into -silence, the orchestra’s subdued notes rolled out with the voices -swelling above them into the listening auditorium. - -The rest of the evening was an enchanted dream to her. She had never -seen an opera, and for the first time realized what it might mean to -possess a voice. She heard the house thunder its applause to Leonora, -and thought of herself as singing thus, standing alone on that dim -stage, looking out over the sea of faces, all listening, all staring, -all spellbound, hanging on the notes that fell, sweet and rich, -thrilling and passionate, from her lips. Could there ever be such a -life for her? Did they tell the truth when they spoke so admiringly -of her voice? Could she ever sing like this? A surge of exultant -conviction rose in her, and sent its whisper of hope and ambition to -her throbbing brain. - -As the opera progressed she grew pale and motionless. The wild thought -was gaining possession of her, that she, Mariposa Moreau, with her -four pupils and her sixteen dollars a month, could sing as well as this -woman of European renown, for whom Essex, the critical, the vastly -experienced, had words of praise. Once or twice it seemed to her as -if the notes were swelling in her own throat, were pressing to burst -out and soar up, higher, fuller, richer than the woman’s on the stage. -Oh, the rapture of being able to pour out one’s voice, to give wild, -melodious expression to love or despair, while a thousand people hung -this way on one’s lips! - -As the curtain fell for the third time she turned to Essex, pale and -large-eyed, and said breathlessly: - -“I could sing as well as that woman if I had more lessons; I know I -could! I know it!” - - - - -CHAPTER V - -TRIAL FLIGHTS - - “The music of the moon - Sleeps in the plain eggs of the nightingale.” - - --TENNYSON. - - -A week had not passed since the night at the opera when Mariposa -received a hasty letter from Mrs. Willers. It was only a few lines -scrawled on a piece of the yellow paper affected by the staff of _The -Trumpet_, and advising the recipient of the fact that Mr. Shackleton -requested her presence at his office at three the following afternoon, -yet a suggestion of triumph breathed from its every word. Mrs. Willers -was clearly elated at the moment of its production. She hinted, in -a closing sentence, that Mariposa’s star was rising rapidly. She, -herself, would conduct the girl to the presence of the great man, and -suggested that Mariposa meet her in her rooms a half-hour before the -time set for the interview. - -Mariposa was glad to do this, and in the few moments’ walk across town -toward Third Street, to hear what Mrs. Willers thought was the object -of the interview. The girl’s cheeks were dyed with excited color as -they drew near _The Trumpet_ office. Mrs. Willers was certain it was -to do with her singing. Shackleton had almost told her as much. He had -been immensely impressed by her voice, and now, with the Lepine Opera -Company in the city, Mrs. Willers fancied he was going to have Lepine, -who was a well-known impresario in a small but respectable way, pass -judgment on it. Mariposa’s foot lagged when she heard this. It was such -a portentous step from the seclusion of a rose-draped cottage in Santa -Barbara, even to this talk of singing before a real impresario. She -looked down the vista of Third Street where the façade of _The Trumpet_ -office loomed large from humbler neighbors, and Mrs. Willers saw -hesitation and fright in her eyes. Like a sensible guardian she slipped -her hand through the young girl’s arm and walked her briskly forward, -talking of the rare chances life offers to a handicapped humanity. - -_The Trumpet_ office, as all old San Franciscans know, stood on -Third Street, and was, in its day, considered a fine building. Jake -Shackleton had not been its owner six months yet, and all his reforms -were not inaugurated. From the yawning arch of its doorway flights of -stairs led up and upward, from stories where the presses rattled all -night, to the editorial story where the sentiments of _The Trumpet_ -staff were confided to paper. This latter and most important department -was four flights up the dark stairway, which was lit at its turnings -with large kerosene lamps, backed by tin reflectors. There was little -of the luxury of the modern newspaper office about the barren, -business-like building, echoing like an empty shell to the shouts of -men and the pounding of machinery. - -At the top of the fourth flight the ladies paused. The landing -broadened out into a sort of anteroom, bare and windowless, two -dejected-looking gas-jets dispensing a tarnished yellow light into the -surrounding gloom. A boy, with a sleek, oiled head, sat at a table -reading that morning’s issue of _The Trumpet_. He put it down as Mrs. -Willers rose before his vision and nodded familiarly to her. She gave -him a quick word of greeting and swept Mariposa forward through a -doorway, down a long passage, from which doors opened into tiny rooms -with desks and droplights. The girl now and then had glimpses of men -seated at the desks, the radiance of the droplights hard on their faces -that had been lifted expectantly as their ears caught the interesting -rustle of skirts in the corridor. - -Suddenly, at the end of the passage, Mrs. Willers struck with her -knuckles on a closed portal. The next moment Mariposa, with the light -of a large window shining full on her face, was shaking hands with -Shackleton. Then, in response to his motioning hand, she took the chair -beside the desk, where she sat, facing the white glare of the window, -conscious of his keen eyes critically regarding her. Mrs. Willers -took a chair in the background. For a moment she had fears that the -nervousness she had noticed in her protégée’s countenance on the way -down would make her commit some _bêtise_ that would antagonize the -interest Shackleton so evidently took in her. Mrs. Willers had seen -her chief’s brusk impatience roused by follies more excusable than -those that rise from a young girl’s nervous shyness and that would be -incomprehensible to his hardy, self-confident nature. - -But Mariposa seemed encouragingly composed. She again felt the -curious sense of ease, of being at home with him, that this unknown -man had given her before. She had that inspiring sensation that -she was approved; that this old-time friend of her father’s had a -singular unspoken sympathy with her. “As if he might have been an old -friend,” she told her mother after the first meeting, “or some kind of -relation--one of those uncles that come back from India in the English -novels.” - -Now only her fluctuating color told of the inward tumult that possessed -her as he told her concisely, but kindly, that he had arranged for her -to sing before Lepine, the manager of the opera, at two o’clock on the -following day. Several people of experience had told him Lepine was an -excellent judge. They would then hear an expert’s opinion on her voice. - -“I think it’s the finest kind of voice,” he said, smiling, “but you -know my opinion’s worth more on ores than on voices. So we won’t soar -too high till we hear what the fellow whose business it is, has to say. -Then, if he’s satisfied”--he gave a little shrug--“we’ll see.” - -The interview was brought to an end in a few moments. It seemed to -Mariposa that the scenes which Mrs. Willers assured her were so big -with promise were incredibly short for moments so fraught with destiny. -She seemed hardly to have caught her breath yet from the ascent of the -four flights of stairs, when they were once again walking down the -corridor, with the writing men looking up with pricked ears at the -returning rustle of skirts. It was Mrs. Willers who had wafted her away -so quickly. - -“Never beat about the bush where you deal with Jake Shackleton,” she -said, slipping her hand in Mariposa’s arm as they passed down the -corridor. “He’s got no use for people who gambol round the subject. Say -your say and then go. That’s the way to get on with him.” - -In the anteroom the boy was still sitting, his chair tilted back on -its hind legs, _The Trumpet_ in his hands. Nevertheless, he had made -an incursion into the inner regions to find out whom Mrs. Willers was -piloting into the sanctum, for he had the curiosity of those who hang -on the fringes of the newspaper world. - -As the ladies passed him, going toward the stair-head, a young man -rose above it, almost colliding with them. Then in the gloom of the -dejected gas-jets he stood aside, against the wall, letting them pass -out. He wore a long ulster with a turned-up collar. Between the edge -of this and the brim of his derby hat, there was the gleam of a pair -of eye-glasses and a suggestion of a fair mustache. He raised his -hat, holding it above his head during the interval of their transit, -disclosing a small pate clothed with smooth blond hair. - -“Who was that lady with Mrs. Willers?” he said to the boy, as he walked -toward the door into the corridor. - -“She’s some singing lady,” answered that youth drawlingly, tilting his -chair still farther back, “what’s come to see Mr. Shackleton about -singing at the opera-house. Her name’s Moreau.” - -The young man, without further comment, passed into the inner hall, -leaving the boy smiling with pride that his carelessly-acquired -information should have been so soon of use. For the questioner was -Winslow Shackleton, the millionaire’s only son. - -The next morning was one of feverish excitement in the cottage on Pine -Street. Mariposa could not settle herself to anything, at one moment -trying her voice at the piano, at the next standing in front of her -glass and putting on all her own and her mother’s hats in an effort to -see in which she presented the most attractive appearance. She thrilled -with hope for a space, then sank into a dead apathy of dejection. -Lucy was quietly encouraging, but the day was one of hidden anguish -to her. The daughter, ignorant of the knowledge and the memories that -were wringing the mother’s heart, wondered why Lucy was so confident -of her winning Shackleton’s approval. As the hour came for her to go -she wondered, too, at the marble pallor of her mother’s face, at the -coldness of the hand that clung to hers in a lingering farewell. Lucy -was giving back her child to the father who had deserted it and her. - -The excitement of the morning reached its climax when a carriage -appeared at the curb with Mrs. Willers’ face at the window. The hour of -fate had struck, and Mariposa, with a last kiss to her mother, ran down -the steps feeling like one about to embark on a journey upon perilous -seas in which lie enchanted islands. - -During the drive Mrs. Willers talked on outside matters. She was -business-like and quiet to-day. Even her clothes seemed to partake of -her practical mood and were inconspicuous and subdued. As the carriage -turned down Mission Street she herself began to experience qualms. -What if they had all been mistaken and the girl’s voice was nothing -out of the ordinary? What a cruel disappointment, and with that sick, -helpless mother! What she said was: - -“Now, here we are! Remember that you’ve got the finest voice Lepine’s -ever likely to hear, and you’re going to sing your best.” - -They alighted, and as they turned into the flagged entrance that led -to the foyer, Shackleton came forward to meet them. He looked older -in the crude afternoon light, his face showing the lines that his -fiercely-lived life had plowed in it. But he smiled reassuringly at -Mariposa and pressed her hand. - -“Everything’s all ready,” he said; “Lepine’s put back a rehearsal for -us, so we mustn’t keep him waiting. And are you all ready to surprise -us?” he asked, as they walked together toward where the three steps led -to the foyer. - -“I’m ready to do my best,” she answered; “a person can’t do more than -that.” - -The answer pleased him, as everything she said did. He saw she was -nervous, but that she was going to conquer herself. - -“Lots of grit,” he said to himself as he gave ear to a remark of Mrs. -Willers’. “She won’t quit at the first obstacle.” - -They passed through the opening in the brass rail that led to the -foyer. This space, the gathering place of the radiant beings of -Mariposa’s first night at the opera, was now a dimly-lit and deserted -hall, its flagged flooring looking dirty in the raw light. From -somewhere, in what seemed a far, dreamy distance, the sound of a piano -came, as if muffled by numerous doors. As they crossed the foyer toward -the entrance into the auditorium, the door swung open and two men -appeared. - -One was a short and stout Frenchman, with a turned-over collar, upon -which a double chin rested. He had a bald forehead and eyes that -gleamed sharply from behind a _pince-nez_. At sight of the trio, he -gave an exclamation and came forward. - -“Our young lady?” he said to Mariposa, giving her a quick look of -scrutiny that seemed to take her in from foot to forehead. Then he -greeted Shackleton with slightly exaggerated foreign effusion. He spoke -English perfectly, but with the inevitable accent. This was Lepine, the -impresario, and the other man, an Italian who spoke little English, was -presented as Signor Tojetti, the conductor. - -They moved forward talking, and then, pushing the door open, Lepine -motioned Mariposa to enter. She did so and for a moment stood amazed, -staring into a vast, shadowy space, where, in what seemed a vague, -undefined distance, a tiny spot or two of light cut into the darkness. -The air was chill and smelt of a stable. From somewhere she heard -the sound of voices rising and falling, and then again the notes of -a piano, now near and unobscured, carelessly touched and resembling, -in the echoing hollow spaciousness of the great building, the thin, -tinkling sounds emitted by smitten glass. - -Lepine brushed past her and led the way down the aisle. As she followed -him her eyes became accustomed to the dimness, and she began to make -out the arch of the stage with blackness beyond, into which cut the -circles of light of a few gas-jets. The lines of seats stretched -before her spectral in linen covers. Now and then a figure crossed -the stage, and as they drew nearer, she saw on one side of it a man -sitting on a high stool reading a paper book by the light of a shaded -lamp. The notes of the piano sounded sharper and closer, and by their -proximity more than by her sight, she located it in a dark corner of the -orchestra. As they approached, the sound of two voices came from this -corner, then suddenly a man’s smothered laugh. - -“Mr. Martinez,” said Lepine, directing his voice toward the darkness -whence the laugh had risen, “the lady is here to sing, if you are -ready.” - -Instantly a faintly luminous spark, Mariposa had noticed, bloomed -into the full-blown radiance of a gas-jet turned full cock under a -sheltering shade. It projected, what seemed in the dimness, a torrent -of light on the keyboard of the piano, illuminating a pair of long -masculine hands that had been moving over the keys in the darkness. -Behind them the girl saw a shadowy shape, and then a spectacled face -under a mane of drooping black hair was advanced into the light. - -“Has the lady her music?” said the face, in English, but with another -variety of accent. - -She handed him the two songs she had brought, “Knowest thou the -Land,” from Mignon, and “Farewell, Lochaber.” In the short period of -her tuition her teacher had told her that she had sung “Lochaber” -admirably. The man opened them, glanced at the names, and placing the -“Mignon” aria on the rack, ran his hands lightly and carelessly over -the keys in the opening bars of the accompaniment. - -“Whenever the lady is ready,” he said, with an air of patience, as -though he had endured this form of persecution until all spirit of -revolt was crushed. - -Mariposa drew back from him, wondering if she were to sing there and -then. Lepine was behind her, and behind him she saw, with a sense of -nostalgic loneliness, that the Italian conductor was shepherding Mrs. -Willers and Shackleton into two seats on the aisle. They looked small -and far away. - -“We will mount to the stage this way, Mademoiselle,” said Lepine, and -he indicated a small flight of steps that rose from the corner of the -orchestra to the lip of the stage above. - -He ascended first, she close at his heels, and in a moment found -herself on the dark, deserted stage. It seemed enormous to her, -stretching back into unseen regions where the half-defined shapes of -trees and castles, walls and benches were huddled in dim confusion. -Down the aisles between side-scenes she caught glimpses of vistas lit -by wavering gleams of light. People moved here and there, across these -vistas, their footsteps sounding singularly distinct. As she stood -uneasily, looking to the right and left, a sudden sound of hammering -arose from somewhere behind, loud and vibrant. Lepine, who was about to -descend the stairs, turned and shouted a furious sentence in Italian -down the opening. The hammering instantly ceased, and a man in white -overalls came and stared at the stage. The impresario, charily--being -short and fat--descended the stairs. - -“Now, Mademoiselle,” he said, speaking from the orchestra, “if you are -ready, come forward a little, nearer the footlights there.” - -Mariposa moved forward. Her heart was beating in her throat, and she -felt a sick terror at the thought of what her voice would be like -in that huge void space. She was aware that the man who had been -reading the paper book had closed it and was leaning his elbow on the -lamp-stand, watching her. She was also aware that a woman and a man had -suddenly appeared in the lower proscenium box close beside her. She -saw the woman dimly, a fat, short figure in a light-colored ulster. -Whispering to the man, she drew one of the linen-covered chairs close -to the railing and seated herself. - -“Is the lady ready?” said the pianist, from his dark corner. - -“Quite ready,” replied Mariposa, hearing her voice like a tremulous -thread of sound in the stillness. - -The first bars of the accompaniment sounded thinly. Mariposa stepped -forward. She could see in the shadowy emptiness of the auditorium -Lepine’s bald head where he sat alone, half-way up the house, and the -two pale faces of Shackleton and Mrs. Willers. The Italian conductor -had left them and was sitting by himself at one side of the parquet. -In the stillness, the notes of the piano were curiously tinkling and -feeble. - -Mariposa raised her chest with a deep inspiration. A sudden excited -expectation seized her at the thought of letting her voice swell out -into the hushed void before her. The listening people seemed so small -and insignificant in it, they suddenly lost their terror. She began to -sing. - -It seemed to her that her first notes were hardly audible. They seemed -as ineffectual as the piano. Then her confidence grew, and delight -with it. She never before had felt as if she had enough room. Her -voice rolled itself out like a breaking wave, lapping the walls of the -building. - -The first verse came to an end. The accompaniment ceased. Lepine moved -in his distant seat. - -“Continue, Mademoiselle,” he said sharply; “the second verse, if you -please. Again, Mr. Martinez.” - -Mariposa saw the woman in the box look at the man beside her, raise her -eyebrows, and nod. - -She began the second verse and sang it through. As its last notes -died out there was silence for a moment. In the silence the Italian -conductor rose and came forward to where Lepine sat. Mariposa, standing -on the stage, saw them conferring for a space. The Italian talked in a -low voice, with much gesticulation. Shackleton and Mrs. Willers were -motionless and dumb. The woman in the box began to whisper with the man. - -“And now the second piece, if Mademoiselle has no objection,” came the -voice of the impresario across the parquet. “One can not judge well -from one song.” - -The second song, “Lochaber,” had been chosen by Mariposa’s teacher to -show off her lower register--those curious, disturbing notes that were -so deep and full of vague melancholy. She had gained such control as -she had over her voice and sang with an almost joyous exultation. She -had never realized what it was to sing before people who knew and who -listened in this way in a place that was large enough. - -When the last notes died away, the tinkling of the piano sounding like -the frail specters of music gafte the tones of the rich, vibrant voice, -there was a sudden noise of clapping hands. It came from the box on -the right, where the woman in the ulster was leaning over the rail, -clapping with her bare hands held far out. - -“_Brava!_” she cried in a loud, full voice. “_Brava! La belle voix! Et -quel volume! Brava!_” - -She bounced round on her chair to look at the man beside her, and, -leaning forward, clapped again, crying her gay “brava.” - -Mariposa walked toward the box, feeling suddenly shy. As she drew -nearer she saw the woman’s face more distinctly. It was a dark French -face, with a brunette skin warming to brick-dust red on the cheeks, set -in a frame of wiry black hair, and with a big mouth that, laughing, -showed strong white teeth, well separated. As Mariposa saw it fairly in -the light of an adjacent lamp she recognized it as that of the Leonora -of “Il Trovatore.” It was the prima donna. - -She started forward with flushing cheek and held out a hesitating hand. -The fat, ungloved palms of the singer closed on it with Gælic effusion. -Mariposa was aware of something delightfully wholesome and kind in the -broad, ruddy visage, with its big, smiling mouth and the firm teeth -like the halves of cleanly-broken hazelnuts. The singer, leaning over -the rail, poured a rumbling volume of French into the girl’s blushing, -upturned face. Mariposa understood it and was trying to answer in her -halting schoolgirl phrases, when the voice of Mrs. Willers, at the -bottom of the steps, summoned her. - -“Come down, quick! They think it’s fine. Oh, dearie,” stretching up -a helping hand as Mariposa swept her skirts over the line of the -footlights, “you did fine. It was great. You’ve just outdone yourself. -And you looked stunning, too. I only wished the place had been full. -Heavens! but I thought I’d die at first. While you were standing there -waiting to begin I felt seasick. It was an awful moment. And you looked -just as cool! Mr. Shackleton don’t say much, but I know he’s tickled to -death.” - -They walked up the aisle as she talked to where Shackleton and the two -men were standing in earnest conversation. As they approached Lepine -turned toward her and gave a slight smile. - -“We were saying, Mademoiselle,” he said, “that you have unquestionably -a voice. The lower register is remarkably fine. Of course, it is very -untrained; absolutely in the rough. But Signor Tojetti, here, finds -that a strong point in your favor.” - -“Signor Tojetti,” said Shackleton, “seems to think that two years of -study would be ample to fit you for the operatic stage.” - -Mariposa looked from one to the other with beaming eyes, hardly able to -believe it all. - -“You really did like it, then?” she said to Lepine with her most -ingenuous air. - -He shrugged his shoulders, with a queer French expression of quizzical -amusement. - -“It was a truly interesting performance, and after a period of study -with a good master it should be a truly delightful one.” - -The Italian, to whom these sentences were only half intelligible, now -broke in with a quick series of sonorous phrases, directed to Lepine, -but now and then turned upon Shackleton. Mariposa’s eyes went from one -to the other in an effort to understand. The impresario, listening -with frowning intentness, responded with a nod and a word of brusk -acquiescence. Turning to Shackleton, he said: - -“Tojetti also thinks that the appearance of Mademoiselle is much in her -favor. She has an admirable stage presence”--he looked at Mariposa as -if she were a piece of furniture he was appraising. “Her height alone -is of inestimable value. She would have at least five feet eight or -nine inches.” - -At this moment the lady in the box, who had risen to her feet, and was -leaning against the railing, called suddenly: - -“_Lepine, vraiment une belle voix, et aussi une belle fille! Vous avez -fait une trouvaille._” - -Lepine wheeled round to his star, who in the shadowy light stood, a -pale-colored, burly figure, buttoning her ulster over her redundant -chest. - -“A moment,” he said, apologetically to the others, and, running to the -box, stood with his head back, talking to her, while the prima donna -leaned over and a rapid interchange of French sentences passed between -them. - -Signor Tojetti turned to Mariposa, and, with solemn effort, produced an -English phrase: - -“Eet ees time to went.” Then he waved his hand toward the stage. The -sound of feet echoed therefrom, and as Mariposa looked, an irruption -of vague, spectral shapes rose from some unseen cavernous entrance and -peopled the orchestra. - -“It’s the rehearsal,” she said. “We must be going.” - -They moved forward toward the entrance, the auditorium behind them -beginning to resound with the noise of the incoming performers. A -scraping of strings came from the darkened orchestra, and mingled with -the tentative chords struck from the piano. At the door Lepine joined -them, falling into step beside Shackleton and conversing with him in -low tones. Signor Tojetti escorted them to the brass rail and there -withdrew with low bows. The ladies made out that the rehearsal demanded -his presence. - -Once again in the gray light of the afternoon they stood for a moment -at the curb waiting for the carriage. - -Lepine offered his farewells to Mariposa and his wishes to see her -again. - -“In Paris,” he said, giving his little quizzical smile--“that is the -place in which I should like to see Mademoiselle.” - -“We’ll talk about that again,” said Shackleton; “I’m going to see Mr. -Lepine before he goes and have another talk about you. You see, you’re -becoming a very important young lady.” - -The carriage rolled up and Mariposa was assisted in, several street -boys watching her with wide-eyed interest as evidently a personage of -distinction. - -Her face at the window smiled a radiant farewell at the group on the -sidewalk; then she sank back breathless. What an afternoon! Would the -carriage ever get her home, that she might pour it all out to her -mother! What a thrilling, wonderful, unheard-of afternoon! - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -THE VISION AND THE DREAM - - “For a dream cometh through the multitude of business.” - - --ECCLESIASTES. - - -As the carriage turned the corner into Third Street, Shackleton and -Mrs. Willers, bidding their adieux to Lepine, started toward _The -Trumpet_ office. The building was not ten minutes’ walk away, and both -the proprietor and the woman reporter had work there that called them. - -In their different ways each was exceedingly elated. The man, with -his hard, bearded face, the upper half shaded by the brim of his soft -felt hat, gave no evidence in appearance or manner of the exultation -that possessed him. But the woman, with her more febrile and less -self-contained nature, showed her excited gratification in her reddened -cheeks and the sparkling animation of her tired eyes. Her state of -joyous triumph was witnessed even in her walk, in the way she swished -her skirts over the pavements, in the something youthful and buoyant -that had crept into the tones of her voice. - -“Well,” she said, “that _was_ an experience worth having! I never heard -her sing so before. She just outdid herself.” - -“She certainly seemed to me to sing well. I was doubtful at the -beginning, not knowing any more about singing than I do about Sanskrit, -as to whether she really had as fine a voice as we thought. But there -don’t seem to me to be any doubt about it now.” - -“Lepine is quite certain, is he?” queried Mrs. Willers, who had tried -to listen to the conversation between her chief and the impresario on -the way out, but had been foiled by Mariposa’s excited chatter. - -“He says that she has an unusually fine voice, which, with proper -training, would, as far as they can say now, be perfectly suitable -for grand opera. It’s what they call a dramatic mezzo-soprano, with -something particularly good about the lower notes. Lepine is to see me -again before he goes.” - -“Did he suggest what she ought to do?” - -“Yes; he spoke of Paris as the best place to send her. He knows some -famous teacher there that he says is the proper person for her to study -with. He seemed to think that two years of study would be sufficient -for her. She’d be ready to make her appearance in grand opera after -that time.” - -“Good heavens!” breathed Mrs. Willers in a transport of pious triumph, -“just think of it! And now up in that cottage on Pine Street getting -fifty cents a lesson, and with only four pupils.” - -“In two years,” said Shackleton, who was speaking more to himself than -to her, “she’ll be twenty-seven years old--just in her prime.” - -“She’ll be twenty-six,” corrected Mrs. Willers; “she’s only twenty-four -now.” - -He raised his brows with a little air of amused apology. - -“Twenty-four, is it?” he said. “Well, that’s all the better. Twenty-six -is one year better than twenty-seven.” - -“It’ll be like the ‘Innocents Abroad’ to see her and her mother -in Paris,” said Mrs. Willers. “They’re just two of the most -unsophisticated females that ever strayed out of the golden age.” - -The man vouchsafed no answer to this remark for a moment; then he said: - -“The mother’s health is very delicate? She’s quite an invalid, you say?” - -“Quite. But she’s one of the sweetest, most uncomplaining women you -ever laid eyes on. You’d understand the daughter better if you knew the -mother. She’s so gentle and girlish. And then they’ve lived round in -such a sort of quiet, secluded way. It’s funny to me because they had -plenty of money when Mr. Moreau was alive. But they never seemed to go -into society, or know many people; they just seemed enough for each -other, especially when the father was with them. They simply adored -him, and he must have been a fine man. They--” - -“Is Mrs. Moreau’s state of health too bad to allow her to travel?” said -Shackleton, interrupting suddenly and rudely. - -Mrs. Willers colored slightly. She knew her chief well enough to -realize that his tone indicated annoyance. Why did he so dislike to -hear anything about the late Dan Moreau? - -“As to that I don’t know,” she said. “She’s so much of an invalid that -she rarely goes out. But with good care she might be able to take a -journey and benefit by it. A sea trip sometimes cures people.” - -“Miss Moreau couldn’t, and, I have no doubt, wouldn’t leave her. It’ll -therefore be necessary for the mother to go to Paris with the girl, and -if she is so complete and helpless an invalid she’ll certainly be of no -assistance to her daughter--only a care.” - -“She’d undoubtedly be a care. But a person couldn’t separate those -two. They’re wrapped up in each other. It’s a pity you don’t know Mrs. -Moreau, Mr. Shackleton.” - -For the second time that afternoon Mrs. Willers was conscious that -words she had intended to be gently ingratiating had given mysterious -offense to her employer. Now he said, with more than an edge of -sharpness to his words: - -“I’ve no doubt it’s a pity, Mrs. Willers. But there are so many things -and people it’s a pity I don’t know, that if I came to think it over -I’d probably fall into a state of melancholia. Also, let me assure you, -that I haven’t the least intention of trying to separate Mrs. Moreau -and her daughter. What I’m just now bothered about is the fact that -this lady is hardly of sufficient worldly experience, and certainly has -not sufficient strength to take care of the girl in a strange country.” - -“Well, no,” said Mrs. Willers with slow reluctance, “it would be the -other way round, the girl would be taking care of her.” - -“That’s exactly what I thought. The only way out of it will be to send -some one with them. A woman who could take care of them both, chaperone -the daughter and look after the mother.” - -There was a silence. Mrs. Willers began to understand why Mr. -Shackleton had walked down to _The Trumpet_ office with her. The walk -was over, for they were at the office door, and the conversation had -reached the point to which he had evidently intended to bring it before -they parted. - -As they turned into the arched doorway and began the ascent of the -stairs, Mrs. Willers replied: - -“I think that would be a very good idea, Mr. Shackleton. That is, if -you can find the right woman.” - -“Oh, I’ve got her now,” he answered, giving her a quick, side-long -glance. “I think it would be a good arrangement for all parties. _The -Trumpet_ wants a Paris correspondent.” - -The door leading into the press-rooms opened off the landing they had -reached, and he turned into this with a word of farewell, and a hand -lifted to his hat brim. Mrs. Willers continued the ascent alone. As she -mounted upward she said to herself: - -“The best thing for me to do is to get a French phrase book on the way -home this evening, and begin studying: ‘Have you the green pantaloons -of the miller’s mother?’” - -The elation of his mood was still with Shackleton when, two hours -later, he alighted from the carriage at the steps of his country -house. He went upstairs to his own rooms with a buoyant tread. In his -library, with the windows thrown open to the soft, scented air, he sat -smoking and thinking. The October dusk was closing in, when he heard -the wheels of a carriage on the drive and the sound of voices. His -women-folk with the second of the Thurston girls--the one guest the -house now contained--were returning from the afternoon round of visits -that was the main diversion of their life during the summer months, and -swept the country houses from Redwood City to Menlo Park. - -It was a small dinner table that evening. Winslow had stayed in town -over night, and Shackleton sat at the head of a shrunken board, with -Bessie opposite him, his daughter to the left, and Pussy Thurston on -his right. Pussy was Maud’s best friend and was one of the beauties of -San Francisco. To-night she looked especially pretty in a pale green -crape dress, with green leaves in her fair hair. Her skin was of a -shell-like purity of pink and white, her face was small, with regular -features and a sweet, childish smile. - -She and her sister were the only children of the famous Judge -Beauregard Thurston, in his day one of those brilliant lawyers who -brought glory to the California bar. He had made a fortune, lived -on it recklessly and magnificently, and died leaving his daughters -almost penniless. He had been in the heyday of his splendor when Jake -Shackleton, just struggling into the public eye, had come to San -Francisco, and the proud Southerner had not scrupled to treat the raw -mining man with careless scorn. Shackleton evened the score before -Thurston’s death, and he still soothed his wounded pride with the -thought that the two daughters of the man who had once despised him -were largely dependent on his wife’s charity. Bessie took them to balls -and parties, dressed them, almost fed them. The very green crape gown -in which Pussy looked so pretty to-night had been included in Maud’s -bill at a fashionable dressmaker’s. - -Personally he liked Pussy, whose beauty and winning manners lent a -luster to his house. Once or twice to-night she caught him looking -at her with a cold, debating glance in which there was little of the -admiration she was accustomed to receiving since the days of her first -long dress. - -He was in truth regarding her critically for the first time, for the -Bonanza King was a man on whom the beauty of women cast no spell. -He was comparing her with another and a more regally handsome girl. -Pussy Thurston would look insipid and insignificant before the stately -splendor of his own daughter. - -He smiled as he realized Mariposa’s superiority. The young girl saw the -smile, and said with the privileged coquetry of a maid who all her life -has known herself favored above her fellows: - -“Why are you smiling all to yourself, Mr. Shackleton? Can’t we know if -it is something pleasant?” - -“I was looking at something pretty,” he answered, his eyes full of -amusement as they rested on her charming face. “That generally makes -people smile.” - -She was so used to such remarks that her rose-leaf color did not vary -the fraction of a shade. Maud, to whom no one ever paid compliments, -looked at her with wistful admiration. - -“Is that all?” she said with an air of disappointment. “I hoped it was -something that would make us all smile.” - -“Well, I have an idea that may make you all smile”--he turned to his -wife--“how would you like to go to Europe next spring, Bessie?” - -Mrs. Shackleton looked surprised and not greatly elated. On their last -trip to Europe, two years before, her husband had been so bored by the -joys of foreign travel that she had made up her mind she would never -ask him to go again. Now she said: - -“But you don’t want to go to Europe. You said last time you hated it.” - -“Did I? Yes, I guess I did. Well, I’m prepared to like it this time. -We could take a spin over in the spring to London and Paris. We’d make -quite a stay in Paris, and you women could buy clothes. You’d come, -too, Pussy, wouldn’t you?” he said, turning to the girl. - -Her color rose now and her eyes sparkled. She had never been even to -New York. - -“Wouldn’t I?” she said. “That _does_ make me smile.” - -“I thought so,” he answered good-humoredly--“and Maud, you’d like it, -of course?” - -Maud did not like the thought of going at all. In this little party of -four, two were moved in their actions by secret predilections of which -the others were ignorant. Maud thought of leaving her love affair at -the critical point it had reached, and, with anguish at her heart, -looked heavily indifferent. - -“I don’t know,” she said, crumbling her bread, “I don’t think it’s such -fun in Europe. You just travel round in little stuffy trains, and have -to live in hotels without baths.” - -“Well, you and I, Pussy,” said Shackleton, “seem to be the only two -who’ve got any enthusiasm. You’ll have to try and put some into Maud, -and if the worst comes to the worst we can kidnap the old lady.” - -He was in an unusually good temper, and the dinner was animated and -merry. Only Maud, after the European suggestion, grew more stolidly -quiet than ever. But she cheered herself by the thought that the spring -was six months off yet, and who could tell what might happen in six -months? - -After dinner the ladies repaired to the music room, and Shackleton, -following a custom of his, passed through one of the long windows into -the garden, there to pace up and down while he smoked his cigar. - -The night was warm and odorous with the scent of hidden blossoms. Now -and then his foot crunched the gravel of a path, as his walk took him -back and forth over the long stretch of lawn broken by flower-beds and -narrow walks. The great bulk of the house, its black mass illumined by -congeries of lit windows, showed an inky, irregular outline against the -star-strewn sky. - -Presently the sound of a piano floated out from the music room. The -man stopped his pacing, listened for an instant, and then passed round -to the side of the house. The French windows of the music room were -opened, throwing elongated squares of light over the balcony and the -grass beyond. He paused in the darkness and looked through one of them. -There, like a painting framed by the window casing, was Pussy Thurston -seated at the piano singing, while Maud sat near by listening. One of -Miss Thurston’s most admired social graces was the gift of song. She -had a small agreeable voice, and had been well taught; but the light, -frail tones sounded thin in the wide silence of the night. It was the -feebly pretty performance of the “accomplished young lady.” - -Shackleton listened with a slight smile that increased as the song drew -to a close. As it ceased he moved away, the red light of his cigar -coming and going in the darkness. - -“Singing!” he said to himself, “they call that singing! Wait till they -hear my daughter!” - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -THE REVELATION - - “Praised be the fathomless universe - For life and for joy and for objects and knowledge curious, - And for love, sweet love--but praise, praise, praise, - For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death, - The night in silence under many a star, - The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I hear, - And the soul turning to thee, O vast and well-veiled Death, - And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.” - - --WHITMAN. - - -From the day when Mrs. Willers had appeared with the news of -Shackleton’s interest in her daughter, Lucy’s health had steadily -waned. The process of decay was so quiet, albeit so sure and swift, -that Mariposa, accustomed to the ups and downs of her mother’s invalid -condition, was unaware that the elder woman’s sands were almost run. -The pale intensity, the coldness of the hand gripped round hers, that -had greeted her account of the recital at the Opera-House, seemed to -the girl only the reflection of her own eager exultation. She was -blind, not only from ignorance, but from the egotistic preoccupations -of her youth. It seemed impossible to think of her mother’s failing in -her loving response, now that the sun was rising on their dark horizon. - -But Lucy knew that she was dying. Her feeble body had received its -_coup de grâce_ on the day that Mrs. Willers brought the news of -Shackleton’s wish to see his child. Since then she had spent long hours -in thought. When her mind was clear enough she had pondered on the -situation trying to see what was best to do for Mariposa’s welfare. The -problem that faced her terrified her. The dying woman was having the -last struggle with herself. - -One week after the recital at the Opera-House she had grown so -much worse that Mariposa had called in the doctor they had had in -attendance, off and on, since their arrival. He was grave and there was -a consultation. When she saw their faces the cold dread that had been -slowly growing in the girl’s heart seemed suddenly to expand and chill -her whole being. Mrs. Moreau was undoubtedly very ill, though there was -still hope. Yet their looks were sober and pitying as they listened to -the daughter’s reiterated asseverations that her mother had often been -worse and made a successful rally. - -An atmosphere of illness settled down like a fog on the little -cottage. A nurse appeared; the doctors seemed to be in the house many -times a day. Mrs. Willers, as soon as she heard, came up, no longer -over-dressed and foolish, but grave and helpful. After a half-hour -spent at Lucy’s bedside, wherein the sick woman had spoken little, -and then only about her daughter, Mrs. Willers had gone to the office -of _The Trumpet_, frowning in her sympathetic pain. It was Saturday, -and Shackleton had already left for Menlo Park when she reached the -office. But she determined to see him early on Monday and tell him of -the straits of his old friend’s widow and child. Mrs. Willers knew the -signs of the scarcity of money, and knew also the overwhelming expenses -of sickness. What she did not know was that on Friday morning Mariposa -had wept over her check-book, and then gone out and sold the diamond -brooch. - -The long Sunday--the interminable day of strained anxiety--passed, -shrouded in rain. When her mother fell into the light sleep that now -marked her condition, Mariposa mechanically went to the window of the -bedroom and looked out. It was one of those blinding rains that usher -in the San Francisco winter, the water falling in straight lances -that show against the light like thin tubes of glass, and strike the -pavement with a vicious impact, which splinters them into spray. It -drummed on the tin roof above the bedroom with an incessant hollow -sound, and ran in a torn ribbon of water from the gutter on the eaves. - -The prospect that the window commanded seemed in dreariness to match -the girl’s thoughts. That part of Pine Street was still in the -unfinished condition described by the words “far out.” Vacant lots -yawned between the houses; the badly paved roadbed was an expanse of -deeply rutted mud, with yellow ponds of rain at the sewer mouths. The -broken wooden sidewalk gleamed with moisture and was evenly striped -with lines of vivid green where the grass sprouted between the boards. -Now and then a wayfarer hurried by, crouched under the dome of an -umbrella spouting water from every rib. - -The gray twilight settled early, and Mariposa, dropping the curtain, -turned to the room behind her. The light of a small fire and a shaded -lamp sent a softened glow over the apartment, which, despite its -poverty, bespoke the taste of gentlewomen in the simple prettiness of -its furnishings. The nurse, a middle-aged woman of a kindly and capable -aspect, sat by the fire in a wicker rocking-chair, reading a paper. -Beside her, on a table, stood the sick-room paraphernalia of glasses -and bottles. The regular creak of the rocking-chair, and an occasional -snap from the fire, were the only sounds that punctuated the steady -drumming of the rain on the tin roof. - -A Japanese screen was half-way about the bed, shutting it from the -drafts of the door, and in its shelter Lucy lay sleeping her light, -breathless sleep. In this shaded light, in the relaxed attitude of -unconsciousness, she presented the appearance of a young girl hardly -older than her daughter. Yet the hand of death was plainly on her, as -even Mariposa could now see. - -Without sound the girl passed from the room to her own beyond. Her -grief had seized her, and the truth, fought against with the desperate -inexperience of youth, forced itself on her. She threw herself on her -bed and lay there battling with the sickness of despair that such -knowledge brings. Twilight faded and darkness came. In answer to the -servant’s tap on the door, and announcement of dinner, she called -back that she desired none. The room was as dark about her as her own -thoughts. From the door that led into the sick chamber, only partly -closed, a shaft of light cut the blackness, and on this light she -fastened her eyes, swollen with tears, feeling herself stupefied with -sorrow. - -As she lay thus on the bed, she heard the creaking of the wicker-chair -as the nurse arose, then came the clink of the spoon and the glass, and -the woman’s low voice, and then her mother’s, stronger and clearer than -it had been for some days. There was an interchange of remarks between -nurse and patient, the sound of careful steps, and the crack of light -suddenly expanded as the door was opened. Against this background, -clear and smoothly yellow as gold leaf, the nurse’s figure was revealed -in sharp silhouette. - -“Are you there, Miss Moreau?” she said in a low voice. Mariposa started -with a hurried reply. - -“Well, your mother wants to see you and you’d better come. Her mind -seems much clearer and it may not be so again.” - -The girl rose from the bed trying to compose her face. In the light of -the open door the woman saw its distress and looked at her pityingly. - -“Don’t tire her,” she said, “but I advise you to say all you have to -say. She may not be this way again.” - -Mariposa crossed the room to the bed. Her mother was lying on her side, -pinched, pale and with darkly circled eyes. - -“Have you just waked up, darling?” said the girl, tenderly. - -“No,” she answered, with a curious lack of response in manner and tone; -“I have been awake some time. I was thinking.” - -“Why didn’t you send Mrs. Brown for me? I was in my room passing the -time till you woke up.” - -“I was thinking and I wanted to finish. I have been thinking a long -time, days and weeks.” - -Mariposa thought her mind was wandering, and sitting down on a chair -by the bedside, took her hand and pressed it gently without speaking. -Her mother lay in the same attitude, her profile toward her, her eyes -looking vacantly at the screen. Suddenly she said: - -“You know my old desk, the little rose-wood one Dan gave me? Take my -keys and open it, and in the bottom you’ll see two envelopes, with no -writing. One looks dirty and old. Bring them to me here.” - -Mariposa rose wondering, and looking anxiously at her mother. The elder -woman saw the look, and said weakly and almost peevishly: - -“Go; be quick. I am not strong enough to talk long. The keys are in the -work-box.” - -The girl obeyed as quickly as possible. The desk was a small one -resting on the center-table. It had been a present of her father’s to -her mother, and she remembered it from her earliest childhood in a -prominent position in her mother’s room. She opened it, and in a few -moments, under old letters, memoranda and souvenirs, found the two -envelopes. Carrying them to the bed she gave them to her mother. - -Lucy took them with an unsteady hand, and for a moment lay staring at -her daughter and not moving. Then she said: - -“Put the pillows under my head. It’s easier to breathe when I’m -higher,” and as Mariposa arranged them, she added, in a lower voice: -“And tell Mrs. Brown to go; I want to be alone with you.” - -Mariposa looked out beyond the screen, and seeing the nurse still -reading the paper, told her to go to the kitchen and get her dinner. -The woman rose with alacrity, and asking Mariposa to call her if the -invalid showed signs of fatigue, or any change, left the room. - -The girl turned back to the bedside and took the chair. Lucy had taken -from the dirty envelope a worn and faded paper, which she slowly -unfolded. As she did so, she looked at her daughter with sunken eyes -and said: - -“These are my marriage certificates.” - -Mariposa, again thinking that her mind was wandering, tried to smile, -and answered gently: - -“Your marriage certificate, dear. You were only married once.” - -“I was married twice,” said Lucy, and handed the girl the two papers. - -Still supposing her mother slightly delirious, the daughter took the -papers and looked at them. The one her eye first fell on was that of -the original marriage. She read the names without at first realizing -whose they were. Then the significance of the “Lucy Fraser” came upon -her. Her glance leaped to the second paper, and at the first sweep -of her eyes over it she saw it was the marriage certificate of her -father and mother, Daniel Moreau and Lucy Fraser, dated at Placerville -twenty-five years before. She turned back to the other paper, now more -than bewildered. She held it near her face, as though it were difficult -to read, and in the dead silence of the room it began to rustle with -the trembling of her hand. A fear of something hideous and overwhelming -seized her. With pale lips she read the names, and the date, antedating -by five years the other certificate. - -“Mother!” she cried, in a wild voice of inquiry, dropping the paper on -the bed. - -Lucy, raised on her pillows, was looking at her with a haggard -intentness. All the vitality left in her expiring body seemed -concentrated in her eyes. - -“I was married twice,” she said slowly. - -“But how? When? What does it mean? Mother, what does it mean?” - -“I was married twice,” she repeated. “In St. Louis to Jake Shackleton, -and in Placerville, five years after, to Dan Moreau. And I was never -divorced from Jake. It was not according to the law. I was never Dan’s -lawful wife.” - -The girl sat staring, the meaning of the words slowly penetrating her -brain. She was too stunned to speak. Her face was as white as her -mother’s. For a tragic moment these two white faces looked at each -other. The mother’s, with death waiting to claim her, was void of all -stress or emotion. The daughter’s, waking to life, was rigid with -horrified amaze. - -Propped by her pillows, Lucy spoke again; her sentences were short and -with pauses between: - -“Jake Shackleton married me in St. Louis when I was fifteen. He was -soon tired of me. We went to Salt Lake City. He became a Mormon there, -and took a second wife. She was a waitress in a hotel. She’s his wife -now. He brought us both to California twenty-five years ago. On the -way across, on the plains of Utah, you were born. He is your father, -Mariposa.” - -She made an effort and sat up. Her breathing was becoming difficult, -but her purpose gave her strength. This was the information that for -weeks she had been nerving herself to impart. - -“He is your father,” she repeated. “That’s what I wanted to tell you.” - -Mariposa made no answer, and again she repeated: - -“He is your father. Do you understand? Answer me.” - -“Yes--I don’t know. Oh, mother, it’s so strange and horrible. And -you sitting there and looking at me like that, and telling it to me! -Oh,--mother!” - -She put her hands over her face for an instant, and then dropping them, -leaned over on the bed and grasped her mother’s wrists. - -“You’re wandering in your mind. It’s just some hideous dream you’ve had -in your fever. Dearest, tell me it’s not true. It can’t be true. Why, -think of you and me and father always together and with no dreadful -secret behind us like that. Oh--it can’t be true!” - -Lucy looked at the papers lying brown and torn on the white quilt. -Mariposa’s eyes followed the same direction, and with a groan her head -sank on her arms extended along the bed. Her mother’s hand, cold and -light, was laid on one of hers, but the dying woman’s face was held in -its quiet, unstirred apathy, as she spoke again: - -“Jake was hard to me on the trip. He was a hard man and he never loved -me. After Bessie came he got to dislike me. I was always a drag, he -said. I couldn’t seem to get well after you were born. Coming over the -Sierras we stopped at a cabin. Dan was there with another man, a miner, -called Fletcher. That was the first time I ever saw Dan.” - -Mariposa lifted her head and her eyes fastened on her mother’s face. -The indifference that had held it seemed breaking. A faint smile was on -her lips, a light of reminiscence lit its gray pallor. - -“He was always good to anything that was sick or weak. He was sorry for -me. He tried to make Jake stop longer, so I could get rested. But Jake -wouldn’t. He said I had to go on. I couldn’t, but knew I must, if he -said it. We were going to start when Jake said he’d exchange me for the -pair of horses the two miners had in the shed. So he left me and took -the horses.” - -“Exchanged you for the horses? Left you there sick and alone?” - -“Yes, Jake and Bessie went on with the horses. I stayed. I was too sick -to care.” - -She made a slight pause, either from weakness, or in an effort to -arrange the next part of her story. - -“I lived there with them for a month. I was sick and they took care of -me. Then one day Fletcher stole all the money and the only horse and -never came back. We were alone there then, Dan and I. I got better. I -came to love him more each day. We were snowed in all winter, and we -lived as man and wife. In the spring we rode into Hangtown and were -married.” - -She stopped, a look of ineffable sweetness passed over her face, and -she said in a low voice, as if speaking to herself: - -“Oh, that beautiful winter! There is a God, to be so good to women who -have suffered as I had.” - -Mariposa sat dumbly regarding her. It was like a frightful nightmare. -Everything was strange, the sick-room, the bed with the screen around -it, her mother’s face with its hollow eyes and pinched nose. Only the -two old dirty papers on the white counterpane seemed to say that this -was real. - -Lucy’s eyes, which had been looking back into that glorified past of -love and youth, returned to her daughter’s face. - -“But Jake is your father,” she said. “That’s what I had to tell you. -He’ll be good to you. That was why he wanted to find you and help you.” - -“Yes,” said Mariposa, dully, “I understand that now; that was why he -wanted to help me.” - -“He’ll be good to you,” went on the low, weak voice, interrupted by -quick breaths. “I know Jake. He’ll be proud of you. You’re handsome -and talented, not weak and poor spirited, as I was. You’re his only -legitimate child; the others are not; they were born in California. -They’re Bessie’s children, and I was his only real wife. You’ll let him -take care of you? Oh, Mariposa, my darling, I’ve told you all this that -you might understand and let him take care of you.” - -She made a last call on her strength and leaned forward. Her dying body -was re-vivified; all her mother’s agony of love appeared on her face. -In determining to destroy the illusions of her child to secure her -future, she had made the one heroic effort of her life. It was done, -and for a last moment of relief and triumph she was thrillingly alive. - -Mariposa, in a spasm of despair, threw herself forward on the bed. - -“Oh, why did you tell me? Why did you tell me?” she cried. “Why didn’t -you let me think it was the way it used to be? Why did you tell me?” - -Lucy laid her hand on the bowed head. - -“Because I wanted you to understand and let him be your father.” - -“My father! That man! Oh, no, no!” - -“You must promise me. Oh, my beloved child, I couldn’t leave you alone. -It seemed as if God had said to me, ‘Die in peace. Her father will care -for her.’ I couldn’t go and leave you this way, without a friend. Now I -can rest in peace. Promise to let him take care of you. Promise.” - -“Oh, mother, don’t ask me. What have you just told me? That he sold you -to a stranger for a pair of horses, left you to die in a cabin in the -mountains! That’s not my father. My father was Dan Moreau. I can do -nothing but hate that other man now.” - -“Don’t blame him, dear, the past is over. Forgive him. Forgive me. If I -sinned there were excuses for me. I had suffered too much. I loved too -well.” - -Her voice suddenly hesitated and broke. A gray pallor ran over her face -and a look of terror transfixed her eyes. She straightened her arms out -toward her daughter. - -“Promise,” she gasped, “promise.” - -With a spring Mariposa snatched the drooping body in her arms and cried -into the face, settling into cold rigidity: - -“Yes--yes--I promise! All--anything. Oh, mother, darling, look at me. I -promise.” - -She gently shook the limp form, but it was nerveless, only the head -oscillated slightly from side to side. - -“Mother, look at me,” she cried frantically. “Look at me, not past me. -Come back to me. Speak to me, I promise everything.” - -But there was no response. Lucy lay, limp and white-lipped, her head -lolling back from the support of her daughter’s arm. Her strength was -exhausted to the last drop. She was unconscious. - -The wild figure of Mariposa at the kitchen door summoned Mrs. Brown. -Lucy was not dead, but dying. A few moments later Mariposa found -herself rushing hatless through the rain for the doctor, and then -again, in what seemed a few more minutes, standing, soaked and -breathless, by her mother’s side. She sat there throughout the night, -holding the limp hand and watching for a glimmer of consciousness in -the half-shut eyes. - -It never came. There was no rally from the collapse which followed the -mother’s confession. She had lived till this was done. Then, having -accomplished the great action of her life, she had loosed her hold and -let go. Once, Mrs. Brown being absent, Mariposa had leaned down on the -pillow and passionately reiterated the assurance that she would give -the promise Lucy had asked. There was a slight quiver of animation in -the dying woman’s face and she opened her eyes as if startled, but made -no other sign of having heard or understood. But Mariposa knew that she -had promised. - -On the evening of the day after her confession Lucy died, slipping -away quietly as if in sleep. The death of the simple and unknown lady -made no ripple on the surface of the city’s life. Mrs. Willers and a -neighbor or two were Mariposa’s sole visitors, and the only flowers -contributed to Lucy’s coffin were those sent by the newspaper woman -and Barry Essex. The afternoon of the day on which her mother’s death -was announced, Mariposa received a package from Jake Shackleton. With -it came a short note of condolence, and the offer, kindly and simply -worded, of the small sum of money contained in the package, which, it -was hoped, Miss Moreau, for the sake of the writer’s early acquaintance -with her parents and interest in herself, would accept. The packet -contained five hundred dollars in coin. - -Mariposa’s face flamed. The money fell through her fingers and rolled -about on the floor. She would have liked to take it, piece by piece, -and throw it through the window, into the mud of the street. She felt -that her horror of Shackleton augmented with every passing moment, -gripped her deeper with every memory of her mother’s words, and every -moment’s perusal of the calm, dead face in its surrounding flowers. - -But her promise had been given. She picked up the money and put it -away. Her promise had been given. Already she was beginning dimly to -realize that it would bind and cramp her for the rest of her life. She -was too benumbed now fully to grasp its meaning, but she felt feebly -that she would be its slave as long as he or she lived. But she had -given it. - -The money lay untouched throughout the next few days, Lucy’s simple -funeral ceremonies being paid for with the proceeds of the sale of the -diamond brooch, which Moreau had given her in the early days of their -happiness. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -ITS EFFECT - - “Flower o’ the peach, - Death for us all, and his own life for each.” - - --BROWNING. - - -Jake Shackleton did not come up from San Mateo on Monday, as Mrs. -Willers expected, and the first intimation he had of Lucy’s death was -the short notice in the paper. - -He had come down the stairs early on Tuesday morning into the wide -hall, with its doors thrown open to the fragrant air. With the paper -in his hand, he stood on the balcony looking about and inhaling the -freshness of the morning. The rain had washed the country clean of -every fleck of dust, burnished every leaf, and had called into being -blossoms that had been awaiting its summons. - -From beneath the shade made by the long, gnarled limbs of the -live-oaks, the perfume of the violets rose delicately, their crowding -clusters of leaves a clear green against the base of the hoary trunks. -The air that drifted in from the idle, yellow fields beyond was -impregnated with the breath of the tar-weed--one of the most pungent -and impassioned odors Nature has manufactured in her vast laboratory, -characteristic scent to rise from the dry, yet fecund grass-lands -of California. In the perfect, crystalline stillness these mingled -perfumes rose like incense to the new day. - -Shackleton looked about him, the paper in his hand. He had little love -for Nature, but the tranquil-scented freshness of the hour wrung its -tribute of admiration from him. What an irony that the one child he -had, worth having gained all this for, should be denied it. Mariposa, -thus framed, would have added the last touch to the triumphs of his -life. - -With an exclamation of impatience he sat down on the top step, and -opening the paper, ran his glance down its columns. He had been looking -over it for several minutes before the death notice of Lucy struck his -eye. It took away his breath. He read it again, at first not crediting -it. He was entirely unprepared, having merely thought of Lucy as -“delicate.” Now she was dead. - -He dropped the paper on his knee and sat staring out into the garden. -The news was more of a shock than he could have imagined it would be. -Was it the lately roused pride in his child that had reawakened some -old tenderness for the mother? Or was it that the thought of Lucy, -dead, called back memories of that shameful past? - -He sat, staring, till a step on the balcony roused him, and turning, he -saw his son. Win, though only twenty-three, was of the order of beings -who do not look well in the morning. He was slightly built and thin and -had a rasped, pink appearance, as though he felt cold. Stories were -abroad that Win was dissipated, stories, by the way, that were largely -manufactured by himself. He was at that age when a reputation for -deviltry has its attractions. In fact, he was amiable, gentle and far -too lacking in spirit to be the desperate rake he liked to represent -himself. He had a wholesome fear of his father, whose impatience -against him was not concealed by surface politeness as in Maud’s case. - -Standing with his hands in his trousers’ pockets, his chest hollowed, -his red-rimmed eyes half shut behind the _pince-nez_ he always wore, -and his slight mustache not sufficient to hide a smile, the foolishness -of which rose from embarrassment, he was not a son to fill a father’s -heart with pride. - -“Howdy, Governor,” he said, trying to be easy; then, seeing the paper -in his father’s hand, folded back at the death notices, “anybody new -born, dead, or married this morning?” - -His voice rasped unbearably on his father’s mood. The older man gave -him a look over his shoulder, with a face that made the boy quail. - -“Get away,” he said, savagely; “get in the house and leave me alone.” - -Win turned and entered the house. The foolish smile was still on his -lips. Pride kept it there, but at heart he was bitterly wounded. - -At the foot of the stairway he met his mother. - -“You’d better not go out there,” he said, with a movement of his head -in the direction of his father; “it’s as much as your life’s worth. The -old man’ll bite your nose off if you do.” - -“Is your father cross?” asked Bessie. - -“Cross? He oughtn’t to be let loose when he’s like that.” - -“Something in the paper must have upset him,” said Bessie. “He was all -right this morning before he came down. Something on the stock market’s -bothered him.” - -“Maybe so,” said his son, with a certain feeling. “But that’s no reason -why he should speak to me like a dog. He goes too far when he speaks to -me that way. There isn’t a servant in the house would stand it.” - -He balanced back and forth on his toes and heels, looking down, -his face flushed. It would have been hard to say--such was the -characterless insignificance of his appearance--whether he was really -hurt, as a man would be in his heart and his pride, or only momentarily -stung by a scornful word. - -Bessie passed him and went out on the balcony. Her husband was still -sitting on the steps, the paper in his hand. - -“What is it, Jake?” she said. “Win says you’re cross. Something gone -wrong?” - -“Lucy’s dead,” he answered, rising to his feet and handing her the -paper. - -She paled a little as she read the notice. Then, raising her eyes, they -met his. In this look was their knowledge of the secret that both had -struggled to keep, and that now, at last, was theirs. - -For the second time in a half-year, Death had stepped in and claimed -one of the four whose lives had touched so briefly and so momentously -twenty-five years before. - -“Poor Lucy!” said Bessie, in a low voice. “But they say she was very -happy with Moreau. You can do something for your--for the girl now.” - -“Yes,” he said; “I’ll think it over. I won’t be down to breakfast. Send -up some coffee.” - -He went upstairs and locked himself in his library. He could not -understand why the news had affected him so deeply. It seemed to make -him feel sick. He did not tell Bessie that he had gone upstairs because -he felt too ill and shaken to see any one. - -All morning he sat in the library, with frowning brows, thinking. -At noon he took the train for the city and, soon after its arrival, -despatched to Mariposa the five hundred dollars. He had no doubt of -her accepting it, as it never crossed his mind that Lucy, at the last -moment, might have told. - - * * * * * - -The days that followed her mother’s funeral passed to Mariposa like -a series of gray dreams, dreadful, with an unfamiliar sense of -wretchedness. The preoccupation of her mother’s illness was gone. There -were idle hours, when she sat in her rooms and tried to realize the -full meaning of Lucy’s last words. She would sit motionless, staring -before her, her heart feeling shriveled in her breast. Her life seemed -broken to pieces. She shrank from the future, with the impossibilities -she had pledged herself to. And the strength and inspiration of the -beautiful past were gone. All the memories of that happy childhood -and young maidenhood were blasted. It was natural that the shock -and the subsequent brooding should make her view of the subject -morbid. The father that she had grown up to regard with reverential -tenderness, had not been hers. The mother, who had been a cherished -idol, had hidden a dark secret. And she, herself, was an outsider from -the home she had so deeply loved--child of a brutal and tyrannical -father--originally adopted and cared for out of pity. - -It was a crucial period in her life. Old ideals were gone, and new ones -not yet formed. There seemed only ruins about her, and amid these she -sought for something to cling to, and believe in. With secret passion -she nursed the thought of Essex--all she had left that had not been -swept away in the deluge of this past week. - -Fortunately for her, the business calls of the life of a woman left -penniless shook her from her state of brooding idleness. The cottage -was hers for a month longer, and despite the impoverished condition of -the widow, there was a fair amount of furniture still left in it that -was sufficiently valuable to be a bait to the larger dealers. Mariposa -found her days varied by contentions with men, who came to stare at the -great red lacquer cabinet and investigate the interior condition of the -marquetry sideboard. When the month was up she was to move to a small -boarding-house, kept by Spaniards called Garcia, that Mrs. Willers, in -her varying course, included among her habitats. The Garcias would not -object to her piano and practising, and it was amazingly cheap. Mrs. -Willers herself had lived there in one of her periods of eclipse, and -knew them to be respectable denizens of a somewhat battered Bohemia. - -“But you’re going to be a Bohemian yourself, being a musical genius,” -she said cheerfully. “So you won’t mind that.” - -Mariposa did not think she would mind. In the chaotic dimness of the -dismantled front parlor she looked like a listless goddess who would -not mind anything. - -Mrs. Willers thought her state of dreary apathy curious and spoke of -it to Shackleton, whom she now recognized as the girl’s acknowledged -guardian. He had listened to her account of Mariposa’s broken condition -with expressionless attention. - -“Isn’t it natural, all things considered, that a girl should be -broken-hearted over the death of a devoted mother? And, as I understand -it, Miss Moreau is absolutely alone. She has no relatives anywhere. -It’s a pretty bleak outlook.” - -“That’s true. I never saw a girl left so without connections. But she -worries me. She’s so silent, and dull, and unlike herself. Of course, -it’s been a terrible blow. I’d have thought she’d been more prepared.” - -He shrugged his shoulders, stroking his short beard with his lean, -heavily-veined hand. It amused him to see the way Mrs. Willers was -quietly pushing him into the position of the girl’s sponsor. And at -the same time it heightened his opinion of her as a woman of capacity -and heart. She would be an ideal chaperone and companion for his -unprotected daughter. - -“When she feels better,” he said, “I wish you’d bring her down here -again. Don’t bother her until she feels equal to it. But I want to talk -to her about Lepine’s ideas for her. I saw him again and he gave me a -lot of information about Paris and teachers and all the rest of it. -Before we make any definite arrangements I’ll have to see her and talk -it all over.” - -Mrs. Willers went back triumphant to Mariposa to report this -conversation. It really seemed to clinch matters. The Bonanza King -had instituted himself her guardian and backer. It meant fortune for -Mariposa Moreau, the penniless orphan. - -To her intense surprise, Mariposa listened to her with a flushed and -frowning face of indignation. - -“I won’t go,” she said, with sudden violence. - -“But, my dear!” expostulated Mrs. Willers, “your whole future depends -on it. With such an influence to back you as that, your fortune’s made. -And listen to me, honey, for I know,--it’s not an easy job for a woman -to get on who’s alone and as good-looking as you are.” - -“I won’t go,” repeated Mariposa, angry and obstinate. - -“But why not, for goodness’ sake?”--in blank amaze. “What’s come over -you? Is it your mourning? You know your mother’s the last person who’d -want you to sit indoors, moping like a snail in a shell, when your -future was waiting for you outside the door.” - -Her promise rose up before Mariposa’s mental vision and checked the -angry reiteration that was on her lips. She turned away, suddenly, -tremulous and pale. - -“Don’t talk about it any more,” she answered, “but I _can’t_ go now. -Perhaps later on, but not now--I can’t go now.” - -Mrs. Willers shrugged her shoulders, and was wisely silent. Mariposa’s -grief was making her unreasonable, that was all. To Shackleton she -merely said that the girl was too ill and overwrought to see any one -just yet. As soon as she was herself again Mrs. Willers would bring her -to _The Trumpet_ office for the interview that was to be the opening of -the new era. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -HOW COULD HE - - “Man is the hunter; woman is his game, - The sleek and shining creatures of the chase. - We hunt them for the beauty of their skins; - They love us for it, and we ride them down.” - - --TENNYSON. - - -The month of Mariposa’s tenantry of the cottage was up. It was the last -evening there, and she sat crouched over a handful of fire that burned -in the front parlor grate. The room was half empty, all the superfluous -furniture having been taken that morning by a Jewish second-hand -dealer. In one corner stood huddled such relics as she had chosen to -keep, and which would be borne away on the morrow to the Garcias’ -boarding-house. The marquetry sideboard was gone. It had been sold to a -Sutter Street dealer for twenty-five dollars. The red lacquer cabinet, -though no longer hers, still remained. It, too, would be carried away -to-morrow morning by its new owners. She looked at it with melancholy -glances as the firelight found and lost its golden traceries and sent -sudden quivering gleams along its scarlet doors. The fire was less a -luxury than an economy, to burn the last pieces of coal in the bin. - -Bending over the dancing flames, Mariposa held her hands open to the -blaze, absently looking at their backs. They were fine, capable hands, -large and white, with strong wrists and a forearm so round that its -swell began half-way between elbow and wrist-bone. Pleased by the -warmth that soothed the chill always induced by a sojourn in the front -parlor, she pulled up her sleeves and watched the gleam of the fire -turn the white skin red. She was sitting thus, when a ring at the bell -made her start and hurriedly push her sleeves down. Her visitors were -so few that she was almost certain of the identity of this one. For all -the griefs of the last month she was yet a woman. She sprang to her -feet, and as the steps of the servant sounded in the hall, ran to the -large mirror in the corner and patted and pulled her hair to the style -she thought most becoming. - -She had turned from this and was standing by the fire when Essex -entered. He had seen her once since her mother’s death, but she had -then been so preoccupied with grief that, with a selfish man’s hatred -of all unpleasant things, he had left her as soon as possible. To-night -he saw that she was recovering, that, physically at least, she was -herself again. But he was struck, almost as soon as his eye fell on -her, by a change in her. Some influence had been at work to effect a -subtile and curious development in her. The simplicity, the something -childish and winning that had always seemed so inconsistent with her -stately appearance, was gone. Mariposa was coming to herself. His heart -quickened its beats as he realized she was handsomer, richer by some -inward growth, more a woman than she had been a month ago. - -He took a seat at the other side of the fire, and the tentative -conversation of commonplaces occupied them for a few moments. The -silence that had held her in a spell of dead dejection on his former -visit was broken. She seemed more than usually talkative. In fact, -Mariposa was beginning to feel the reaction from the life of grief and -seclusion of the last month. She was violently ashamed of the sense of -elation that had surged up in her at the sound of Essex’s voice. She -struggled to hide it, but it lit a light in her eyes, called a color -to her cheeks that she could not conceal. The presence of her lover -affected her with a sort of embarrassed exultation that she had never -experienced before. To hide it she talked rapidly, looking into the -fire, to which she still held out her hands. - -Essex, from the other side of the hearth, watched her. He saw his -arrival had made her nervous, and it only augmented the sentiment that -had been growing in him for months. - -She began to tell him of her move. - -“I’m going to-morrow, in the afternoon. It’s a queer place, an old -house on Hyde Street, with a big pepper-tree, the biggest in the city, -they say, growing in the front garden. It was once quite a fine house, -long ago in the early days, and was built by these people, the Garcias, -when they still had money. Then they lost it all, and now the old lady -and her son’s wife take a few people, as the house is too big for them -and they are so poor. Young Mrs. Garcia is a widow. Her husband was -killed in the mines by a blast.” - -“It sounds picturesque. Do they speak English?” - -“The señora, that’s the old lady, doesn’t. She has lived here since -before the Gringo came, but she can’t speak any English at all. The -daughter-in-law is an American, a Southerner. She looked very untidy -the day I went there. I’m afraid I’ll be homesick. You’ll come to see -me sometimes, won’t you?” - -There was no coquetry in the remark. Her dread of loneliness was all -that spoke. - -Essex met her eyes, dark and wistful, and nodded without speaking. - -She looked back at the fire and again spread her hands to it, palms out. - -“It’s--it’s--rather a dilapidated sort of place,” she continued after a -moment’s pause, “but perhaps I’ll get used to it.” - -There was distinct pleading for confirmation in this. Her voice was -slightly husky. Essex, however, with that perversity which marked all -his treatment of her, said: - -“Do you think you will? It’s difficult for a woman to accommodate -herself to such changed conditions--I mean a woman of refinement, like -you.” - -She continued feebly to make her stand. - -“But my conditions have changed so much in the last two or three -years. I ought to be used to it; it’s not as if it was the first time. -Before my father got sick we were so comfortable. We were rich and had -quantities of beautiful things like that cabinet. And as they have -gone, one by one, so we have come down bit by bit, till I am left like -this.” - -She made a gesture to include the empty room and turned back to the -fire. - -“But you won’t stay like this,” he said, throwing a glance over the -bare walls. - -“Don’t you think so?” she said, looking into the fire with dejected -eyes. “You’re kind to try to cheer me up.” - -“You can be happy, protected and cared for, with your life full of -sunshine and joy--” - -He stopped. Every step he took was of moment, and he was not the type -of man to forgive himself a mistake. Mariposa was looking at him, -frowning slightly. - -“How do you mean?” she said. “With my voice?” - -“No,” he answered, in a tone that suddenly thrilled with meaning, “with -me.” - -That quivering pause which falls between a man and woman when the words -that will link or sever them for life are to be spoken, held the room. -Mariposa felt the terrified desire to arrest the coming words that is -the maiden’s last instinctive stand for her liberty. But her brain was -confused, and her heart beat like a hammer. - -“With me,” Essex repeated, as the pause grew unbearable. “Is there no -happiness for you in that thought?” - -She made no answer, and suddenly he moved his chair close to her side. -She felt his eyes fastened on her and kept hers on the fire. Her other -offers of marriage had not been accomplished with this stifling sense -of discomfort. - -“I’ve thought,” his deep voice went on, “that you cared for me--a -little. I’ve watched, I’ve desponded. But lately--lately--” he leaned -toward her and lowered his voice--“I’ve hoped.” - -She still made no answer. It seemed to her none was necessary or -possible. - -“Do you care?” he said softly. - -She breathed a “yes” that only the ear of love could have heard. - -“Mariposa, dearest, do you mean it?” He leaned over her and laid his -hand on hers. His voice was husky and his hand trembling. To the extent -that was in him he loved this woman. - -“Do you love me?” he whispered. - -The “yes” was even fainter this time. He raised the hand he held to his -breast and tried to draw her into his arms. - -She resisted, and turned on him a pale face, where emotions, never -stirred before, were quivering. She was moved to the bottom of her -soul. Something in her face made him shrink a little. With her hand -against his breast she gave him the beautiful look of a woman’s first -sense of her surrender. He stifled the sudden twinge of his conscience -and again tried to draw her close to him. But she held him off with the -hand on his breast and said--as thousands of girls say every year: - -“Do you really love me?” - -“More than the whole world,” he answered glibly, but with the roughened -voice of real feeling. - -“Why?” she said with a tremulous smile, “why should you?” - -“Because you are you.” - -“But I’m just a small insignificant person here, without any relations, -and poor, so poor.” - -“Those things don’t matter when a man loves a woman. It’s you I want, -not anything you might have or might be.” - -“But you’re so clever and have lived everywhere and seen everything, -and I’m so--so countrified and stupid.” - -“You’re Mariposa. That’s enough for me.” - -“All I can bring you for my portion is my heart.” - -“And that’s all I want.” - -“You love me enough to marry me?” - -His eyes that had been looking ardently into her face, shifted. - -“I love you enough to be a fool about you. Does that please you?” - -Her murmured answer was lost in the first kiss of love that had ever -been pressed on her lips. She drew back from it, pale and thrilled, not -abashed, but looking at her lover with eyes before which his drooped. -It was a sacred moment to her. - -“How wonderful,” she whispered, “that you should care for me.” - -“It would have been more wonderful if I hadn’t.” - -“And that you came now, when everything was so dark and lonely. You -don’t know how horribly lonely I felt this evening, thinking of leaving -here to-morrow and going among strangers.” - -“But that’s all over now. You need never be lonely again. I’ll always -be there to take care of you. We’ll always be together.” - -“Don’t you think things often change when they get to their very worst? -It seemed to me to-night that I was just about to open a door that led -into the world, where nobody cared for me, or knew me, or wanted me.” - -“One person wanted you, desperately.” - -“And then, all in a moment, my whole life is changed. It’s not an -hour ago that I was sitting here looking into the fire thinking how -miserable I was, and now--” - -“You are in my arms!” he interrupted, and drew her against him for his -kiss. She turned her face away and pressed it into his shoulder, as he -held her close, and said: - -“We’ll go to Europe, to Italy--that’s the country for you, not this raw -Western town where you’re like some exotic blossom growing in the sand. -You’ve never seen anything like it, with the gray olive trees like -smoke on the hillsides, and the white walls of the villas shining among -the cypresses. We’ll have a villa, and we can walk on the terrace in -the evening and look down on the valley of the Arno. It’s the place for -lovers, and we’re going to be lovers, Mariposa.” - -Still she did not understand, and said happily: - -“Yes, true lovers for always.” - -“And then we’ll go to France, and we’ll see Paris--all the great -squares with the lights twinkling, and the Rue de Rivoli with gas lamps -strung along it like diamonds on a thread. And the river--it’s black -at night with the bridges arching over it, and the lamps stabbing down -into the water with long golden zigzags. We’ll go to the theaters and -to the opera, and you’ll be the handsomest woman there. And we’ll -drive home in an open carriage under the starlight, not saying much, -because we’ll be so happy.” - -“And shall I study singing?” - -“Of course, with the best masters. You’ll be a great prima donna some -day.” - -“And I shan’t have to be sent by Mr. Shackleton? Oh, I shall be so glad -to tell him I’m going with you.” - -Essex started--looked at her frowning. - -“But you mustn’t do that,” he said with a sudden, authoritative change -of key. - -“Why not?” she answered. “You know he was to send me. I promised my -mother I would let him take care of me. But now that I’m going to be -married, my--my--husband will take care of me.” - -She looked at him with a girl’s charming embarrassment at the first -fitting of this word to any breathing man, and blushed deeply and -beautifully. Essex felt he must disillusion her. He looked into the -fire. - -“Married,” he said slowly. “Well, of course, if we were married--” - -He stopped, gave her a lightning side glance. She was smiling. - -“Well, of course we’ll be married,” she said. “How could we go to -Europe unless we were?” - -Still avoiding her eyes, which he knew were fixed on him in smiling -inquiry, he said in a lowered voice: - -“Oh, yes, we could.” - -“How--I don’t understand?” - -For the first time there was a faint note of uneasiness in her voice. -Though his glance was still bent on the fire, he knew that she was no -longer smiling. - -“We could go easily, without making any talk or fuss. Of course we -could not leave here together. I’d meet you in Chicago or New York.” - -He heard her dress rustle as she instinctively drew away from him. - -“Meet me in New York or Chicago?” she repeated. “But why meet me there? -I don’t understand. Why not be married here?” - -He turned toward her and threw up his head as a person does who is -going to speak emphatically and at length. Only in raising his head his -eyes remained on the ground. - -“My dear girl,” he said in a suave tone, “you’ve lived all your life -in these small, half-civilized California towns, and there are many -things about life in larger and more advanced communities you don’t -understand. I’ve just told you I loved you, and you know that your -welfare is of more moment to me than anything in the world. I would -give my heart’s blood to make you happy. But I am just now hardly in a -position to marry. You must understand that.” - -It was said. Mariposa gave a low exclamation and rose to her feet. He -rose, too, feeling angry with her that she had forced him to this banal -explanation. There were times when her stupidity could be exasperating. - -She was very pale, her eyes dark, her nostrils expanded. On her face -was an expression of pitiful bewilderment and distress. - -“Then--then--you didn’t want to _marry_ me?” she stammered with -trembling lips. - -“Oh, I want to,” he said with a propitiatory shrug. “Of course -I _want_ to. But one can’t always do what one wants. Under the -circumstances, as I tell you, marriage is impossible.” - -She could say nothing for a moment, the first stunned moment of -comprehension. Then she said in a low voice, still with her senses -scattered, “And I thought you meant it all.” - -“Meant what? that I love you? Don’t you trust me? Don’t you believe me? -You must acknowledge I understand life better than you do.” - -She looked at him straight in the eyes. The pain and bewilderment had -left her face, leaving it white and tense. He realized that she was not -going to weep and make moan--the wound had gone deeper. He had stabbed -her to the heart. - -“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t understand about life as you do. I -didn’t understand that a man could talk to a woman as you have done -to me and then strike her such a blow. It’s too new to me to learn -quickly. I--I--can’t--understand yet. I can’t say anything to you, only -that I don’t ever want to see you, or hear you, or think of you again.” - -“My dearest girl,” he said, going a step toward her, “don’t be so -severe. You’re like a tragedy queen. Now, what have I done?” - -“I didn’t think that a man could have the heart to wound any woman -so--any living creature, and one who cared as I did--” she stopped, -unable to continue. - -“But I wouldn’t wound you for the world. Haven’t I just told you I -loved you?” - -“Oh, go,” she said, backing away from him. “Go! go away. Never come -near me again. You’ve debased and humiliated me forever, and I’ve -kissed you and told you I loved you. Why can’t I creep into some corner -and die?” - -“Mariposa, my darling,” he said, raising his eyebrows with a theatrical -air of incomprehension, “what is it? I’m quite at sea. You speak to -me as if I’d done you a wrong, and all I’ve done is to offer you my -deepest devotion. Does that offend you?” - -“Yes, horribly--horribly!” she cried furiously. “Go--go out of my -sight. If you’ve got any manliness or decency left, go--I can’t bear -any more.” - -She pressed her hands on her face and turned from him. - -“Oh, don’t do that,” he said tenderly, approaching her. “Does my love -make you unhappy? A half-hour ago it was not like this.” - -He suddenly, but gently, attempted to take her in his arms. Though she -did not see she felt his touch, and with a cry of horror tore herself -away, rushed past him into the adjoining room, and from that into her -bedroom beyond. The bang of the closing door fell coldly upon Essex’s -ear. - -He stood for a moment listening and considering. He had a fancy that -she might come back. The house was absolutely silent. Then, no sound -breaking its stillness, no creak of an opening door echoing through -its bare emptiness, he walked out into the hall, put on his hat and -overcoat and let himself out. He was angry and disgusted. In his -thoughts he inveighed against Mariposa’s stupidity. The unfortunately -downright explanation had aroused her wrath, and he did not know how -deep that might be. Only as he recalled her ordering him from the room -he realized that it was not the fictitious rage he had seen before and -understood. - -Mariposa stood on the inside of her room door, holding the knob and -trying to suppress her breathing that she might hear clearly. She heard -his steps, echoing on the bare floor with curious distinctness. They -were slow at first; then there was decision in them; then the hall -door banged. She leaned against the panel, her teeth pressed on her -underlip, her head bowed on her breast. - -“Oh, how could he? how could he?” she whispered. - -A tempest of anguish shook her. She crept to the bed and lay there, her -face buried in the pillow, motionless and dry-eyed, till dawn. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -THE PALE HORSE - - “Nicanor lay dead in his harness.” - - --MACCABEES. - - -The day broke overcast and damp, one of those depressing days of still, -soft grayness that usher in the early rains, when the air has a heavy -closeness and the skies seem to sag with the weight of moisture that is -slow to fall. - -There was much to do yet in the rifled cottage. Mariposa rose to it -wan and heavy-eyed. The whirl of her own thoughts during the long, -sleepless night had not soothed her shame and distress. She found -herself working doggedly, with her heart like lead in her breast, -and her mouth feeling dry as the scene of the evening before pressed -forward to her attention. She tried to keep it in the background, but -it would not down. Words, looks, sentences kept welling up to the -surface of her mind, coloring her cheeks with a miserable crimson, -filling her being with a sickness of despair. The memory of the kisses -followed her from room to room, and task to task. She felt them on her -lips as she moved about, the lips that had never known the kiss of a -lover, and now seemed soiled and smirched forever. - -After luncheon the red lacquer cabinet went away. She watched it off -as the last remnant of the old life. She felt strangely indifferent -to what yesterday she thought would be so many unbearable wrenches. -Finally nothing was left but her own few possessions, gathered together -in a corner of the front room--two trunks, a screen, a table, a long, -old-fashioned mirror and some pictures. Yesterday morning she had -bargained with a cheap carter, picked up on the street corner, to take -them for a dollar, and now she sat waiting for him, while the day grew -duller outside, and the fog began to sift itself into fine rain. - -The servant, who was to close and lock the cottage, begged her to go, -promising to see to the shipping of the last load. Mariposa needed no -special urging. She felt that an afternoon spent in that dim little -parlor, looking out through the bay window at the fine slant of the -rain would drive her mad. There was no promise of cheer at the Garcia -boarding-house, but it was, at least, not haunted with memories. - -A half-hour later, with the precious desk, containing the marriage -certificates and Shackleton’s gift of money, under her arm, she was -climbing the hills from Sutter Street to that part of Hyde Street in -which the Garcia house stood. She eyed it with deepening gloom as -it revealed itself through the thin rain. It was a house which even -then was getting old, standing back from the street on top of a bank, -which was held in place by a wooden bulk-head, surmounted by a low -balustrade. A gate gave access through this, and a flight of rotting -wooden steps led by zigzags to the house. The lower story was skirted -in front by a balcony, which, after the fashion of early San Francisco -architecture, was encased in glass. Its roof above slanted up to the -two long windows of the front bedroom. The pepper-tree, of which -Mariposa had spoken to Essex, was sufficient to tell of the age of -the property and to give beauty and picturesqueness to the ramshackle -old place. It had reached an unusual growth and threw a fountain of -drooping foliage over the balustrade and one long limb upon the balcony -roof. - -To-day it dripped with the rest of the world. As Mariposa let the gate -bang the impact shook a shower from the tree, which fell on her as she -passed beneath. It seemed to her a bad omen and added to the almost -terrifying sensation of gloom that was invading her. - -Her ring at the bell brought the whole Garcia family to the door -and the hall. A child of ten--the elder of the young Mrs. Garcia’s -boys--opened it. He was in the condition of moisture and mud consequent -on a game of baseball on the way home from school. Behind him crowded -a smaller boy--of a cherubic beauty--arrayed in a very dirty sailor -blouse, with a still dirtier wide white collar, upon which hung locks -of wispy yellow hair. Mrs. Garcia, the younger, came drearily forward. -She was a thin, pretty, slatternly, young woman, very baggy about the -waist, and with the same wispy yellow hair as her son, which she wore -in the popular bang. It had been smartly curled in the morning, but the -damp had shown it no respect, and it hung down limply nearly into her -eyes. Back of her, in the dim reaches of the hall, Mariposa saw the -grandmother, the strange old Spanish woman, who spoke no English. She -looked very old, and small, and was wrinkled like a walnut. But as she -encountered the girl’s miserable gaze she gave her a gentle reassuring -smile, full of that curious, patient sweetness which comes in the faces -of the old who have lived kindly. - -The younger members of the family escorted the new arrival upstairs. -She had seen her room before, had already placed therein her piano and -many of her smaller ornaments, but its bleakness struck her anew. She -stopped on the threshold, looking at its chill, half-furnished extent -with a sudden throttling sense of homesickness. It was a large room, -evidently once the state bedroom of the house, signs of its past glory -lingering in the elaborate gilt chandelier, the white wall-paper, -strewed with golden wheat-ears, and the marble mantelpiece, with -carvings of fruit at the sides. Now she saw with renewed clearness of -vision the threadbare carpet, with a large ink-stain by the table, the -rocking-chair with one arm gone, the place on the wall behind the sofa -where the heads of previous boarders had left their mark. - -“Your clock don’t go,” said the cherubic boy in a loud voice. “I’ve -tried to make it, but it only ticks a minute and then stops.” - -“There!” said Mrs. Garcia, with a gesture of collapsed hopelessness, -“he’s been at your clock! I knew he would. Have you broken her clock?” -fiercely to the boy. - -“No, I ain’t,” he returned, not in the least overawed by the maternal -onslaught. “It were broke when it came.” - -“He did break it,” said the other boy suddenly. “He opened the back -door of it and stuck a hairpin in.” - -Mrs. Garcia made a rush at her son with the evident intention of -administering corporal punishment on the spot. But with a loud, -derisive shout, he eluded her and dashed through the doorway. Safe on -the stairs, he cried defiantly: - -“I ain’t done it, and no one can prove it.” - -“That’s the way they always act,” said Mrs. Garcia despondently, -pushing up her bang so that she could the better see her new guest. -“It’s no picnic having no husband and having to slave for everybody.” - -“Grandma slaves, too,” said the rebel on the stairway; “she slaves -more’n you do, and Uncle Gam slaves the most.” - -Further revelations were stopped by another ring at the bell. Visitors -were evidently rare, for everybody but Mariposa flew to the hall and -precipitated themselves down the stairs. In the general interest the -recent battle was forgotten, the rebel earning his pardon by getting to -the door before any one else. The new-comer was Mariposa’s expressman. -She had already seen through her window the uncovered cart with her few -belongings glistening with rain. - -The driver, a grimy youth in a steaming blouse, was standing in the -doorway with the wet receipt flapping in his hand. - -“It’s your things,” yelled the boys. - -“Tell him to bring them up,” said Mariposa, who was now at the -stair-head herself. - -The man stepped into the hall and looked up at her. He had a singularly -red and impudent face. - -“Not till I get my two dollars and a half,” he said. - -“Two dollars and a half!” echoed Mariposa in alarm, for a dollar was -beginning to look larger to her than it ever had done before. “It was -only a dollar.” - -“A dollar!” he shouted. “A dollar for that load!”--pointing to the -street--“say, you’ve got a gall!” - -Mariposa flushed. She had never been spoken to this way before in her -life. She leaned over the balustrade and said haughtily: - -“Bring in my things, and when they’re up here I will give you the -dollar you agreed upon.” - -The man gave a loud, derisive laugh. - -“That beats anything!” he said, and then roared through the door to his -pard: “Say, she wants to give us a dollar for that load. Ain’t that -rich?” - -There was a moment’s silence in the hall. A vulgar wrangle was almost -impossible to the girl at the juncture to which the depressing and -hideous events of the last few weeks had brought her. Yet she had still -a glimmer of spirit left, and her gorge rose at the impudent swindle. - -“I won’t pay you two dollars and a half, and I will have my things,” -she said. “Bring them up at once.” - -The man laughed again, this time with an uglier note. - -“I guess not, young woman,” he said, lounging against the balustrade. -“I guess you’ll have to fork out the two fifty or whistle for your -things.” - -Mariposa made no answer. Her hand shaking with rage, she began to -fumble in her pocket for her purse. The whole Garcia family, assembled -in the hallway beneath, breathed audibly in the tense excitement of -the moment, and kept moving their eyes from her to the expressman and -back again. The Chinaman from the kitchen had joined them, listening -with the charmed smile which the menials of that race always wear on -occasions of domestic strife. - -“Say,” said the man, coming a step up the stairs and assuming a -suddenly threatening air, “I can’t stay fooling round here all day. I -want my money, and I want it quick. D’ye hear?” - -Mariposa’s hand closed on the purse. She would have now paid anything -to escape from this hateful scene. At the same moment she heard a door -open behind her, a quick step in the hall, and a man suddenly stood -beside her at the stair-head. He was in his shirt-sleeves and he had a -pen in his hand. - -The expressman, who had mounted two or three steps, saw him and -recoiled, looking startled. - -“What’s the matter with you?” said the new-comer shortly. - -“I want my money,” said the man doggedly, but retreating. - -“Who owes you money? And what do you mean by making a row like this in -this house?” - -“I owe him money,” said Mariposa. “I agreed to pay him a dollar for -carrying my things here, and now he wants two and a half and won’t give -me my things unless I pay it. But I’ll pay what he wants rather than -fight this way.” - -She was conscious of a slight, amused smile in the very keen and clear -gray eyes the man beside her fastened for one listening moment on her -face. - -“Get your dollar,” he said, “and don’t bother any more.” Then in a loud -voice down the stairway: “Here, step out and get the trunks and don’t -let’s have any more talk about it. Ching,” to the Chinaman, “go out and -help that man with this lady’s things.” - -The Chinaman came forward, still grinning. The expressman for a moment -hesitated. - -“Look here,” said the man in the shirt-sleeves, “I don’t want to have -to come downstairs, I’m busy.” - -The expressman, with Ching behind him, hurried out. - -Mariposa’s deliverer stood at the stair-head watching them and slightly -smiling. Then he turned to her. She was again conscious of how gray and -clear his eyes looked in his sunburned face. - -“I was writing a letter in my room, and I heard the sound of strife -long before I realized what was happening. Why didn’t you call me?” - -“I didn’t know there was any one there,” she answered. - -“Well, the boys ought to have known. Why didn’t one of you little -beggars come for me?” he said to the two boys, who were clambering -slowly up the outside of the balustrade staring from the deliverer to -the expressman, now advancing up the steps with Mariposa’s belongings. - -“I liked to see ’em fight,” said the smaller. “I liked it.” - -“You little scamp,” said the man, and, leaning over the stair-rail, -caught the ascending cherub by the slack of his knickerbockers and drew -him upward, shrieking delightedly. On the landing he gave him a slight -shake, and said: - -“I don’t want to hear any more of that kind of talk. Next time there’s -a fight, call me.” - -The expressman and Ching had now entered laden with the luggage. They -came staggering up the stairs, scraping the walls with the corners of -the trunks and softly swearing. Mariposa started for her room, followed -by the strange man and the two boys. - -Her deliverer was evidently a person to whom the usages of society -were matters of indifference. He entered the room without permission -or apology and stood looking inquiringly about him, his glance passing -from the bed to the wide, old-fashioned bureau, the rocking-chair with -its arm off and the ink-stain on the carpet. As the men entered with -their burdens, he said: - -“You look as if you’d be short of chairs here. I’ll see that you get -another rocker to-morrow.” - -Mariposa wondered if Mrs. Garcia was about to end her widowhood and -this was the happy man. - -He stood about as the men set down the luggage, and watched the -transfer of the dollar from Mariposa’s white hand to the dingy one of -her late enemy. The boys also eyed this transaction with speechless -attention, evidently anticipating a second outbreak of hostilities. -But peace had been restored and would evidently rule as long as the -sunburned man in the shirt-sleeves remained. - -This he appeared to intend doing. He suggested a change in the places -of one or two of Mariposa’s pieces of furniture, and showed her how she -could use her screen to hide the bed. He looked annoyed over a torn -strip of loose wall-paper that hung dejected, revealing a long seam of -plaster like a seared scar. Then he went to the window and pushed back -the curtains of faded rep. - -“There’s a nice view from here on sunny days down into the garden.” - -Mariposa felt she must show interest, and went to the window, too. -The pane was not clean, and the view commanded nothing but the -splendid fountain-like foliage of the pepper-tree and below a sodden -strip of garden in which limp chrysanthemums hung their heads, while -a ragged nasturtium vine tried to protest its vigor by flaunting a -few blossoms from the top of the fence. It seemed to her the acme of -forlornness. The crescendo of the afternoon’s unutterable despondency -had reached its climax. Her sense of desolation welled suddenly up into -overwhelming life. It caught her by the throat. She made a supreme -effort, and said in a shaken voice: - -“It looks rather damp now.” - -Her companion turned from the window. - -“Here, boys, scoot,” he said to the two boys who were attempting to -open the trunks with the clock key. “You’ve got no business hanging -round here. Go down and study your lessons.” - -They obediently left the room. Mariposa heard their jubilantly -clamorous descent of the stairs. She made no attempt to leave the -window, or to speak to the man, who still remained moving about as if -looking for something. The light was growing dim in the dark wintry -day, but the girl still stood with her face to the pane. She knew -that if the tears against which she fought should come there would be -a deluge of them. Biting her lips and clenching her hands, she stood -peering out, speechless, overwhelmed by her wretchedness. - -Presently the man said, as if speaking to himself: - -“Where the devil are the matches? Elsie’s too careless for anything.” - -She heard him feeling about on shelves and tables, and after a moment -he said: - -“Did you see where the matches were? I want to light the gas.” - -“There aren’t any,” she answered without turning. - -He gave a suppressed exclamation, and, opening the door, left the room. - -With the withdrawal of his restraining presence the tension snapped. -Mariposa sank down in the chair near the window and the tears poured -from her eyes, tears in torrential volume, such as her mother had shed -twenty-five years before in front of Dan Moreau’s cabin. - -Her grief seized her and swept her away. She shook with it. Why could -she not die and escape from this hideous world? It bowed her like a -reed before a wind, and she bent her face on the chair arm and trembled -and throbbed. - -She did not hear the door open, nor know that her solitude was again -invaded, till she heard the man’s step beside her. Then she started up, -strangled with sobs and indignation. - -“Is it you again?” she cried. “Can’t you see how miserable I am?” - -“I saw it the moment I came out of my room this afternoon,” he answered -quietly. “I’m sorry I disturb you. I only wanted to light the gas and -get the place a little more cheerful and warm. It’s too cold in here. -You go on crying. Don’t bother about me; I’m going to light the fire.” - -She obeyed him, too abject in her misery to care. He lit all the -gases in the gilt chandelier, and then knelt before the fireplace. -Soon the snapping of the wood contested the silence with the small, -pathetic noises of the woman’s weeping. She felt--at first without -consciousness--the grateful warmth of the blaze. Presently she removed -the wad of saturated handkerchief from her face. The room was inundated -by a flood of light, the leaping gleam of the flames licking the -glaze of the few old-fashioned ornaments and evoking uncertain gleams -from the long mirror standing on the floor in the corner. The man was -sitting before the fire. He had his coat on now, and Mariposa could -see that he was tall and powerful, a bronzed and muscular man of -about thirty-five years of age, with a face tanned to mahogany color, -thick-brown hair and a brown mustache. His hand, as it rested on his -knee, caught her eye; it was well formed, but worn as a laborer’s. - -“Don’t you want to come and sit near the fire?” he said, without moving -his head. - -She murmured a negative. - -“I see that your clock is all off,” he continued. “There’s something -the matter with it. I’ll fix it for you this evening.” - -He rose and lifted the clock from the mantelpiece. It was a small -timepiece of French gilt, one of the many presents her father had given -her mother in their days of affluence. - -As he lifted it Mariposa suddenly experienced a return of misery at the -thought that he was going. At the idea of being again left to herself -her wretchedness rushed back upon her with redoubled force. She felt -that the flood of tears would begin again. - -“Oh, don’t go,” she said, with the imploring urgency of old friendship. -“I’m so terribly depressed. Don’t go.” - -Her lips trembled, her swollen eyes were without light or beauty. -She was as distinctly unlovely as a handsome woman can be. The man, -however, did not look at her. He had opened the door of the clock and -was studying its internal machinery. He answered quietly: - -“I’ll have to go now for a while. I must finish my letter. It’s got to -go out to-night, but I was going to ask you if you wouldn’t like to -have your supper up here? It’s now a little after five; at six o’clock -I’ll bring it, and if you don’t mind, I’ll bring mine up, too. I just -take tea and some bread and butter and jam or stuff--whatever Elsie -happens to have round. If you’d like it, you fix up the table and get -things into some sort of shape.” - -He walked toward the door. With the handle in his hand he said: - -“You don’t mind my taking mine up here, too, do you? If you do, just -say so.” - -“No, I don’t mind,” said Mariposa, in the stifled voice of the weeper. - -When he had gone she listlessly tried to create some kind of order in -the chaotic room. She felt exhausted and indifferent. Once she found -herself looking at her watch with a sort of heavy desire to have the -time pass quickly. She dreaded her loneliness. She caught a glimpse of -herself in the chimney-piece glass and felt neither shame nor disgust -at her unsightly appearance. - -At six o’clock she heard the quick, decisive step in the hall that -earlier in the afternoon had broken in on her wrangle with the -expressman. A knock came on the door that sounded exceedingly like a -kick bestowed under difficulties. She opened it, and her new friend -entered bearing a large tray set forth with the paraphernalia of a cold -supper and with the evening paper laid on top. He put it on the cleared -table, and together they lifted off its contents and set them forth. -There was cold meat, jam, bread and butter, a brown pottery teapot with -the sprout broken and two very beautiful cups, delicate and richly -decorated. Then they sat down, one at each side of the table, and the -meal began. - -Mariposa did not care to eat. Sitting under the blaze of the gilt -chandelier, with the firelight gilding one side of her flushed -and disfigured face, she poured out the tea, while her companion -attacked the cold meat with good appetite. The broken spout leaked, -and she found herself guiltily regarding the man opposite, as she -surreptitiously tried to sop up with a napkin the streams of tea it -sent over the table-cloth. - -He appeared to have the capacity for seeing anything that occurred in -his vicinity. - -“Never mind the teapot,” he said, with his mouth full; “it always does -that. It’s no good getting a new one. I think the boys break them. -Elsie says they play boats with them in the bath-tub.” - -Mariposa made no reply, and the meal progressed in silence. Presently -her _vis-à-vis_ held out his cup for a second filling. - -“What beautiful cups,” she said. “It would be a pity to break them.” - -“They’re grandma’s. They’re the only two left. Grandma had some -stunning things, brought round The Horn by her husband in the early -days, before the Gringo came. He was a great man in his day, Don Manuel -Garcia.” - -“Is she your grandmother, too?” Mariposa asked. It seemed natural to -put pointblank questions to this man, who so completely swept aside the -smaller conventions. - -“Mine? Oh, Lord, no. My poor old granny died crossing the plains in -’49. I was there, but I don’t remember it. I call old lady Garcia -grandma, because I’m here so much, and because I look upon them as my -family.” - -“Do you live here always?” asked Mariposa, looking with extinguished -eyes over the piece of bread she was nibbling. - -“No, I live at the mines. I’m a miner. My stamping-ground’s the whole -Sierra from Siskiyou to Tuolumne.” - -He looked at her with a queer, whimsical smile. His strong white teeth -gleamed for a moment from between his bearded lips. - -“I’m up at the Sierra a lot of the time,” he continued, “and then I’m -down here a lot more of the time. I come here to find my victims. I -locate a good prospect in the Sierra, and I come down here to sell it. -That’s my business.” - -“What’s your name?” asked Mariposa suddenly, hearing herself ask -this last and most pertinent question with the dry glibness of an -interviewer. - -“My name? Great Scott, you don’t know it!” he threw back his head and a -jolly, sonorous laugh filled the room. “That’s great, you and I sitting -here together over supper as if we’d grown up together in the same -nursery, and you don’t know what my name is. It’s Gamaliel Barron. Do -you like it?” - -“Yes,” said Mariposa, gravely, “it’s a very nice name.” - -“I’m glad you think so. I can’t say I’m much attached to the front end -of it. It’s a Bible name. I haven’t the least idea who the gentleman -was, or what he did, but he’s in the Bible somewhere.” - -“Saul sat at his feet,” said Mariposa; “he was a great teacher.” - -“Well, I’m afraid his namesake isn’t much like him. I never taught -anybody anything, and certainly no one ever sat at my feet, and I’d -hate it if they did.” - -There was another pause, while Barron continued his supper with -unabated gusto. He had finished the cold meat and was now spreading jam -on bread and butter and eating it, with alternate mouthfuls of tea. -Though he ate rapidly, as one accustomed to take his meals alone, he -ate like a gentleman. She found herself regarding him with a listless -curiosity, faintly wondering what manner of man he was. - -Looking up he met her eyes and said: - -“You’ll be very comfortable here. Don’t let the first glimpse -discourage you. Elsie’s careless, and the boys are pretty wild, but -they’re all right when you come to know them better, and grandma’s -fine. There’s not many women in San Francisco to match old Señora -Garcia. She’s the true kind.” - -“What a pity her son died!” said Mariposa. - -He raised his head instantly and an expression of pain passed over his -face. - -“You’re right, there,” he said in a low voice. “That was one of the -hardest things that ever happened. If there’s a God I’d like to know -why he let it happen. Juan Garcia was the salt of the earth--a great -man. He was the best son, the best husband and the best friend I ever -knew. And he was killed offhand, for no reason, by an unnecessary -accident, leaving these poor, helpless creatures this way.” - -He made a gesture with his head toward the door. - -“You knew him well?” said Mariposa. - -The gray eyes looked into hers very gravely. - -“He was my best friend,” he answered; “the best friend any man ever had -in the world.” - -The girl saw he was moved. - -“The people we love, and depend on, and live for always die,” she said -gloomily. - -“But others come up. They don’t quite take their places, but they -fill up the holes in the ranks. We’re not expected always to love -comfortably and be happy. We’re expected to work; that’s what we’re -here for, and there’s plenty of it to do. Haven’t I got my work cut -out for me,” suddenly laughing, “in those two boys?” - -Mariposa’s pale lips showed the ripple of an assenting smile. - -“They’re certainly a serious proposition,” he continued, “and poor -Elsie can’t any more manage ’em than she could ride a bucking bronco. -But they’ll pull out all right. Don’t you worry. Those boys are all -right.” - -He was about to return to the remnants of the supper when his eyes fell -on the folded paper, which had been pushed to one side of the table. - -“Oh, look!” he said; “we forgot the paper. You’ve finished; wouldn’t -you like to see it?” - -She shook her head. The paper had not much interest for her at the best -of times. - -“Well, then, if you don’t mind, I’ll run my eye over it, while you make -me another cup of tea. Three cups are my limit--one lump and milk.” - -He handed her the cup, already shaking the paper out of its folds. She -was struggling with the leakage of the broken spout, when he gave a -loud ejaculation: - -“Great Scott! here’s news!” - -“What is it?” she queried, the broken teapot suspended over the cup. - -“Jake Shackleton’s dead!” - -The teapot fell with a crash on the table. Her mouth opened, her face -turned an amazing pallor, and she sat staring at the astonished man -with horror-stricken eyes. - -“Dead!” she gasped; “why everybody’s dead!” - -Barron dropped the paper on the floor. - -“I’m so awfully sorry; I didn’t know you knew him well. I didn’t know -he was a friend.” - -“Friend!” she echoed, almost with a shriek. “Friend! Why, he was my -father.” - -The voice ended in a wild peal of laughter, horrible, almost maniacal. - -The man, paying no attention to her words, realized that the strain -of the day and her overwhelming depression of spirits had completely -unbalanced her. Her wild laughter suddenly gave way to wilder tears. -In a moment he ran to the door to summon the señora, but in the next, -remembered that Elsie and the boys would undoubtedly accompany her, -and that the woman before him was in no state to be exposed to their -uncomprehending stares. - -Hysterics were new to him, but he had a vague idea that water -administered suddenly from a pitcher was the only authorized cure. He -seized the pitcher from the wash-stand, began to sprinkle her somewhat -timidly with his fingers, and finally ended by pouring a fair amount on -her head. - -It had the desired effect. Gasping, saturated, but dragged back to -some sort of control, by the chill current running from her head in -rillets over her body, Mariposa sat up. The man was standing before -her, anxiously regarding her, the pitcher held ready for another -application. She pushed it away with an icy hand. - -“I’m all right now,” she gasped. “You’d better go. And--and--if I said -anything silly, you understand, I didn’t know what I was saying. I -meant--that Mr. Shackleton was a _friend_ of my father’s. He’s been -very good to me. It gave me an awful shock. Please go.” - -Barron set down the pitcher and went. He was overcome with pity for -the broken creature, and furious with himself for the shock he had -given her. The words she had uttered had made little impression on him -at first. It was afterward, while he was in the silence of his own -room, that they recurred to him with more significance. For a space he -thought of the remark and her explanation of it with some wonder. But -before he settled to sleep, he had pushed the matter from his mind, -setting it down as the meaningless utterance of an hysterical woman. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -BREAKS IN THE RAIN - - “I had no time to hate because - The grave would hinder me, - And life was not so simple I - Could finish enmity.” - - --DICKINSON. - - -For two days after her hysterical outburst Mariposa kept her room, sick -in body and mind. The quick succession of nerve-shattering events, -ending with the death of Shackleton, seemed to stun her. She lay on the -sofa, white and motionless, irresponsive even to the summons of the -boys, who drummed cheerfully on her door as soon as they came home from -school. - -Fortunately for her, solitude was as difficult to find in that slipshod -_ménage_ as method or order. When the boys were at school, young -Mrs. Garcia, in the disarray that attended the accomplishment of her -household tasks, mounted to her first-floor boarder and regaled her -with mingled accounts of past splendors and present miseries. Mrs. -Garcia spoke freely of her husband and the affluence with which he had -surrounded her. The listener, looking at the faded, blond prettiness of -her foolish face, wondered how the Juan Garcia that Gamaliel Barron had -described could have loved her. Mariposa had yet to learn that Nature -mates the strong men of the world to the feeble women, in an effort to -maintain an equilibrium. - -Once or twice the old señora came upstairs, carrying some dainty -in a covered dish. She had been born at Monterey and had come to -San Francisco as a bride in the late fifties, but had never learned -English, speaking the sonorous Spanish of her girlhood to every one she -met, whether it was understood or not. Even in the complete wreck of -fortune and position, in which Mariposa saw her, she was a fine example -of the highest class of Spanish Californian, that once brilliant and -picturesque race, careless, simple, lazy, happy, lords of a kingdom -whose value they never guessed, possessors of limitless acres on which -their cattle grazed. - -The day after Shackleton’s death Mrs. Willers appeared, still aghast -at the suddenness of the catastrophe. Mariposa did not know that a few -days previously, Shackleton had acquainted the newspaper woman with -his intention of sending her to Paris with Miss Moreau, the post of -correspondent to _The Trumpet_ being assigned to her. It had been the -culminating point of Mrs. Willers’ life of struggle. Now all that lay -shattered. Be it said to her credit her disappointment was more for the -girl than for herself. She knew that Shackleton had made no definite -arrangements for the starting of Mariposa on her way. All had been _in -statu quo_, attending on the daughter’s recovery from her mother’s -loss. Now death had stepped in and forever closed the door upon these -hopes. - -Mrs. Willers found Mariposa strangely apathetic. She had tried to cheer -her and then had seen, to her amazement, that the girl showed little -disappointment. That the sudden blow had upset her was obvious. She -undoubtedly looked ill. But the wrenching from her hand of liberty, -independence, possibilities of fame, seemed to affect her little. She -listened in silence to Mrs. Willers’ account of the Bonanza King’s -death. As an “inside writer” on _The Trumpet_ the newspaper woman had -heard every detail of the tragic event discussed threadbare in the -perturbed office. Shackleton had been found, as the paper stated, -sitting at his desk in the library at Menlo Park. He had been writing -letters when death called him. His wife had come in late at night and -found him thus, leaning on the desk as if tired. It was an aneurism, -the doctors said. The heart had been diseased for years. No one, -however, had had any idea of it. Poor Mrs. Shackleton was completely -prostrated. It was not newspaper talk that she was in a state of -collapse. - -“And it was enough to collapse any woman,” said Mrs. Willers, with a -sympathetic wag of the head, “to come in and find your husband sitting -up at his desk stone dead. And a good husband, too. It would have -given me a shock to have found Willers that way, and even an obituary -notice in the paper of which he was proprietor could hardly have called -Willers a good husband.” - -Two days’ rest restored Mariposa to some sort of balance. She still -felt weak and stunned in heart and brain. The lack of interest she -had shown to Mrs. Willers had been the outward sign of this internal -benumbed condition. But as she slowly dressed on the morning of the -third day, she felt a slight ripple of returning life, a thawing of -these congealed faculties. She heard the quick, decisive step of -Barron in the hallway outside, and then its stoppage at her door, and -his call through the crack, “How are you this morning? Better?” - -“Much,” she answered; “I’m getting up.” - -“First-rate. Couldn’t do better. Get a move on and go out. It’s a day -that would put life into a mummy. I’d take you out myself, but I’ve got -to go down town and lasso one of my victims.” - -Then he clattered down the stairs. Mariposa had not seen him since -their supper together. Every morning he had stopped and called a -greeting of some sort through the door. She shrank from meeting him -again. The extraordinary remark she had made to him haunted her. The -only thing that appeased her was the memory of his face, in which there -was no consciousness of the meaning of her words, only consternation -and amaze at the effect his news had produced. - -It was, indeed, a wonderful day. Through her parted curtains she saw -details of the splendor in the bits of turquoise sky between the -houses, and the vivid greens of the rain-washed gardens. When the sun -was well up, and the opened window let in delicious earth scents, she -put on her hat and jacket and went out, turning her steps to that high -spine of the city along the crest of which California Street runs. - -Has any place been found where there are finer days than those -San Francisco can show in winter? “The breaks in the rain,” old -Californians call them. It is the rain that gives them their glory, -for the whole world has been washed clean and gleams like an agate -beneath a wave. The skies reflect this clearness of tint. There are no -clouds. The whole arch is a rich blue, fading at the horizon to a thin, -pale transparency. The landscape is painted with a few washes of fresh -primary colors, each one deep, but limpid, like the tints in the heart -of a gem. And in this crystalline purity of atmosphere every line is -cut with unfaltering distinctness. There is no faintness, no breath -of haze, or forgotten film of fog. Nature seems even jealous of the -smoke wreaths that rise from the city to blur the beauty of the mighty -picture, and the gray spirals are hurriedly dispersed. - -Mariposa walked slowly, ascending by a zigzag course from street to -street, idly looking at the houses and gardens as she passed. People -of consideration had for some time been on the move from South Park to -this side of town. The streets through which the young girl’s course -led her were now the gathering place of the city’s successful citizens. -On the heights above them, the new millionaires were raising palaces, -which they were emulating on the ascending slopes. Great houses reared -themselves on every sunny corner. The architecture of the bay-windowed -mansion with the two lions sleeping on the front steps had supplanted -that of the dignified, plastered-brick fronts, with the long lines of -windows opening on wrought-iron balconies. - -These huge wooden edifices housed the wealth and fashion of the -city. Mariposa paused and stood with knit brows, looking down from a -vantage-point on the glittering curve of greenhouse and the velvet -lawns of Jake Shackleton’s town house; there was no sign of life or -occupation about it. Curtains of lace veiled its innumerable windows. -Only in the angle of lawn and garden that abutted on the intersection -of two streets, a man, in his shirt-sleeves, was cutting calla lilies -from the hedge that topped the high stone wall which rose from the -sidewalk. - -Finally, on the crest of the hill, where California Street runs between -its palaces, the girl paused and looked about her. The great buildings -were new, and stood, vast, awe-compelling monuments to California’s -material glory. Their owners were still trying to make themselves -comfortable in them. There were sons and daughters to be married from -them. Perched high above the city, in these many-windowed aeries, they -could look down on the town they had seen grow from a village in the -days when they, too, had been young, poor and struggling. What memories -must have crowded their minds as they thought of the San Francisco they -had first seen, and the San Francisco they saw now; of themselves as -they had been then, and as they were now! - -Mariposa leaned against a convenient wall top and looked down. The city -lay clear-edged and gray in the cup made by its encircling hills. It -had not yet thrown out feelers toward the Mission hills, and they rose -above the varied sweep of roof and chimney, in undulating greenness, -flecked here and there by the white dot of a cottage. The girdle of the -bay shone sapphire-blue on this day of still sunshine. From its farther -side other hills were revealed, each peak and shoulder clear cut -against its neighbor and defining themselves in a crumpled, cobalt line -against the faint sky. Over all Mount Diavolo rose, a purple point, -pricking up above the green of newly grassed hills, about whose feet -hung a white fringe of little towns. - -Turning her eyes again on the descending walls and roofs, the watcher -saw a long cortège passing soberly between the gray house-fronts on a -street a few blocks below her. As she looked the boom of solemn music -rose to her. It was a funeral, and one of unusual length, she thought, -as her eyes caught the slow line of carriages far back through breaks -in the houses. Presently, in the opening where two streets crossed, -the hearse came into view, black and gloomy, with its nodding tufts of -feathers and somberly caparisoned horses. Men walked behind it, and the -measured music swelled louder, melancholy and yet inspiring. - -Suddenly she realized whose it was. The rich man was going splendidly -to his rest. - -“My father!” she whispered to herself. “My father! How strange! how -strange!” - -The cortège passed on, the music swelling grandiosely and then dying -down into fitful snatches of sweetness. The long line of carriages -moved slowly forward, at a crawling foot-pace. - -The daughter leaned on the coping of the wall, watching this last -passage through the city of the father she had known so slightly and -toward whom she felt a bitter and silent resentment. - -She watched the nodding plumes till they were out of sight. How -strangely death had drawn together the three that life had separated! -In six months the woman and two men, tied together by a twist of the -hand of Fate, had been summoned, one after the other, into the darkness -beyond. Would they meet there? Mariposa shuddered and turned away. The -black plumes had disappeared, but the music still boomed fitfully in -measured majesty. - -The whistles were blowing for midday when she retraced her steps to the -Garcia house. As she mounted the stairs to the front door she became -aware that there were several people grouped on the balcony, their -forms dimly visible through the grimy glass and behind the rampart -of long-stemmed geraniums that grew there in straggling neglect. The -opening of the outer door let her in on them. She started and slightly -changed color when she saw that one of the figures was that of Gamaliel -Barron. He was sitting on the arm of a dilapidated rocker, frowningly -staring at Benito, the younger Garcia boy, against whom, it appeared, a -charge of some moment had just been brought. The case was being placed -before Barron, who evidently acted as judge, by a person Mariposa had -not seen before--a tall, thin young man of some thirty years, with a -stoop in the shoulders, a shock of fine black hair, and a pair of very -soft and beautiful blue eyes. - -They were so preoccupied in the matter before them that no effort was -made to introduce the stranger to Mariposa, though Barron offered her -his armchair, retiring to a seat on the balcony railing, whence he -loomed darkly severe, from among the straggling geraniums. Benito, -in his sailor collar and wispy curls, maintained an air of smiling -innocence, but Miguel, the elder boy, who was an interested witness, -bore evidence of uneasiness of mind in the strained attention of the -face turned toward Barron. - -Mariposa paused, her hand on the back of the rocking-chair. Benito -had already inserted himself into her affections. She looked from one -to the other to ascertain his offense. Both men were regarding the -culprit, Barron with frowning disapproval, the other with eyes full -of amusement. It was he who proceeded to state the case against the -accused: - -“She leaned over the railing and said to me, ‘Them little boys will -be sick if they eat that crab.’ ‘What crab and what little boys?’ I -asked, quite innocently, and she answered, ‘Them little boys in the -vacant lot!’ Then I turned and saw Benito and Miguel squatting in the -grass among the tomato cans and fragments of the daily press, with a -crab that they were breaking up between them, a crab about as big as a -cart-wheel.” - -“We found it there,” said Benito. “It were just lying there.” - -“‘If they eat that crab,’ the lady continued, ‘they’ll be sick. It -ain’t no good. I threw it out myself. And I’ve been hollerin’ to them -to stop, and that little one with the curls, just turned round on me -and says, “Oh, you go to the devil!”’” - -The complainant paused, looked at Mariposa with an eye in which she saw -laughter dancing, and said: - -“That’s rather a startling way for a gentleman to speak to a lady, -isn’t it?” - -Though the language used by the accused was hard to associate with his -cherubic appearance, and had somewhat shocked Mariposa’s affection, -she could hardly repress a smile. Benito grinning, as if with pride -at the prowess he had shown in the encounter with the strange female, -looked at his brother and emitted an explosive laugh. Miguel, however, -had more clearly guessed the seriousness of the offense, and looked -uneasy. Barron was regarding the younger boy with unmoved and angry -gravity. Mariposa saw that the man was not in the least inclined to -treat the matter humorously. - -“Did you really say that, Benito?” he said. - -“Well,” said Benito, swaying his body from side to side, and fastening -his eyes on a knife he had carelessly extracted from his pocket, “I -didn’t see what she had to do with that crab. It was all alone in the -vacant lot. How was we to know it was her crab?” - -“But,” to Miguel, “she told you before not to touch it, that it was -bad, didn’t she?” - -“Yes,” returned the elder boy, exceedingly uncomfortable. “She come and -leaned over the railing and hollered at us not to touch it, that it was -bad and it ’ud make us sick. Then I stopped ’cause I didn’t want to get -sick. But Ben wouldn’t, and she hollered again, and then he told her to -go to the devil, and Mr. Pierpont came along just then, and she told -him, and Ben got skairt and stopped.” - -There was a moment’s silence. The younger boy continued to smile and -finger his knife, but it was evident he was not so easy in his mind. -The stranger, now with difficulty restraining his laughter, turned -again to Mariposa and said: - -“If the lady had been in any way aggressing on the young gentleman’s -comfort or convenience, it would not have been exactly justifiable, but -comprehensible. But when you consider that her sole desire was to save -him from eating something that would make him sick, then you begin to -realize the seriousness of the offense. Oh, Benito, you’re in a bad -way, I’m afraid!” - -“I ain’t nothing of the kind,” said Benito, smiling and showing his -dimples. “I ain’t done nothing more than Miguel.” - -“I didn’t tell her to go to the devil,” exclaimed Miguel, in a loud, -combative voice. - -“’Cause I said it first,” replied his brother, calmly. “You didn’t have -time.” - -“Well, Benito,” said Barron, “I’ve got no use for you when you behave -that way. There’s no excuse for it. You’ve used the worst kind of -language to a lady who was trying to do a decent thing. I won’t take -you this afternoon.” - -The change on Benito’s face was sudden and piteous. The smile was -frozen on his lips, he turned crimson, and said stammeringly, evidently -hardly believing his ears: - -“To see the balloon? Oh, Uncle Gam, you promised it for a week. Oh, I’d -rather see the balloon than anything. Oh, Uncle Gam!” - -“There’s no use talking; I won’t take a boy who behaves that way. I’m -angry with you.” - -The man was absolutely grave and, Mariposa saw, spoke the truth when -he said he was angry. The boy was about to plead, when probably a -knowledge of the hopelessness of such a course silenced him. With a -flushed face, he stood before the tribunal fighting with his tears, -proud and silent. When he could no longer control them he turned and -rushed into the house, his bursting sobs issuing from the hallway. -Miguel charged after him. - -“Oh, poor little fellow!” cried Mariposa; “how could you? Take him to -see the balloon; do, please.” - -Barron made no reply, sitting on the railing, frowning and abstracted. -She turned her eyes on the other man. He was still smiling. - -“Barron’s bringing up the boys,” he said, “and he takes it hard.” - -“If I didn’t,” said the man from the railing, “who would? Heaven knows -I don’t want to disappoint the poor little cuss, but somebody’s got to -try and keep him in order.” - -“Can’t you punish him some other way? He’s been talking about seeing -the balloon for days.” - -“I wish to goodness I’d somebody to help me,” said the judge moodily; -“I’m not up to this sort of work. It makes me feel the meanest thing -that walks to get up and punish a boy for things that are just what I -did when I was the same age. But what’s a man to do? I can’t see those -children go to the devil.” - -The howls of Benito had been rising loudly from the house for some -minutes. They now suffered a sudden check; there was a quick step in -the hall and Mrs. Garcia appeared in the doorway, red and angry. Benito -was at her side, eating a large slice of cake. - -“What d’ye mean, Gam Barron,” she said in a high key, “by making my -son cry that way? Ain’t you got no better use for your time than to -tease and torment a poor, little, helpless boy, who’s got no father to -protect him?” - -“I wasn’t teasing him, Elsie,” he answered quietly; “I only said I -wouldn’t take him out this afternoon because he behaved badly.” - -“Well, ain’t that teasing, when you promised it for a week and more? -That’s what I call a snide trick. It’s just because you want to go -somewhere else, I know. And so you put it off on that woman and the -crab. Much good she is, anyway; I know her, too. Never mind, my baby,” -fondly to Benito, stroking his hair with her hand, “mother’ll take you -to see the balloon herself.” - -Benito jerked himself away from the maternal hand and said, with his -mouth full of cake: - -“I don’t want to go with you; I want to go with Uncle Gam. He lets me -ride in the goat-cart and buy peanuts.” - -“You’ll go with me,” said Mrs. Garcia with asperity, “or you’ll not go -at all.” - -“I don’t want to go with you,” said Benito, beginning to grow -clamorous; “I don’t have fun when I go with you.” - -“You’ll go with me, or stay home shut up in the cupboard all afternoon.” - -“I won’t; no, I won’t.” - -Benito was both tearful and enraged. His mother caught his hand and, -holding it in a tense grip, bent her face down to his and said with set -emphasis: - -“Do you want to stay all afternoon in the kitchen cupboard?” - -He struggled to be free, reiterating: - -“No, I don’t, and I ain’t goin’ to. I think you’re real mean to me; I -ain’t goin’ to go nowhere with you.” - -“You mean, ungrateful little boy,” said his parent, furiously, shaking -the hand she held. “Don’t talk back to me. You’ll go with me this -afternoon and see that balloon if I have to drag you all the way. Yes, -you will.” - -“I won’t,” roared Benito, now enraged past all control; and in -his frenzy to escape he kicked at his mother’s ankles through her -intervening skirts. - -This was too much for Mrs. Garcia’s feelings as a mother. She took her -free hand and boxed Benito smartly on the ear. Then for a moment there -was war. Benito kicked, roaring lustily, while his mother cuffed. The -din of combat was loud on the balcony, and several of the geranium pots -were knocked over. - -It remained for Barron to descend from the railing and drag the boy -away from his wrathful parent. - -“Here, stop kicking your mother,” he said peremptorily; “that won’t do -at all.” - -“Then make her stop slapping me,” howled Benito. “Ain’t I got a right -to kick back? I guess you’d kick all right if you was slapped that way.” - -“All right,” said his mother from the doorway, “next time you come to -me, Benito Garcia, to be taken to the circus or the fair, you’ll find -out that you’ve barked up the wrong tree.” - -“I don’t care,” responded Benito defiantly; “grandma or Uncle Gam will.” - -Five minutes after her irate withdrawal she reappeared, calm and -smiling, the memory of her recent combat showing only in her heightened -color, and announced that lunch was ready. - -At lunch the stranger was introduced to Mariposa, and she learned that -he was Isaac Pierpont, a singing teacher living in the house. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -DRIFT AND CROSSCUT - - “A living dog is better than a dead lion.” - - --ECCLESIASTES. - - -On the evening of the day when Jake Shackleton went to his account -Essex had walked slowly to Bertrand’s _rôtisserie_, his head drooped, -the evening paper in his hand. - -Two hours before the cries of the newsboys announcing the sudden demise -of his chief had struck on his ear, for the first moment freezing him -into motionless amazement. Standing under a lamp, he had read the short -report, then hurried down to the office of _The Trumpet_. There in the -turmoil and hubbub which marks the first portentous movement of the -great daily making ready to go to press, he had heard fuller details. -The office was in an uproar, shaken to its foundation by the startling -news, every man and woman ready with a speculation or a rumor as to the -ultimate fate of _The Trumpet_, on which their own little fates hung. - -At his table in the far corner of Bertrand’s he mused over the various -reports he had heard. The death of Shackleton would undoubtedly throw -the present makeup of _The Trumpet_ out of gear. Its sale would be -inevitable. From what he had heard of him, Win Shackleton would be -quite incapable of taking his father’s place as proprietor and manager -of the paper that Jake Shackleton, the man of brain and initiative, -was transforming into a powerful organ of public opinion. And in the -general weeding out of men which would unquestionably occur, why should -not Barry Essex mount to a top place? - -_The Trumpet_ had always paid its capable men large salaries. It -was worth while considering. Essex had now decided to remain in San -Francisco, at least throughout the winter. The climate pleased him; the -cosmopolitan atmosphere of the remote, picturesque city continued to -exert its charm. The very duck he was now eating, far beyond his purse -in any other American city, was an inducement to remain. But the real -one was the woman, all the more desperately desired because denied him. -Her indignation had not repelled him, but he saw it would mean a long -wooing. - -Once in his own room, he kindled the fire and drew toward him a pile of -reference books he had to consult for an article on the great actresses -of the French stage from Clairon to Rachel. These light and brilliant -essays had been an experiment of Shackleton’s, who maintained that the -Sunday edition should furnish food for all types of minds. Essex had -produced exactly the class of matter wanted, and received for it the -generous pay that the proprietor of _The Trumpet_ was always ready to -give for good work. - -The reader was fluttering the leaves of the first book of the pile when -a knock at the door stopped him. He knew it was his neighbor across the -hall, who had been in bed for over a week, sick with bronchitis. Essex -had seen the man several times during his seclusion and had conceived a -carelessly cynical interest in him. - -When sober, he had developed remarkable anecdotal capacity, which had -immensely amused his new acquaintance. Tales of ’49 and the early -Comstock days, scandals of those now in high places, discreditable -accounts of the making of fortunes, flowed from his lips in a -high-colored and diverting stream. If they were lies they were -exceedingly ingenious ones. Essex saw material for a dozen novels in -the man’s revealing and lurid recitals. Of his own personal history he -was reticent, merely saying that his name was George Harney, and his -trade that of job-printer. Drink had almost destroyed him. Physically -he was a mere bunch of nerves covered by flabby, sallow flesh. - -In answer to Essex’s “come in,” the door opened and Harney shambled -into the room. He was fully dressed, but showed the evidences of -illness in his hollowed cheeks and eyes, and the yellow skin hanging -flaccid round jaw and throat. His hand shook and his gait was -uncertain, but he was perfectly sober. - -“I came to have a squint at the paper, Doc,” he said in a hoarse voice. -“I can’t go out with this blasted wheezing on me. Don’t want to die in -my prime.” - -Essex threw the paper across the table at him. - -“There’s news to-night,” he said, taking up his book; “Shackleton’s -dead.” - -The man stopped as if electrified. - -“Shackleton? Jake Shackleton?” he said in a loud voice. - -“Jake Shackleton,” answered Essex, surprised at the startled -astonishment of his face. “Did you know him?” - -Harney snatched the paper and opened it with an unsteady hand. He ran -his eyes over the lines under the black-lettered heading of the first -page. - -“By gosh!” he said to himself, “so he is; so he is!” - -He sat down in the chair at the opposite side of the table, smoothed -out the sheet and read the account slowly and carefully. - -“By gosh!” he said again when he had finished, “who’d a thought Jake’d -go off like that!” - -“Did you know him?” repeated Essex. - -“Once up in the Sierra, when we was all mining up there.” - -He spoke absently and sat looking into the fire for a moment, then said: - -“It’s pretty tough luck to be whisked off that way when you just got -everything in the palm of your hand.” - -Essex made no reply, and after a pause he added: - -“Between fifteen and twenty millions it says there,” indicating the -paper, “and when I saw Jake Shackleton first you wouldn’t er hired -him to sweep down the steps of _The Trumpet_ office. But that was -twenty-five years ago at least.” - -“Oh, Shackleton was an able man. There’s no question about that. -They were saying in the office to-night that twenty million is a -conservative figure to put his money at.” - -“Who does it go to? Do you know that?” queried the man by the fire. - -“Widow and children, I suppose. There are two children. Don’t amount to -anything, I believe.” - -“No; there are three.” - -Harney turned from the fire and looked over his shoulder. He was -sitting in a hunched position, his back rounded, his chin depressed. -His black eyes, that drew close to the nose, were instinct with eager -cunning. The skin across the bridge of the nose was drawn in wrinkles. -As he looked the wheezing of his disturbed breathing was distinctly -audible. Essex was struck by the sly and malevolent intelligence of his -face. - -“Three children!” he said. “Well, I’ve always heard the death of a -bonanza king was the signal for a large crop of widows and orphans to -take the field.” - -“There won’t be any widow this time. She’s dead. But the girl’s alive, -and I’ve seen her.” - -He accompanied this remark with a second look, significant with the -same malicious intensity of meaning. Then he rose to his feet and -walked toward the door. - -“Good night, Doc,” he said as he reached it; “ain’t well enough to talk -to-night.” - -Essex gave him a return good night and the door closed on him. The -younger man cogitated over his books for a space. It did not strike -him as interesting or remarkable that Shackleton should have had an -unacknowledged child, of whose existence George Harney, the drunken -job-printer, knew. He was becoming accustomed to the extraordinary -intermingling of classes and conditions that marked the pioneer period -of California life. But should the unacknowledged child attempt to -establish its claim to part of the great estate left by the bonanza -king, what a complication that might lead to! These Californians were -certainly a picturesque people, with their dramatic ups and downs of -fortune, their disdain of accepted standards, their indifference to -tradition, and their magnificently disreputable pasts. - -As one of the special writers of _The Trumpet_, Essex attended the -funeral of his chief. He and Mrs. Willers and Edna, in company with the -young woman who did the “Fashions and Foibles” column, were in one of -the carriages that Mariposa had seen from the hilltop. Mrs. Willers was -silent on the long, slow drive. She had honored her chief, who had been -just to her. Miss Peebles, the “Fashions and Foibles” young woman, was -so engrossed by her fears that a change of ownership in _The Trumpet_ -would rob her of her employment that she could talk of nothing else. To -Edna, the sensation of being in a carriage was so novel it occupied her -to the exclusion of all other matters, and she looked out of the window -with a face of sparkling interest. - -That evening, after the funeral, Essex was preparing to work late. -He had “gutted” the pile of books, and with their contents well -assimilated was ready to write his three columns. There was no car line -on the street, and traffic at that hour on that quiet thoroughfare was -over for the day. For an hour he wrote easily and fluently. The sheets, -glistening with damp ink, were pushed in front of him in a careless -pile. Now and then he paused to consult his books, which were arranged -round him on the table, open at the places he needed for reference. -The smoke wreaths were thick round his head and the room was hot. It -was nearly ten o’clock when he heard the noisy entrance of his fellow -lodger. Harney was evidently sufficiently well to go to work again and -to come home drunk. Essex listened with suspended pen and a half-smile -on his dark face, which turned to a frown as he realized that the -stumbling feet had turned his way. The knock on the door came next, and -simultaneously it opened and Harney’s head was thrust in. - -“What the devil do you want?” said the scribe, sitting erect, his pipe -in his hand, the other waving the smoke strata that hung before his -face. - -“Let me come and get warm a minute. I’m wheezing again, and my room’s -cold as a tomb. Don’t mind me--all I want is to set before the fire for -a spell.” - -He sidled in before the permission was granted and sank down in the -armchair, hitching it nearer to the grate. He was a man to whom -intoxication lent a curiously amiable and humorous quality. The -ugliness and evil that were so evidently part of his nature were not so -apparent, and he became cheerful, almost genial. - -Sitting close to the fire, he held out his hands to the blaze, then, -stealing a look at Essex over his shoulder, saw that he was refilling -his pipe. - -“Be’n to the funeral?” he said. - -Essex grunted an assent. - -“The family there?” - -“None of the ladies; only Win Shackleton.” - -Harney was silent; then, with the greatest care, he took up a piece -of coal and set it on the fire. The action required all the ingenuity -of which he was master. His body responded to his intoxication, while, -save for an unusual fluency of speech, his mind appeared to remain -unaffected. After he had set the coal in place he looked again at -Essex, who was staring vacantly at him, thinking of the second part of -his article. - -“Did you notice a tall, fine-looking young lady there with dark red -hair?” said Harney, without removing his glassy gaze from the man at -the table. - -Essex did not move his eyes, but their absent fixity suddenly seemed to -snap into a change of focus betokening attention. Gazing at Harney, he -answered coldly: - -“No; I saw no one like that. To whom are you referring?” - -“Oh, I dunno, I dunno,” responded the other with a clumsy shrug of his -shoulders, and turning back to the fire over which he cowered. - -“But you know her anyhow,” he added, half to himself. - -“Whom do I know? Turn around.” - -The man turned, looking a little defiant. - -“Now, what are you trying to say?” - -“I ain’t tryin’ to say nuthin’. All I done is to ask yer if yer saw a -lady--tall, with red hair--at the funeral. You know her, ’cause I’ve -seen you with her.” - -“Who is she?” - -“Well,” slowly and uneasily, “she’s called Moreau.” - -“You mean Miss Mariposa Moreau, the daughter of a mining man, who died -last spring in Santa Barbara?” - -“Yes; that’s her all right. She’s called Moreau, but it ain’t her name.” - -“Moreau isn’t her name? What is her name, then?” - -“I dunno,” he spoke stubbornly and turned back to the fire. - -“Turn back here,” said Essex in a suddenly authoritative tone; “explain -to me what you mean by that.” - -“I don’t mean nuthin’,” said the other, looking sullenly defiant, “and -I don’t know nuthin’ only that that ain’t her true name.” - -“What is her name? Answer me at once, and no fooling.” - -“I dunno.” - -Essex rose. Harney, looking frightened, staggered to his feet, -clutching the mantelpiece. He half-raised his arm as if expecting to be -struck and said loudly: - -“If you want to know ask Shackleton’s widow. _She_ knows.” - -Essex stood a few paces from him, suddenly stilled by the phrase. The -drunkard, alarmed and yet defiant, could only dimly understand what the -expression on the face of the man before him meant. - -“Sit down,” said Essex quietly; “I’m not going to touch you. I’m going -to get some whisky. That’ll tone you up a bit. The bronchitis has taken -it out of you more than you think.” - -He went to a cupboard and brought out a bottle and glasses. Pouring -some whisky into one, he pushed it toward Harney. - -“There, that’ll brace you up. You’ll feel more yourself in a minute.” - -He diluted his own with water and only touched the glass’s rim to -his lips. His eyes, glistening and intent, were on the drunkard’s now -darkly flushing face. The glass rattled against the table as Harney set -it down. - -“That puts mettle into me again. Makes me feel like the old times -before the malaria got into my bones. Malaria was my ruin. Got it in -the Sierra mining. People think it’s drink that done it, but it’s -malaria.” - -“That was when you knew Moreau? What sort of man was he?” - -“Poor sort; not any grit. Had a good claim up there beyond Placerville, -he and I. Took out’s much as eight thousand in that first summer. -Moreau stayed by it, but I quit. Both had our reasons.” - -“And Miss Moreau, you say, is not Dan Moreau’s daughter. Is she a -step-daughter?” - -“Well--in a sort of a way you might say so. Anyway, she ain’t got no -legal right to that name.” - -“I didn’t know the mother was a widow when she married Moreau?” - -“She weren’t. She married twict, and she weren’t divorced. There ain’t -but two people in the world that knows it. One’s Jake Shackleton’s -widow,”--he rose, and, putting an unsteady hand on the table, leaned -forward and almost whispered into his interlocutor’s face,--“and the -other’s me.” - -“Are you trying to tell me,” said Essex quietly, “that Miss Moreau is -Jake Shackleton’s daughter?” - -“That’s what she is.” The man turned round like a character on the -stage and swept the room with an investigating look--“And she’s more’n -that. She’s his lawful daughter, born in wedlock.” - -The two faces stared at each other. The drunken man was not too far -beyond himself to realize the importance of what he was saying. In a -second’s retrospect Essex’s mind flew back over the hitherto puzzling -interest Shackleton had taken in Mariposa Moreau. Could it be possible -the man before him was telling the truth? - -“How does she come to be known as Moreau’s daughter? Why didn’t -Shackleton acknowledge her if she was his legitimate child? That’s a -fairy tale.” - -“There was complications. Have you ever heard that Shackleton was once -a Mormon?” - -Essex had heard the gossip which had persistently followed Shackleton’s -ascending course. He nodded his head, gazing at Harney, a presentiment -of coming revelations holding him silent. - -“Well, that’s true. He was. I seen him when he was. Jake Shackleton -crossed the Sierra with two wives. One--the first one--was the lady -who died here a month ago, and passed as Mrs. Moreau. The other’s the -widow. But she was the second wife. She didn’t have no children then. -But the first wife had one, a girl baby, born on the plains in Utah. It -weren’t three weeks old when I seen it.” - -“Where did you see it?” - -“In the Sierra back of Hangtown. Me and Dan Moreau was workin’ a -stream bed there. And one day two emigrants, a man and a woman, with a -sick woman inside the wagon, came down from the summit. They was Jake -Shackleton and his two wives, and they was the worst looking outfit -you’ve ever clapped your eyes on. They was pretty near dead. One er -their horses did die, in front of our cabin, and the sick woman--she -that afterwards was called Mrs. Moreau--was too beat out to move on. -Shackleton, who didn’t care who died, so long’s they got into the -settlements, calkalated to make her ride a spell, and when the other -horse dropped make her walk. She was the orneriest lookin’ scarecrow -you ever seen, and she hadn’t no more life’n a mummy. But she was -ready to do just what they said. She was just so beat out. And then -Moreau--he was just that kind of a fool--” - -He paused and looked at Essex, with his beady, dark eyes glistening -with a sense of the importance of his communication. His hand sought -the glass and he drained it. Then he leaned forward to deliver the -climax of his story:-- - -“Bought her from Shackleton for a pair of horses.” - -“Bought her for a pair of horses! How could he?” - -“I’m not sayin’ how he could; I’m sayin’ what he did.” - -“What did he do it for?” - -“The Lord knows. He was that kind of a fool. We had her in the cabin -sick for days, with me and him waitin’ on her hand and foot, and the -cussed baby yellin’ like a coyote. She wasn’t good for anything. Just -ust ter lie round sick and peaked and sorter pine. But Moreau got a -crazy liking for her, and he was sot on the baby same’s if it was his -own. I caught on pretty soon to the way the cat was goin’ to jump. I -lit out and left ’em.” - -“Why did you leave if the claim was good?” - -“It weren’t no good when no one worked it, and there weren’t more’n -enough in it for Moreau alone, with a woman and a baby on his hands. He -said first off he was only goin’ to get her cured up and send her to -the Eldorado Hotel to be a waitress, but I seen fast enough what was -goin’ to happen. And it did happen. They was snowed in up there all -winter. In the spring he took her into Hangtown and married her--said -he was marryin’ a widow woman whose husband died on the plains. I heard -that afterwards from some er the boys, but it weren’t my business to -give ’em away. So I shut my mouth and ain’t opened it till now. But -Moreau’s dead, and the woman’s dead, and now Shackleton’s dead. There -ain’t no one what knows but me and Shackleton’s widow.” - -“And what makes you think this is the same child? The baby you saw may -have died and this may be a child born a year or two later.” - -“It ain’t. It’s the same. There weren’t never any other children. -I kep’ my eye on ’em. Moreau was mining round among the camps and -afterward was in Sacramento for a spell, and I was round in them places -off and on myself. I saw him, but I dodged him ’cause I knew he didn’t -want to run up against me, knowin’ as how I was onter what he’d done. -He was safe for me. But I seen the girl often; seen her grow up. And -I knew her in a minute the day I saw you walkin’ with her on Sutter -Street, and I thinks to myself, ‘You’re with the biggest heiress in -San Francisco if you and she only knew it.’ And that’s what she is, if -there was somethin’ else but my word to prove it.” - -Essex sat pushed back from the table, his hands in his pockets, his -pipe nipped between his teeth, his face partly obscured by the floating -clouds of smoke that hung about his head. - -“A first-rate story,” he said slowly; “have some more whisky.” - -And he pushed the bottle toward Harney, who seized it and fumblingly -poured the fiery liquor into the glass. - -“And it’s true,” he said hoarsely--“every blamed word.” - -He drank what he had poured out, set down the glass and stared at Essex -with his face puckered into its expression of evil cunning. - -“And _she_ don’t know anything about it, does she?” he asked. - -“If you mean Miss Moreau, she certainly appears to think she is the -child of the man who brought her up.” - -“That’s what I heard. But Shackleton, when Moreau died, was goin’ to do -the square thing by her. At least, I heard talk of his sendin’ her to -Europe to be a singer. Ain’t it so?” - -“I heard something about it myself. But I’m no authority.” - -There was a pause. Harney settled back in his chair. The room was -exceedingly hot, and impregnated with the odor of whisky and the smoke -from Essex’s pipe. - -“He couldn’t acknowledge her. It would er given the other children too -big a black eye. But it seemed like he wanted to square things up when -he was taken off suddent like that.” - -He paused. The other, smoking, with frowning brows and wide eyes, made -no response, his own thoughts holding him in tense immobility. - -“And the other wife wouldn’t er stood it, anyway. She’s a pretty -competent woman, I guess. Oh, he couldn’t have acknowledged her, -nohow. But she’s his legitimate daughter, all right. She’s the lawful -heir to--most er them--millions. She’s--” - -His voice broke and trailed off into silence, which was suddenly -interrupted by a guttural snort and then heavy, regular breathing. -Essex rose, and, going to the window, opened it. A keen-edged breeze of -air entered, seeming all the fresher from the dense atmosphere of the -room. Its hurried entrance sent the smoke wreaths scurrying about in -fantastic whorls and curls. The dying fire threw out a frightened flame. - -Essex moved toward it, saying as he approached: - -“Yes; it’s a good story. You ought to be a novelist, Harney.” - -There was no answer, and, looking into the chair, he saw that Harney -had fallen into a sodden sleep, curled against the chair-back, his chin -sunk on his breast, the hollows in his face looking black in the hard -light of the gas. The younger man gazed at him for a moment with an -expression of slight, cold disgust, then turned back to the table and -sat down. - -He wrote no more, but sat motionless, his eyes fixed on vacancy, the -thick, curling smoke oozing from the bowl of his pipe and issuing from -between his lips. His thoughts reviewed every part of the story he had -heard. He felt certain of its truth. The drunken job-printer had never -imagined it. - -It explained many things that before had puzzled him. Why the Moreaus, -even in the days of their affluence, had lived in such uneventful -quietude, bringing up their beautiful and talented daughter in a -jealous and unusual seclusion. It explained Shackleton’s interest in -the girl. He even saw now, recalling the two faces, the likeness that -the father himself had seen in Mariposa’s firmly-modeled jaw and chin, -which did not belong to the soft, feminine prettiness of Lucy. - -It must be true. - -And, being true, what possibilities might it not develop? Mrs. -Shackleton knew it, too--that this penniless girl was the bonanza -king’s eldest and only legitimate child, with power, if not entirely -to dispossess her own children, at least to claim the lion’s share of -the vast fortune. If Mariposa had proof of her mother’s marriage to -Shackleton and of her own identity as the child of that marriage, she -could rise and claim her heritage--her part of the twenty millions! - -The thought, and what it opened before him, dizzied him. He drank some -of the diluted whisky in the glass beside him and sat on motionless. It -was evident Mariposa did not know. She had been brought up in ignorance -of the whole extraordinary story. The man and woman she had been taught -to regard as her parents had committed an offense against the law, -which they had hidden from her, secure in the thought that the other -participants in the strange proceeding would never dare to confess. - -The minutes and hours ticked by and Essex still sat thinking, while -the drunkard breathed stertorously in his heavy sleep, and the coals -dropped softly in the grate as the fire sank into clinkers and ashes. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -THE SEED OF BANQUO - - “What says the married woman?” - - --SHAKESPEARE. - - -As soon as Mrs. Shackleton was sufficiently recovered, the family had -moved from Menlo Park to their town house. - -The long work of settling up the great estate which had been left to -the widow and her children, required their presence in the city, and -the shock which Bessie had suffered in finding her husband dead, had -rendered the country place unbearable to her. - -The day after the funeral the women had moved to town. Win, however, -remained at Menlo Park, to go over such documents of his father’s as -had been left there. Shackleton had lived so much at his country place -for the last two or three years that many of his papers and letters -were kept in the library, which had been his especial sanctum. - -Among these, the son had come upon a small package of letters, which, -fastened together with an elastic, and bearing a note of their contents -on one end, had roused his interest. They were the letters exchanged -between his father and the chief of the detective bureau when the -latter had been commissioned to locate the widow and daughter of Daniel -Moreau. - -Shackleton, a man of exceedingly methodical habits, had kept copies of -his letters. There were only seven of them altogether--three from him; -four in reply. The first ones were short, only a few lines, containing -the request to find the ladies who, the writer understood, were in San -Francisco, and ascertain their circumstances and position. Then came -the acknowledgment of that, and then in a few days, the answer stating -the whereabouts of Mrs. Moreau and her daughter, their means, and such -small facts about them as that the mother was in delicate health and -the daughter “a handsome, accomplished, and estimable young lady.” - -Win looked over this correspondence, puzzled and wondering. He -remembered the girl he had seen in _The Trumpet_ office that dark -afternoon, and how the office boy had told him it was a Miss Moreau, -a friend of Mrs. Willers, and a singer. What motive could his father -have had in seeking out this girl and her mother in this secret and -effectual way? He read over the letters again. Moreau had died in Santa -Barbara in the spring, the widow and her daughter had then come to San -Francisco, and by the wording of the second letter he inferred that his -father had been ignorant of their means, and of the girl’s appearance, -style and character. It was evidently not the result of an interest -in people he had once known and then lost sight of. It seemed to be -an interest, for some outside reason, in two women of whom he knew -absolutely nothing. - -Win had heard that his father contemplated offering a musical education -to some singing girl, of whom the young man knew nothing, and had -seen only for a moment that day in _The Trumpet_ office. This was -undoubtedly the girl. But Shackleton evidently had not heard of her -through Mrs. Willers, who was known to be an energetic boomer of -obscure genius. He had hunted her out himself; had undoubtedly had -some ulterior interest in, or knowledge of her some time before the -day Win had seen her. It was odd, the boy thought, meditating over the -correspondence. What could have led his father to search for, and then -attempt to assist, a woman who seemed to be a complete stranger to him? -It looked like the secret paying of an old debt. - -Win put the letters in his pocket and went up to town. There was more -work for him to do now than there had ever been before, and he rose to -it with a spirit and energy that surprised himself. Neither he nor any -one else had ever realized how paralyzing to him had been his father’s -cold scorn. From boyhood, Win had felt himself to be an aggravating -failure. The elder man had not scrupled to make him understand his -inferiority. The mere presence of his father seemed to numb his brain -and make his tongue stammer over the simplest phrases. Now, he felt -himself free and full of energy, as though bands that had cramped his -mind and confined his body were broken. His old attitude of posing as -a fast young man of fashion lost its charm. Life grew suddenly to mean -something, to be full of use and purpose. - -He was left very much to himself, his mother being still too much -broken to attend to business, and Maud being absorbed in her affair -with Latimer, which had recently culminated in a secret engagement. -This she had been afraid to tell to her domineering father and -ambitious mother, and her opportunities of seeing her fiancé had been -of the briefest until now. Latimer haunted the house of evenings, when -Bessie was lying on the sofa in an upstairs boudoir and Win was locked -in his father’s study going over the interminable documents. - -The first darkness of her grief and horror past, Bessie, in her -seclusion, thought of many things. One of these was the fate of -Mariposa Moreau. The bonanza king’s widow, with all her faults, had -that lavish and reckless generosity, where money was concerned, that -marked the early Californians. This forceful woman, who had made the -blighting journey across the plains without complaint, faced the fierce -hardships of her early married life with a smile, borne her children -amid the rude discomforts of remote mining camps, was an adept in the -art of luxurious living. She knew by instinct how to be magnificent, -and one of her magnificences was the careless munificence of her -generosity. - -Now, she felt for Mariposa. She knew Shackleton’s plans for her, and -realized the girl’s disappointment. In her heart she had been bitterly -jealous of the other wife’s child, who had the beauty and gifts her -own lacked. It would be to everybody’s advantage to remove the girl to -another country and sphere. And because her husband had died there was -no reason why his plans should remain unfulfilled. Though Shackleton -had assured her that the girl knew nothing, though every one connected -with the shameful bargain but herself was dead, it was best to be -prudent, especially when prudence was the course most agreeable to all -concerned. She would rest easier; her children would seem more secure -in their positions and possessions, if Mariposa Moreau, well provided -for, were safe in Paris studying singing. - -When she was fully decided as to the wisdom of her course, she wrote -Mariposa a short but friendly letter, speaking of her knowledge of Mr. -Shackleton’s plans for her advancement, of her desire to carry out her -late husband’s wishes, and naming a day and hour at which she begged -the young girl to call on her. It was a simple matter to ascertain Miss -Moreau’s address from Mrs. Willers, and the letter was duly sent. - -It roused wrath in its recipient. Mariposa was learning worldly wisdom -at a rate of which her tardy development had not given promise. Great -changes were taking place in her simple nature. She had been wakened -to life with savage abruptness. Dormant characteristics, passions -unsuspected, had risen to the surface. The powerful feelings of a rich, -but undeveloped womanhood had suddenly been shaken from their sleep -by a grip of the hand of destiny. The unfamiliarity of a bitter anger -against the Shackletons struggled with the creeping disgust of Essex, -that grew daily. - -Morning after morning she woke when the first gray light was faintly -defining the squares of the windows. The leaden sense of wretchedness -that seemed to draw her out of sleep, gave place to the living hatred -and shame that the upheaval of her life had left behind. She watched -the golden wheat-ears dimly glimmering on the pale walls, while she -lay and thought of all she had learned of life, her faith and happy -ignorance destroyed forever. - -Six weeks ago Mrs. Shackleton’s letter would have represented no more -to her than what its words expressed. Now, she saw Bessie’s anxiety -to be rid of her, to push her out of sight as a menace. How much more -readily would the widow have gone to work, with what zest of alarm and -energy, would she have contrived for her expulsion, had she guessed -what Mariposa knew. The girl vacillated for a day, hating the thought -of an interview with any member of the family whose wrongs to her -beloved mother were seared scars in her brain; but finally concluding -that it would be better to end her connection with them by an interview -with Mrs. Shackleton, she answered the letter, stating that she would -come at the appointed hour. - -Two days later, at the time set in the afternoon, she stood in the -small reception-room, to the left of the wide marble hall, waiting. -The hushed splendor of the house would have impressed and awed her -at any other time. But to-day her heart beat loud and her brain was -preoccupied with its effort to keep her purpose clear, and yet not to -be angered into revealing too much. The vast lower floor was loftier -and more spacious than anything she had ever seen before. There were -glimpses through many doors, and artificial elongations of perspective -by means of mirrors. The long receding vista was touched with gleams of -light on parquet flooring, reflections on the gray surfaces of mirrors, -the curves of porcelain vases, the bosses of gilded frames. Over all -hung the scent of flowers, that were massed here and there in Chinese -bowls. - -Bessie’s step, and the accompanying rustle of brushing silks, brought -the girl to her feet, rigid and cold. The widow swept into the room -with extended hand. She was richly and correctly garbed in lusterless -black, that sent out the nervous whisperings of crushed silks and -exhaled a faint perfume. It was impossible to ignore the hand, and -Mariposa touched it with her own for a minute. She had seen Bessie -only once before, on the evening of the opera. The change wrought in -her by grief and illness was noticeable. Her fine, healthy color had -faded; her eyes were darkened, and there were many deep lines on her -forehead and about her mouth. Nevertheless, a casual eye would have -still noticed her as a woman of vigor, mental and physical. It was easy -to understand how she had stood shoulder to shoulder with her husband -in his fight for fortune. - -She motioned Mariposa to a chair facing the window, and studied her -as she glibly accomplished the commonplaces of greeting. Her heart -drew together with a renewed spasm of jealousy as she noted the girl’s -superiority to her own daughter. What subtly finer qualities had -Lucy had, that her child should be thus distinguished from the other -children of Jake Shackleton? The indignation working against this woman -gave a last touch of stateliness to poor Mariposa’s natural dignity of -demeanor. She seemed to belong, by nature and birth, to these princely -surroundings, which completely dwarfed Maud, and even made the adaptive -Bessie look common. - -“My husband,” said the elder woman, when the beginnings of the -conversation were disposed of, “was very much interested in you. He -knew your father, Dan Moreau, very well.” - -Mariposa was becoming used to this phrase and could listen to it -without the stare of surprise, or the blush of consciousness. - -“So Mr. Shackleton told me,” she answered. - -“Your father”--Bessie looked down at the deeply-bordered handkerchief -in her hand--“was a man of great kindliness and generosity. Mr. -Shackleton knew him in the Sierras, mining, a long time ago, when -he”--she paused, not from embarrassment, but in order to choose her -words carefully--“was very kind to my husband and others of our party. -It was an obligation Mr. Shackleton never forgot.” - -Mariposa could make no answer. Shackleton had never spoken to her -with this daring. Bessie looked at her for a response, and saw her -with her eyes on the ground, pale and slightly frowning. She wanted -to sweep away any possible suspicion from the girl’s mind by making -her understand that the attitude of the family toward her rose from -gratitude for a past benefit. - -“Mr. Shackleton,” she went on, “often talked to me about his plans for -you. He wanted to have you study in Paris, under some teacher Lepine -spoke to him about. I understand you’ve got a remarkable voice. I -wanted, several times, to hear you, but it couldn’t seem to be managed, -living in the country, and always so busy. In his sudden--passing away, -all these plans came to an end. He hadn’t regularly arranged anything. -There were such a lot of delays.” - -Mariposa nodded, then feeling that she must say something, she murmured: - -“My mother died. I was not well, and I couldn’t see him.” - -“Exactly, I understand just how it was. And it wasn’t a bit fair, that -simply because you didn’t happen to be able to go to the office at that -time, you should lose your chance of a musical education and all that -might have come out of it. Now, Miss Moreau, it’s my intention to carry -out my husband’s wishes.” - -She looked at Mariposa, not smiling, nor condescending, but with a hard -earnestness. The girl raised her eyes and the two glances met. - -“His wishes with regard to me?” said Mariposa, with a questioning -inflection. - -“That’s it. I want you to go to Paris, as he wanted you to go. I want -you to study to be a singer. I’ll pay it all--education, masters, and a -monthly sum for living besides. I don’t think, from what I hear, that -it would be necessary for you to study more than two or three years. -Then you would make your appearance as a grand opera prima donna, or -concert singer, as your teachers thought fit. I don’t know much about -it, but I believe they can’t always tell about a voice right off at the -start. Anyway, I’d see to it that yours got every chance for the best -development.” - -She paused. - -“I--I’m--afraid it will be impossible,” said Mariposa, in a low voice. - -“Impossible!” exclaimed the elder woman, sitting upright in her -surprise. “Why?” - -Mariposa had come to the house of Mrs. Shackleton burning with a sense -of the wrongs her mother had suffered at the hands of this woman and -her dead husband. She had thought little of what the interview would -be like, and now, with the keen, hard, and astonished eyes of Bessie -upon her, she felt that something more than pride and indignation must -help her through. The world’s diplomacy of tongue and brain was an -unsuspected art to her. - -“I--I--” she stammered irresolutely, “have changed my mind since I -talked with Mr. Shackleton.” - -“Changed your mind! But why? What’s made you change your mind in so -short a time?” - -“Many things,” said the girl, with her face flushing -deeply under Bessie’s unflinching stare. “There have been -changes--in--in--circumstances--and in me. My mother was anxious for my -advancement. Now she is dead and--it doesn’t matter.” - -It was certainly not a brilliant way out of the difficulty. A faint -smile wrinkled the loose skin round Mrs. Shackleton’s eyes. - -“Oh, my dear,” she said, with a slight touch of impatience in her -voice. “If that’s all, I guess we needn’t worry about it. People die, -and we lose our energies and ambition, so we just want to lie round and -mourn. But at your age that don’t last long. You’ve got to make your -future yourself, and now’s your chance. It just comes once or twice in -a lifetime, and the people who get there are the people who know enough -to snatch it as it comes by.” - -Mariposa’s irresolution had passed. She realized that she had not -merely to state her intentions, but to fight a will unused to defeat. - -“I can’t go,” she said quietly; “I understand that all you say is -perfectly true. You probably think I am silly and ungrateful. I don’t -think I am either, but that’s because I know what I feel. I thank you -very much, but I can’t accept it.” - -She rose to her feet. Bessie saw that she was pale--evidently agitated. - -“Sit down,” she said, indicating the chair again. “Now let me hear your -reasons, my dear girl. People don’t throw up the chance of a lifetime -for nothing. What’s behind all this?” - -There was a pause. Mariposa said slowly: - -“I don’t want to accept it. I don’t want to take the money or be under -any obligation.” - -“You were willing to be under the obligation, as you call it, a few -weeks ago?” - -Bessie’s voice was as cold as steel. From the moment she had entered -the room she had felt an instinctive antagonism between herself and -her husband’s eldest child. It would become a hatred in time. The -girl’s slow and reluctant way of speaking seemed to indicate that she -expressed herself with difficulty, like one who, under pressure, tells -the truth. - -“My mother wanted me to accept anything that was for my own benefit. -Now she is dead. I am my own mistress. I grieve or hurt no one but -myself if I refuse your offer. And, as things are now, it is better for -me to refuse it.” - -“What do you mean by ‘as things are now’? Has anything happened to -change your ideas since my husband first made the suggestion to you?” - -Mariposa told her lie as a woman does, with reservations. It was -creditably done, for it was the first lie she had ever told in her life. - -“Nothing has actually happened, but--I--I--have changed.” - -“And are you going to let a girl’s whims stand in the way of your -future success in life? I can’t believe that. My dear, you’re handsome -and you’ve a fine voice, but do you think those two things, without a -cent behind them, are going to put you on top of the heap? You’re not -the woman to get there without a lot of boosting.” - -“Why should I want to get on top of the heap?” - -“Oh, if you _want_ to stay at the bottom--” - -Mrs. Shackleton gave a shrug and rose to her feet. The girl was -incomprehensible. She was either very subtile and deep, or she was -extraordinarily dull and shallow. Shackleton had said to her once that -she seemed to him childish and undeveloped, for her age. The woman’s -keen eye saw deeper. If Mariposa was not disingenuous, she would -always, on the side of shrewdness and worldly wisdom, be undeveloped. - -“Well, my dear,” she said coldly, “it all rests with yourself. But I -can’t, conscientiously, let you throw your best chances away. We won’t -speak of this any more to-day. But go home and think about it, and in -a week or two let me know what conclusion you’ve come to. Don’t ever -throw a chance away, even if you don’t happen to like the person who -offers it.” - -She gave Mariposa a shrewd and good-natured smile. The girl, her face -crimsoning, was about to answer, when the hall door opened, and, with a -sound of laughter and a whiff of violets, Maud and the Count de Lamolle -entered the room. - -In her heavy mourning, Maud looked more nearly pretty than she had -ever done before. It was not the dress that beautified her, but the -happiness of her engagement to Latimer, with whom she was deeply in -love, which had lent her the fleeting grace and charm that only love, -well bestowed, can give. She carried a large bunch of violets in her -hand, and her face was slightly flushed. - -The count, who had attentively read the will of Jake Shackleton in -the papers, was staying on in San Francisco. His attentions to Maud -were not more assiduous, but they were more “serious,” to use the -technical phrase, than heretofore. She would make him an ideal wife, -he thought. Even her lack of beauty was an advantage. When an American -girl was both rich and pretty, she was more than even the most tactful -and sophisticated Frenchman could manage. Maud, ugly, gentle, and not -clever, would be a delightful wife, ready to love humbly, unexacting, -easy to make happy. - -The count, a handsome, polished Parisian, speaking excellent English, -bowed over Mrs. Shackleton’s hand, and then, in answer to her words of -introduction, shot an exploring look, warmed by a glimmer of discreet -admiration, at Mariposa. He wondered who she was, for his practised eye -took in at a glance that she was shabbily dressed and evidently not of -the world of bonanza millions. He wished that he knew her, now that -he had made up his mind to spend some months in San Francisco, paying -court to the heiress who would make him such an admirable wife, and in -whose society time hung so heavily on his hands. - -Mariposa excused herself and hurried away. She was angry and confused. -It seemed to her she had done nothing but be rude and obstinately -stupid, while the cold and composed older woman had eyed her with -wary attentiveness. What did Mrs. Shackleton think she had meant? She -felt that the widow had not, for a moment, abandoned the scheme of -sending her away. Descending the wide steps in the early dark, the girl -realized that the woman she had just left was not going to be beaten -from her purpose by what appeared a girl’s unreasonable caprice. - -A man coming up the steps brushed by her, paused for a moment, and then -mechanically raised his hat. In the gleam of the lamps, held aloft at -the top of the flight, she recognized the thin face and eye-glasses of -Win Shackleton. She did not return the salute, as it was completely -unexpected, and from the foot of the stairs she heard the hall door -bang behind him. - -“Who was that girl I met on the steps just now, going out?” Win asked -his mother, as they went upstairs together. - -“That Miss Moreau your father was interested in. He was going to send -her to Paris to learn singing.” - -“What was she doing here?” - -“I sent for her. I wanted to talk over things with her. I intended -sending her.” - -“And did you fix it?” - -“No,” with a little laugh, “she’s a very changeable young woman. She -says she doesn’t want to go now; that she’s come to the conclusion she -doesn’t want to be under the obligation.” - -“That’s funny,” said Win. “She must be sort of original. Mommer, why -did the governor want to send her to Paris? What was it made him so -interested in her?” - -“He knew her father long ago, mining, in the Sierra, and Moreau did -him a good turn up there. Your father had never forgotten it and was -anxious to repay it by helping the daughter. She don’t seem to be easy -to help.” - -Win, as he dressed for dinner, meditated on his mother’s explanation. -It sounded reasonable enough, only a thirst to repay past obligations -was not--according to his experience and memories--a peculiarity -that had troubled his father. Both he and Maud knew that all the -generosities and charities of the household had been inspired by their -mother. His childish memory was stocked by recollections of her urging -the advantage of the bestowal of pecuniary aid to this and that person, -association and charity. It was she who had saved Jake Shackleton from -the accusation of meanness, which California society invariably makes -against its rich men. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -VAIN PLEADINGS - - “Are there not, * * * - Two points in the adventure of the diver: - One--when a beggar he prepares to plunge; - One--when a prince he rises with his pearl?” - - --BROWNING. - - -To the astonishment of his world, Win Shackleton announced his -intention of retaining _The Trumpet_, and conducting it, himself, -on the lines laid down by his father. There was a slight shifting -of positions, in which some were advanced and one or two heads were -unexpectedly lopped off and thrown in the basket. The new ruler took -control with a decision that startled those who had regarded him as a -typical millionaire’s son. The men on the paper, who had seen the time -of their lives coming in the managership of a feeble and inexperienced -boy, were awakened from their dreams by feeling a hand on the reins, as -tight as that of Jake Shackleton himself. Win had ideas. Mrs. Willers -was advanced to the managership of the Woman’s Page, into which she -swept triumphant, with Miss Peebles, the young woman of the “Foibles -and Fancies” column, in her wake. Barry Essex was lifted to a staff -position, at a high salary, and had to himself one of the little cells -that branch off the main passage. - -Here he worked hard, for Win permitted no drones in his hive. The luck -was with Essex, as it had been often before in his varied career. -Things had fallen together exactly as they should for the furthering of -his designs. It would take a long wooing to win over Mariposa. Now, he -could save money against the day when he and she would leave together -for the Europe where they were to conquer fame and fortune. - -He had had other talks with Harney since the evening of his revelation. -He was convinced that the man was telling the truth. He had known men -before of Harney’s type and wondered why the drunkard had not made use -of his knowledge for his own advancement. He had evidently kept his eye -on both Shackleton and Moreau, and it was strange, that, as the two men -rose to affluence, he had not used the ugly secret he held. The only -explanation of it was that they held an even greater power over him. He -had undoubtedly had reason to fear both men. Shackleton, once arrived -at the pinnacle of his success, would have crushed like a beetle in his -path this drunken threatener of his peace. Moreau, whose every movement -he seemed to have followed, had evidently had a hold over him. Hold -or no hold, Shackleton would have swept him aside by the power of his -money and his position, into the oblivion that awaits the enemies of -rich and unscrupulous men. - -Now both were dead. But the day of Harney’s power was over. Enfeebled -in mind and body by drink and disease, he had neither the force nor -the brain to be dangerous. His uses were merely those of an instrument -in daring hands. And those hands had found him. There were long talks -in Essex’s room in the evenings, during which the story was threshed -out. George Harney, drunk or sober, neither contradicted himself nor -varied in his details. His mind, confused and addled on other matters, -retained this memory with unblurred clearness. - -So Essex deliberated, carefully and without haste, for there was plenty -of time. - -The bright days continued. On a radiant Saturday afternoon, Mariposa, -tired with a morning’s teaching, started forth to spend an hour or -two in the park. She had done this several times before, finding -the green peace and solitude of that beautiful spot soothing to her -harassed spirit. It was a long ride in those days, and this had its -charm, the little steam dummy cresting the tops of sandy hills, clothed -with lupins and tiny frightened oaks, crouching before the sea winds. -On this occasion she had invited the escort of Benito, who had been -hanging drearily about the house, thinking with mingled triumph and -envy of Miguel, who had gone with his mother to have a tooth pulled out. - -“Pulling the tooth’s bad, of course,” Benito had said to Mariposa, as -he trotted by her side to the car, “but then afterward there’s candy. I -dunno but what it’s worth while. And then you have the tooth.” - -“Have the tooth!” said Mariposa. “What do you want the tooth for?” - -“You can show it to the boys in school, and you can generally trade it. -I traded mine for a knife with two blades, but both of ’em was broke.” - -Benito was becoming very friendly with Mariposa. He was a cheerful and -expansive soul. Could they have heard him, Uncle Gam and his mother -might have suffered some embarrassment on the score of his revelations -as to their quarrels concerning his upbringing. Benito had thoroughly -gaged the capacity of each of them in resisting his charms and urging -him to higher and better things. He was already at the stage when his -mother appealed slightly to his commiseration and largely to his sense -of humor. Mariposa saw that while he had grasped the great fact that -his Uncle Gam had an unfortunately soft heart, he also knew there was a -stage when it was resolutely hardened and his most practised wiles fell -baffled from its surface. - -They alighted from the car at what was then the main entrance, and, -side by side, Benito fluently talking, made toward the gate. Here a -peanut vender had artfully placed his stall, and the fumes from the -roasted nuts rose gratefully to the nostrils of the small boy. He -said nothing, but sniffed with an ostentatious noise, and then looked -sidewise at Mariposa. One of the sources of his respect for her was -that she was so quick in reading the language of the eye. One did not -vulgarly have to demand things of her. He felt the nickel in his hand -and galloped off to the stand, to return slowly, his head on one side, -an eye investigating the contents of the opened paper bag he carried. - -Being a gentleman of gallant forbears, he offered this to Mariposa, -listening with some uneasiness to the scraping of her fingers among -its contents. He had an awful thought that she might be like Miguel, -who could never be trusted to withdraw his hand until it was full to -bursting. But Mariposa’s eventually emerged with one small nut between -thumb and finger. This she nibbled gingerly as they passed under the -odorous, dark shade of the cypresses. Benito spread a trail of shells -behind him, dragging his feet in silent happiness, his eyes fixed on -the brilliant prospect of sunlit green that filled in the end of the -vista like a drop-curtain. - -As they emerged from the cypress shadows the lawns and shrubberies of -the park lay before them radiantly vivid in their variegated greens. -The scene suggested a picture in its motionless beauty, the sunlight -sleeping on stretches of shaven turf where the peacocks strutted, the -red dust of the drive unstirred by wind or wheel. Rich earth scents -mingled with the perfume of the winter blossoms, delicate breaths of -violets from beneath the trees, spices exhaled by belated roses still -bravely blossoming in November, and now and then a whiff of the acrid, -animal odor of the eucalyptus. - -Following pathways, now damp beneath the shade of melancholy spruce and -pine, now hard and dry between velvety lawns, they came out on a large -circular opening. Here Mariposa sat down on a bench, with her back to -a sheltering mass of fir and hemlock, the splendid sunshine pouring on -her. Benito, with his bag in his hand, trotted off to the grassy slope -opposite where custom has ordained that little boys may roll about and -play. He had hardly settled himself there to the further enjoyment of -his nuts when another little boy appeared and made friendly overtures, -with his eyes on the bag. Mariposa could not hear them, but she -could see the first advance and Benito’s somewhat wary eyings of the -stranger. In a few moments the formalities of introduction were over, -and they were both lying on their stomachs on the grass, kicking gently -with their toes, while the bag stood between them. - -Mariposa had intended to read, but her book lay unopened in her lap. -The sun in California is something more than warming and cheerful. It -is medicinal. There is some unnamed balm in its light that soothes the -tormented spirit and rests and revivifies the wearied body. It is at -once a stimulant and a sedative. It seems to have sucked up healing -breaths from the resinous forests inland and to be exhaling them again -upon those who can not seek their aid. - -As the soothing rays enveloped her, Mariposa felt the strain of mind -and body relax and a sense of rest suffuse her. She stretched herself -into a more reposeful attitude, one arm thrown along the back of the -bench. Her book lay beside her on the seat. To keep the blinding light -from her eyes she tilted her hat forward till the shade of its brim cut -cleanly across the middle of her face. - -Her mouth, which was plainly in view, had the expression of suffering -that is acquired by the mouths of those who have been forced to endure -suddenly and silently. Her thoughts reverted to Essex and the scene -in the cottage. She wondered if the smart and shame of it would ever -lessen--if she would ever see him again, and what he would say. She -could not imagine him as anything but master of himself. But he was -no longer master of her. The subtile spell he had once exercised was -forever broken. - -She heard a foot on the gravel, but did not look up; several people had -passed close to her crossing to the main drive. The new-comer advanced -toward her idly, noting the grace of her attitude, the rich and yet -elegant proportions of her figure. Her face was turned from him, but -he saw the roll of rust-colored hair beneath her hat, started, and -quickened his pace. He had come to a halt beside her before she looked -up startled. A quick red rushed into her face. He, for his part, stood -suave and smiling, holding his hat in one hand, no expression on his -face but one of frank pleasure. Even in his eyes there was not a shade -of consciousness. - -“What a piece of luck!” he said. “Who’d have thought of meeting you -here?” - -Mariposa had nothing to respond. In a desperate desire for flight and -protection she looked for Benito, but he was at the top of the slope, -well out of earshot of anything but a scream. - -Essex surveyed her face with fond attention. - -“You’re looking better than you did before you moved,” he said; “you -were just a little too pale then. You know, I didn’t know it was you -at all. I was looking at you as I came across the drive, and I hadn’t -the least idea it was you till I saw your hair”--his eye lighted on it -caressingly--“I knew there was only one woman in San Francisco with -hair like that.” - -His voice seemed to mesmerize her at first. Now her volition came back -and she rose. - -“Benito!” she cried; “come at once.” - -The two little boys had their heads close together and neither turned. - -“What are you going to go for?” said Essex in surprise. - -“What a question!” she said, picking up her book with a trembling -hand, and thinking in her ignorance that he spoke honestly; “what an -insulting question!” - -“Insulting! What on earth do you mean by that?” coaxingly. “Please tell -me why you are going?” - -“Because I don’t want ever to see you or speak to you again,” she said -in a voice shaken with anger. “I couldn’t have believed any man could -be so lacking in decency as--as--to do this.” - -“Do what?” he asked with an air of blank surprise. “What am I doing?” - -“Thrusting yourself on me this way when--when--you know that the sight -of you is humiliating and hateful to me.” - -“Oh, Mariposa!” he said softly. He looked into her face with eyes -brimming with teasing tenderness. “How can you say that to me when my -greatest fault has been to love you?” - -“Love me!” she ejaculated with breathless scorn; “love me! Oh, -Benito,”--calling with all her force--“come; do come. I want you!” - -Benito, who undoubtedly must have heard, was too pleasantly engaged -with the companionship of his new friend to make any response. Early in -life he had learned the value of an occasional attack of deafness. - -Mariposa made a motion to go to him, but Essex gently moved in front -of her. She drew away from him, knitting her brows in helpless, heated -rage. - -“You know you’re treating me very badly,” he said. - -“Treating you very badly,” she now fairly gasped, once more a -bewildered fly in the net of this subtile spider, “how else should I -treat you?” - -“Kindly,” he said, softly bending his compelling glance on her, “as a -woman treats a man who loves her.” - -“Mr. Essex,” she said, turning on him with all the dignity she had at -her command, “we don’t seem to understand each other. The last time I -saw you, you insulted and humiliated me. I don’t know how it can be, -but you seem to have forgotten all about it. I haven’t. I never can, -and I don’t want to see you or speak to you or think of you ever again -in this world.” - -“What makes you think I’ve forgotten?” he said, suddenly dropping his -voice to a key that thrilled with meaning. - -He saw the remark shake her into startled half-comprehension. That -she still took his words at their face value proved to him again how -strangely simple she was. - -“What makes you think I’ve forgotten?” he repeated. - -She raised her eyes in arrested astonishment and met his, now seeming -suddenly to have become charged with memories of the scene in the -cottage. - -“How could I forget?” he murmured. “Do you really think I could ever -forget that evening?” - -She turned away speechless with embarrassment and anger, recollections -of the kisses of that ill-omened interview burning in her face. - -“When a man wounds the one woman in the world he cares for, can he ever -forget, do you think?” - -He again had the gratification of seeing her flash a look of artless -surprise at him. - -“Then--then--” she stammered, completely bewildered, “if you know that -you wounded me so, why do you come back? Why do you speak to me now? -There is nothing more to be said between us.” - -“Yes, there is; much more.” - -She drew back, frowning, on the alert to go. For a second he thought he -was to lose this precious and unlooked-for chance of righting himself -with her. - -“Sit down,” he said entreatingly; “sit down; I must speak to you.” - -She turned from him and sent a quick glance toward Benito. She was -going. - -“Mariposa,” he said, desperately catching at her arm, “please--a -moment. Give me one moment. You _must_ listen to me.” - -She tried to draw her arm away, but he held it, and pleaded, genuine -feeling flushing his face and roughening his voice. - -“I beg--I implore--of you to listen to me. I only ask a moment. Don’t -condemn me without hearing what I have to say. I behaved like a -blackguard. I know it. It’s haunted me ever since. Sit down and listen -to me while I try to explain and make you forgive me.” - -He was really stirred; the sincerity of his appeal touched the heart, -once so warm, now grown so cold toward him. She sat down on the -bench, at the end farthest from him, her whole bearing suggesting -self-contained aloofness. - -“I know I shocked and hurt you. I know it’s just and natural for you to -treat me this way. I was mad. I didn’t know what I was saying. If you -knew how I have suffered since you would at least have some pity for -me. Can you guess what it means to give a blow to the being who is more -to you than all the rest of the world? I was mad for that one evening.” - -He paused, looking at her. Her profile was toward him, pale and -immovable. She neither turned nor spoke. He continued with a slight -diminution of confidence: - -“I’ve been a wild sort of fellow, consorting with all sorts of riffraff -and thinking lightly of women. I’ve met lots of all kinds. It was all -right to talk to them that way. You were different. I knew it from -the first. But that night in the cottage I lost my head. You looked -so pale and sad; my love broke the bonds I had put upon it. Can’t you -understand and forgive me?” - -He leaned toward her, his face tense and pale. As he became agitated -and fell into the position of pleader, she grew calm and regained her -hold on herself. There was a chill poise about her that frightened him. -He felt that if he attempted to touch her she would draw away with -quick, instinctive repugnance. - -She turned and looked into his face with cold eyes. - -“No, I don’t think I understand. I should think those very things you -mention would appeal to the chivalry of a man even if he didn’t care -for a woman.” - -“Do you doubt that I love you?” - -“Yes,” she said, turning away; “I don’t think that you ever could love -me or any other woman.” - -“Why do you say that?” - -She looked out over the grassy slope in front of them. - -“Because you don’t understand the first principles of it. When you’re -fond of people you don’t want to hurt and humiliate them. You don’t -want to drag them down to shame and misery. You’d die to save them from -those things. You want to protect them, help them, take care of them, -be proud of them and say to all the world: ‘Here, look; this is the -person I love!’” - -Her simplicity, that once would have amused him, now had something -in it that at once touched and alarmed him. There was a downright -conviction in it, that argument, eloquence, passion even, would not be -able to shake. - -“And that, Mariposa,” he said, ardently, “is the way I love you.” - -“That the way!” she echoed scornfully. “No--your way is to ask me to -destroy myself, body and soul. You ask me to give you everything, while -you give nothing. You say you love me, and yet you’re so ashamed of me -and your love, that it would have to be a hateful secret thing, that -you told lies about, and would expect me to tell lies about, too. I -can’t understand how you can dare to call it love. I can’t understand. -Oh, don’t talk about it any more. It’s all too horrible and cruel and -false!” - -Her words still further alarmed the man. He knew they were not those -of a woman swayed by sentiment, far less by passion. - -“That’s all true,” he said hastily, “that’s all true of what I said -to you that night in the cottage. Now it’s different. Aren’t you -large-hearted enough to forgive a man whose greatest weakness has been -his infatuation for you? I was a ruffian and you an unsuspecting angel. -Now I want to offer you the only kind of love that ever should be -offered you. Will you be my wife?” - -Mariposa started perceptibly. She turned and looked with amazed eyes -into his face. He seemed another man from the one who had so bitterly -humiliated her at their last interview. He was pale and in earnest. - -“Will you?” he repeated. - -“No,” she said with slow decisiveness, “I will not.” - -“No?” he exclaimed, in loud-voiced incredulity and bending his head to -look into her face. “No?” - -“No,” she reiterated; “I said no.” - -She felt with every moment that their positions were changing more and -more. She was gradually ascending to the command, while he was slowly -coming under her will. - -“Why do you say no?” he demanded. - -“Because I want to say no.” - -“But--but--why? Are you still angry?” - -“I want to say no,” she repeated. “I couldn’t say anything else.” - -“But you love me?” with angry persistence. - -“No, I don’t love you.” - -“You do,” he said in a low voice. “You’re not telling the truth. You do -love me. You know you do.” - -She looked at him with cold defiance, and said steadily: - -“I do not.” - -He drew nearer her along the bench and said with his eyes hard upon her: - -“I didn’t think you were the kind of woman to kiss a man you didn’t -care for.” - -He knew when he spoke the words they were foolish and jeopardized his -cause, but his fury at her disdainful attitude forced them from him. - -She turned pale and her nostrils quivered. He had given her a body -blow. For a moment they sat side by side looking at each other like two -enraged animals animated by equally violent if different passions. - -“Thank you for saying that,” she said, when she could command her -voice; “now I understand what your love for me means.” - -She rose from the bench. He seized her hand and attempted to draw her -back, saying: - -“Mariposa, listen to me. You drive me distracted. You force me to say -things like that to you, when you know that I’m mad with love for you. -Listen--” - -She tore her hand out of his grasp and ran across the space to the -slope, calling wildly to Benito. The boy at last could feign deafness -no longer and sat up on his heels in well-simulated surprise. - -“Come, come,” she cried angrily. “Come at once. I want you.” - -He rose, dusting his nether parts and shouting: - -“Why? why? we’re havin’ an awful nice time up here.” - -“Come,” she reiterated; “it’s late and we must go.” - -He trotted down the slope, extremely reluctant, and inclined to be -rebellious. - -Mariposa caught him by the hand and swept him back toward the path -between the spruces. Essex was still standing near the bench, an -elegant figure with a darkly sinister face. As they passed him he -raised his hat. Mariposa, whose face was bent down, did not return -the salute; so Benito did, as he was hauled by. She continued to drag -the unwilling little boy along, while he hung loosely from her hand, -staring backward for a last look at his playmate. - -“What’s your name?” he roared as he was dragged toward the shadowy path -that plunged into the trees. “I forget what your name is.” - -The answer was lost in the intervening space, and the next moment he -and Mariposa disappeared behind the screen of thick-growing evergreens. - -“Say,” said Benito, “leggo my hand. What’s the sense ’er hauling me -this way?” - -Mariposa did not heed, and they went on at a feverish pace. - -“What makes your hand shake that way?” was his next observation. “It’s -like grandma’s when she came home from Los Angeles with the chills.” - -There was something in this harmless comment that caused Mariposa -suddenly to loosen her hold. - -“My hand often does that way,” she said with an air of embarrassment. - -“What makes it?” asked Benito, suddenly interested. - -“I don’t know; perhaps playing the piano,” she said, feeling the -necessity of having to dissemble. - -“I’d like to be able to make my hand shake that way,” Benito observed -enviously. “When grandma had the chills I used to watch her. But she -shook all over. Sometimes her teeth used to click. Do your teeth ever -click?” - -The subject interested him and furnished food for conversation till -they reached their car and were swept homeward over the low hills, -breaking here and there into sand, and with the little oaks crouching -in grotesque fear before the winds. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY - - “Thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment. Thou hast - showed thy people hard things.”--PSALMS. - - -The third boarder at the Garcias’ was Isaac Pierpont, the teacher of -singing. The Garcia house offered, at least, the one recommendation -of being a place wherein musically inclined lodgers might make the -welkin ring with the sounds of their industry and no voice be raised -in protest. Between the pounding of her own pupils Mariposa could hear -the voices of Pierpont’s as they performed vocal prodigies under their -teacher’s goadings. - -The young man was unusual and interesting. He had a “method” which he -expounded to Mariposa during the process of meals. It was founded on a -large experience of voices in general and a close anatomical study of -the vocal chords. All he wanted, he said, to demonstrate its excellence -to the world was a voice. Mrs. Garcia, who used to drop in on Mariposa -with her head tied up in white swathings and a broom in her hand, had -early in their acquaintance given her a life history of the two other -boarders, with a running accompaniment of her own comments. Pierpont -had not her highest approval, as he was exasperatingly indifferent -to money, being bound, to the exclusion of all lesser interests, on -the search for his voice. Half his pupils were taught for nothing and -the other half forgot to pay, or Pierpont forgot to send in his bills, -which was the same thing in the end, Mrs. Garcia thought. - -“I can’t see what’s the good of working,” she said, daintily brushing -the surface of the carpet with her broom, “if you don’t make anything -by your work. What’s the sense of it, I’d like to know?” - -As soon as the singing teacher heard that Mariposa had a voice he had -espied in her the object of his search and begged her to sing for him. -But she had refused. She had not sung a note since her mother’s death. -The series of unforeseen and disastrous developments that had followed -the opening scene of the drama in which she found herself the central -figure had robbed her of all desire to use the gift which was her one -source of fortune. Sometimes, alone in her room, her fingers running -over the keys of the piano, she wondered dreamily what it would be -like once again to hear the full, vibrating sounds booming out from -her chest. Now and then she had tried a note or two or an old familiar -strain, then had stopped, repelled and disenchanted. Her voice sounded -coarse and strange. And while it quivered on the air there came a rush -of exquisitely painful memories. - -But one afternoon, a few days after her encounter with Essex, she had -come in early to find the lower hall full of the sound of a high, -crystal clear soprano, which was pouring from the teacher’s room. She -listened interested, held in a spell of envious attention. It was -evidently a girl of whom Pierpont had spoken to her, who possessed the -one voice of promise he had yet found, and who was studying for the -stage. Leaning over the stair-rail, Mariposa felt, with a tingling -at her heart, that this singing had a finish and poise hers entirely -lacked, and yet the voice was thin, colorless and fragile compared with -her own. With all its flawless ease and fluency it had not the same -splendor of tone, the same passionate thrill. - -She went slowly upstairs, pursued by the beautiful sounds, bending over -the railing to catch them more fully, with, for the first time since -her mother’s death, the desire to emulate, to be up and doing, to hear -once more the rich notes swelling from her throat. - -“Some day _I’ll_ sing for him,” she said to herself, with her head up -and her eyes bright, “and he’ll see that none of them has a voice like -mine.” - -The stir of enthusiasm was still on her when she shut the door of her -own room. It was hard to settle to anything with this sudden welling -up of old ambitions disturbing the apathy following on grief. She was -standing, looking down on the garden--a prospect which had long lost -its forlornness to her accustomed eyes--when a knock at the door fell -gratefully on her ears. Even the society of Mrs. Garcia, with her head -tied up in the white duster, had its advantages now and then. - -But it was not Mrs. Garcia, but Mrs. Willers whom the opening door -revealed. Mariposa’s welcome was warmed not only by the desire for -companionship but by genuine affection. She had come to regard Mrs. -Willers as her best friend. - -They did not see each other as often as formerly, for the newspaper -woman found all her time occupied by her new work. To-day being Monday, -she had managed to get off for the afternoon, as it was in the Sunday -edition that the Woman’s Page attained its most imposing proportions. -Monday was a day off. But Mrs. Willers did not always avail herself of -it. She was having the first real chance of her life and was working -harder than she had ever done before. Her bank account was mounting -weekly. On the occasions when she had time to consult the little book -she saw through the line of figures Edna going to a fine school in -New York, and then, perhaps, a still finer one abroad, and back of -that again--dimly, as became a blissful vision--Edna grown a woman, -accomplished, graceful, beautiful, a glorified figure in a haze of -wealth and success. - -She had no war-paint on to-day, but was in her working clothes, dark -and serviceable, showing lapses between skirt and waist-band, and tag -ends of tape appearing in unexpected places. She had dressed in such a -hurry that morning that only three buttons of each boot were fastened, -though the evening before Edna had seen to it that they were all on. -She had come up the hill on what she would have called “a dead run,” -and was still fetching her breath with gasps. - -Sitting opposite Mariposa, in the bright light of the window, she let -her eyes dwell fondly on the girl’s face. - -“Well, young woman, do you know I’ve come up here on the full jump to -lecture you?” - -“Lecture me?” said Mariposa, laughing and bending forward to give Mrs. -Willers’ hand a friendly squeeze. “What have I been doing now?” - -“That’s just what I’ve come to find out. Left a desk full of work, and -Miss Peebles hopping round like a chicken with its head off, to find -out what you’ve been doing. I’d have come up before only I couldn’t get -away. Mariposa, my dear, I’ve had a letter from Mrs. Shackleton.” - -Mariposa’s color deepened. A line appeared between her eyebrows, and -she looked out of the window. - -“Well,” she said; “and did she say anything about me?” - -“That’s what she did--a lot. A lot that sorter stumped me. And I’ve -come up here to-day to find out what’s the matter with you. What is it -that’s making you act like several different kinds of fool all at once?” - -“What do you mean?” said Mariposa weakly, trying to gain time. “What -did she tell you?” - -“My dear, you know as well as I do what she told me. And I can’t make -head or tail of it. What’s come over you?” - -“I don’t know,” said the girl in a low voice. “I suppose I’ve changed.” - -“Stuff!” observed Mrs. Willers briskly. “Don’t try to tell lies; -you don’t know how. One’s got to have some natural capacity for it. -You’ve had an offer that makes it possible for you to go to Europe, -educate your voice, study French and German, and become a prima donna. -Everything’s to be paid--no limit set on time or money. Now, what in -heaven’s name made you refuse that?” - -Facing her in the bright light, the questioner’s eyes were like gimlets -on her face. Mrs. Willers saw its distressed uneasiness, but could -read no further. Three days before she had received Mrs. Shackleton’s -letter, and had been amazed by its contents. She could neither assign -to herself nor to Mrs. Shackleton a reason for the girl’s unexplainable -conduct. - -“I can’t explain it to you,” said Mariposa. “I--I--didn’t want to go. -That was all.” - -“But you wanted to go only a month or two before, when Shackleton -himself made you the offer?” - -Mariposa nodded without answering. - -“But why? That’s the part that’s so extraordinary. You’d take it from -him, but not from his wife.” - -“A person might change her mind, mightn’t she?” - -“A fool might, but a reasonable woman, without a cent, with hardly a -friend, how could she?” - -“Well, she has.” - -“Mariposa, look me in the eye.” - -Mrs. Willers met the amber-clear eyes and saw, with an uneasy thrill, -that there was knowledge in them there had not been before. It was not -the limpid glance of the candid, unspoiled youth it had once been. She -felt a contraction of pain at her heart, as though she had read the -same change in Edna’s eyes. - -“What made you change your mind?--that’s what I want to know.” - -Mariposa lowered her lids. - -“I can’t tell. What makes anybody change his mind? You think -differently. Things happen that make you think differently.” - -“Well, what’s happened to make _you_ think differently?” - -The lines appeared again on the smooth forehead. She shifted her glance -to the window and then back to the hands on her lap. - -“Suppose I don’t want to tell? I’m not a little girl like Edna, to have -to tell every thought I have. Mayn’t I have a secret, Mrs. Willers?” - -She looked at her interlocutor with an attempt at a coaxing smile. Mrs. -Willers saw that it was an effort, and remained grave. - -“I don’t want you to have secrets from me, dear, no more than I would -Edna. Mariposa,” she said in a lowered voice, leaning forward and -putting her hand on the girl’s knee, “is it because of some man?” - -Mariposa looked up quickly. The elder woman saw that, for a moment, she -was startled. - -“Some man!” she exclaimed. “What man?” - -“You haven’t changed your mind because of Essex?” - -“Essex!” She slowly crimsoned, and Mrs. Willers kept her pitiless eyes -on the rising flood of color. - -“Oh, my dear girl,” she said almost in an agony, “don’t say you’ve got -fond of him.” - -“I don’t like Mr. Essex. I--I--can’t bear him.” - -Mrs. Willers knew enough of human nature not to be at all convinced by -this remark. - -“He’s not the man for any woman to give her heart to. He’s not the man -to take seriously. He’s never loved anything in his life but himself. -Don’t let yourself be fooled by him. He’s handsome, and he’s about the -smoothest talker I ever ran up against. But don’t you be crazy enough -to fall in love with him.” - -“I tell you, I don’t like him.” - -“My goodness, I wish there was somebody in this world to take care of -you. You’ve got no sense, and you’re so unfortunately good-looking. -Some day you’ll be fooled just as I was with Willers. Are you telling -the truth? It isn’t Essex that’s made you change your mind?” - -These repeated accusations exasperated Mariposa. - -“No, it is not,” she said angrily; and then, in the heat of her -annoyance, “if anything would make me accept Mrs. Shackleton’s offer it -would be the hope of getting away from that man.” - -There was no doubt she was speaking the truth now. Mrs. Willers’ point -of view of the situation underwent a kaleidoscopic upsetting. - -“Oh,” she said, in a subdued voice, “then it’s _he_ that’s in love?” - -The girl made no answer. She felt hot and sore, pricked by this -insistent probing of spots that were still raw. - -“Does he--does he--bother you?” the elder woman said in an incredulous -voice. Somehow she could not reconcile the picture of Essex as a -repulsed and suppliant wooer with her knowledge of him as such a very -self-assured and debonair person. - -“I don’t know what you mean by ‘bother me,’” said Mariposa, still -heated. “He makes love to me, and I don’t like it. I don’t like him.” - -“Makes love to you? What do you mean by ‘makes love to you?’” - -“He has asked me to be his wife,” said the victim, goaded to -desperation by this tormenting catechism. - -She could not have confessed that Essex had entertained other designs -with regard to her, any more than she could have told her real reason -for refusing Mrs. Shackleton’s offer. But she felt ashamed and -miserable at these half-truths, which her friend was giving ear to with -the wide eyes of wonder. - -“Humph!” said Mrs. Willers, “I never thought that man would want to -marry a poor girl. But that’s not as surprising as that you had sense -enough to refuse him.” - -“I don’t like him. I know I’m stupid, but I know when I like a person -and when I don’t. And I’d rather stand on the corner of Kearney and -Sutter Streets with a tin cup begging for nickels than marry Mr. Essex, -or be sent to Europe by Mrs. Shackleton.” - -“Well, you’re a combination of smartness and folly I never expect to -see beaten. You’ve got sense enough to refuse to marry a man who’s -bound to make you miserable. That’s astonishing in any girl. And then, -on the other hand, you throw up the chance of a lifetime for nothing. -That would be astonishing in a candidate for entrance into an asylum -for the feeble-minded.” - -“Perhaps I am feeble-minded,” said Mariposa humbly. “I certainly don’t -think I’m very clever, especially now with everybody telling me what a -fool I am.” - -“You’re only a fool on that one point, honey. And that’s what makes -it so aggravating. It’s just a kink in your brain, for you’ve got no -reason to act the way you do.” - -She spoke positively, but her pleading look at Mariposa showed that she -was not yet willing to give up the search for a reason. Mariposa leaned -forward and took her hand. - -“Oh, dear Mrs. Willers,” she said, “don’t ask me any more. Don’t tease -me. I do love you, and you’ve been so kind to me I can never stop -loving you, no matter what you did. But let me be. Perhaps I have a -reason, and perhaps I am only a fool, but whichever way it is, be sure -I haven’t acted hastily; and I’ve suffered, too, trying to do what -seemed to me right.” - -Her eyes suddenly filled with tears, and she got up quickly to hide -them, and stood looking out of the window. Mrs. Willers rose, too, and, -putting an arm around her, kissed her cheek. - -“All right,” she said, “I’ll try not to bother. But you want to tell -me whatever you think you can. You’re too good-looking, Mariposa, and -you’re such--a--” - -She stopped. - -“A fool,” came from Mariposa, in the stifled tones of imminent tears. -There was a moment’s pause, and then their simultaneous laughter filled -the room. - -“You see you can’t help saying it,” said Mariposa, laughing foolishly, -with the tears hanging on her lashes. “It’s like any other bad -habit--its getting entire control of you.” - -A few moments later Mrs. Willers was walking quickly down the hill -toward Sutter Street, her brows knit in thought. She had certainly -discovered nothing. In her pocket was Mrs. Shackleton’s letter telling -of Miss Moreau’s refusal of her offer and asking if Mrs. Willers -knew the reason of it. Mrs. Shackleton had wondered if Miss Moreau’s -affections had been engaged, which could perhaps account for her -otherwise unaccountable rejection of an opportunity upon which her -whole future might depend. - -Mrs. Willers had been relieved to find there was certainly no man -influencing Miss Moreau’s decision. For unless it was Essex, it could -be no one. Mrs. Willers knew the paucity of Mariposa’s social circle. -That Essex had asked the girl to marry him and been refused was -astonishing. The rejection was only a little more surprising than the -offer. For a man like Essex to want to marry a penniless orphan was -only exceeded in singularity by a girl like Mariposa refusing a man of -Essex’s indisputable attractions. But there was always something to be -thankful for in the darkest situation, and Mariposa undoubtedly had no -intention of marrying him. Providence was guiding her, at least, in -that respect. - -It was still early when Mrs. Willers approached _The Trumpet_ office. -The sky was leaden and hung with low clouds. As she drew near the -door the first few drops of rain fell, spotting the sidewalk here -and there as though they were slowly and reluctantly wrung from the -swollen heavens. It would be a storm, she thought, as she turned into -the doorway and began the ascent of the dark stairs with the lanterns -on the landings. In her own cubby-hole she answered Mrs. Shackleton’s -letter, and then passed along the passageway to the sanctum of the -proprietor, who was still in his office. - -Win, in his father’s swivel chair, looked very small and insignificant. -The wide window behind him let a flood of pale light over his -bullet-shaped head with its thatch of limp, blond hair, and his thin -shoulders bowed over the desk. His eyes narrowed behind his glasses as -he looked up in answer to Mrs. Willers’ knock, and then, when he saw -who it was, he smiled, for Win liked Mrs. Willers. - -She handed him the letter with the request that he give it to his -mother that evening, and sat down in the chair beside him, facing the -long white panes of the window, which the rain was beginning to lash. - -“My mother and you seem to be having a lively correspondence,” said -Win, who had brought down Mrs. Shackleton’s letter some days before. - -“Yes, we’ve got an untractable young lady on our hands, and it’s a -large order.” - -“Miss Moreau?” said the proprietor of _The Trumpet_. “My mother told -me. She’s very independent, isn’t she?” - -“She’s a strange girl. You can tell your mother, as I’ve told her in -this letter, that I don’t understand her at all. She’s got some idea in -her head, but I can’t make it out.” - -“Mightn’t a girl just be independent?” said the young man, putting up a -long, thin hand to press his glasses against his nose with a first and -second finger. “Just independent, and nothing else?” - -“There’s no knowing what a girl mightn’t be, Mr. Shackleton,” Mrs. -Willers responded gloomily. “I was one myself once, but it’s so long -ago I’ve forgotten what it’s like; and, thank heaven, it’s a stage -that’s soon passed.” - -It so happened that this little conversation set Win’s mind once more -to thinking of the girl his father had been so determined to find and -benefit. As he left _The Trumpet_ office, shortly after the withdrawal -of Mrs. Willers, his mind was full of the queries the finding of -the letters had aroused in it. The handsome girl he had seen that -afternoon, three months ago, appeared before his mental vision, and -this time as her face flashed out on him from the dark places of memory -it had a sudden tantalizing suggestion of familiarity. The question -came that so often teases us with the sudden glimpse of a vaguely -recognized face: “Where have I seen it before?” - -Win walked slowly up Third Street meditating under a spread umbrella. -It was raining hard now, a level downpour that beat pugnaciously on -the city, which gleamed and ran rillets of water under the onslaught. -People were scurrying away in every direction, women with umbrellas low -against their heads, one hand gripping up their skirts, from beneath -which came and went glimpses of muddy boots and wet petticoats. Loafers -were standing under eaves, looking out with yellow, apathetic faces. -The merchants of the quarter came to the doorways of the smaller shops -that Win passed, and stood looking out and then up into the sky with -musing smiles. It was a heavy rain, and no mistake. - -Win had a commission to execute before he went home, and so passed -up Kearney Street to Post, where, a few doors from the corner, he -entered a photographer’s. He was having a copy made on ivory of an old -daguerreotype of his father, to be given as a present to his mother, -and to-day it was to be finished. - -The photographer, a clever and capable man, had started the innovation -of having his studio roughly lined with burlaps, upon which photographs -of local belles and celebrities were fastened with brass-headed nails. -Win, waiting for his appearance, loitered round the room looking at -these, recognizing a friend here, and there a proud beauty who had -endured him as a partner at the cotillion because he was the only son -of Jake Shackleton. Farther on was one of Edna Willers, looking very -lovely and seraphic in her large-eyed innocence. - -On a small slip of wall between two windows there was only one picture -fastened, and as his eye fell on this he started. It was Mariposa -Moreau, in the lace dress she had worn at the opera, the face looking -directly and gravely into his. At the moment that his glance, fresh -from other faces, fell on it, the haunting suggestion of familiarity, -of having some intimate connection with or memory of it, possessed him -with sudden, startling force. Of whom did she remind him? - -He backed away from it, and, as he did so, was conscious that he knew -exactly the way her lips would open if she had been going to speak, of -the precise manner she had of lifting her chin. Yet he had seen her -only twice in his life that he knew of, and then in the half-dark. -It was not she that was known to him, but some one that she looked -like--some one he knew well, that had some vague, yet close connection -with his life. He felt in an eery way that his mind was gropingly -approaching the solution, had almost seized it, when the photographer’s -voice behind him broke the thread. - -“It will be ready in a moment, Mr. Shackleton,” he said. “You’re -looking at that picture. It’s a Miss Moreau, a young lady who, I -believe, is a singer. I put it there by itself, as I was just a little -proud of it.” - -“It’s a stunning picture and no mistake,” said Win, arranging his -glasses, “but it must be easy to make a picture of a girl like that.” - -“On the contrary, I think it’s hard. Miss Moreau’s handsome, but it’s -a beauty that’s more suitable to a painter than a photographer. It’s -the coloring that’s so remarkable, so rich and yet so refined--that -white skin and dark red hair. That’s why I am proud of the picture. It -suggests the coloring, I think. It seems to me there’s something warm -about that hair.” - -Win said vaguely, yes, he guessed there must be, wondering what the -fellow meant about there being something warm about the hair. Further -comment was ended by an attendant coming forward with the picture and -handing it to the photographer. - -The man held it out to Win with a proud smile. It was an enlargement -of a small daguerreotype, taken some twenty years previously, and -representing Shackleton in full face and without his beard. The work -had been excellently done. It was a faithful and spirited likeness. - -As his eye fell on it Win suffered a sudden and amazing revelation. -It was like a dazzling flash of light tearing away the shadows of a -dark place. Through the obscurity of his mind enlightenment rent like -a current of electricity. That was what the memory was, that dim sense -of previous knowledge, that groping after something well known and yet -elusive. - -He stared at the picture, and then turned and looked at Mariposa’s -hanging on the wall. The photographer, looking commiseratingly at him, -evidently mistaking his obvious perturbation of mind for a rush of -filial affection, recalled him to himself. He did not know that he was -pale, but he saw that the plate of ivory in his hand trembled. - -“It’s--it’s--first-rate,” he said in a low voice. “I’m tremendously -pleased. Send it to _The Trumpet_ office to-morrow, and the bill with -it, please. You’ve done an A number one job.” - -He turned away and went slowly out, the photographer and his assistant -looking curiously after him. There were steps to go down before he -regained the street, and he descended them in a maze, the rain pouring -on his head, his closed umbrella in his hand. It was all as clear as -daylight now--the secret searching out of the mother and daughter, the -interest taken by his father in the beautiful and talented girl, his -desire to educate and provide for her. It was all as plain as A, B, C. - -“She was so different from Maud and me,” Win thought humbly, as he -moved forward in the blinding rain. “No wonder he was fond of her.” - -It was so astonishing, so simple, and yet so hard to realize in the -first moment of discovery this way, that he stopped and stood staring -at the pavement. - -Two of his friends, umbrellaed and mackintoshed, bore down on him, not -recognizing the motionless figure with the water running off its hat -brim till they were close on him. - -“Win, gone crazy!” cried one gaily. “When did it come on, Winnie boy?” - -He looked up startled, and had presence of mind enough not to open his -umbrella. - -“Win’s trying to grow,” said the other, knowing that his insignificant -size was a mortification to the young man. “So he’s standing out in the -rain like a plant.” - -“Rain’s all right,” said Win. “I like it.” - -“No doubt about that, sonny. Only thing to doubt’s your sanity.” - -“Cute little day, ain’t it?” said his companion. - -“Win likes it,” said the first. “Keep it up, old chap, and you’ll be -six feet high before the winter’s over.” - -And they went off cackling to the club to tell the story of Win, with -the water pouring off his hat and his glasses damp, standing staring at -the pavement on Post Street. - -Win opened his umbrella and went on. He walked home slowly and by a -circuitous route. His mind traversed the subject back and forth, and -at each moment he became more convinced, as all the muddle of puzzling -circumstances fell into place in logical sequence. - -She was his half-sister, older than he was--his father’s first-born. -By this accident of birth she was an outcast, penniless and -unacknowledged, from the home and fortune he and Maud had inherited. -At the very moment when the father had found her free to accept his -bounty he had been snatched away. And she knew it. That was the -explanation of her changeable conduct. She had found it out in some way -between the deaths of her mother and Shackleton. Some one had told her -or she had discovered it herself. - -In the dripping dark Win pondered it all, going up and down the -ascending streets in a tortuous route homeward, wondering at fate, -communing with himself. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -REBELLIOUS HEARTS - - “Constant you are, - But yet a woman; and for secrecy, - No lady closer, for I will believe - Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know.” - - --SHAKESPEARE. - - -Win found his mother in her boudoir and delivered Mrs. Willers’ letter -to her without comment. He saw her read it and then sit silent, her -brows drawn, looking into the fire beside which she sat. It was -impossible just then for him to allude to the subject of the letter, -and, after standing by the mantelpiece awkwardly warming his wet feet, -he went upstairs to his own rooms. - -At dinner the family trio was unusually quiet. Under the blaze of light -that fell from the great crystal chandelier over the table with its -weight of glass and silver, the three participants looked preoccupied -and stupid. The two Chinese servants, soft-footed as cats, and spotless -in their crisp white, moved about the table noiselessly, offering dish -after dish to their impassive employers. - -It was one of those irritating occasions when everything seems to -combine for the purpose of exasperating. Bessie, annoyed by the -contents of Mrs. Willers’ letter, found her annoyance augmented by the -fact that Maud looked particularly plain that evening, and the Count de -Lamolle was expected after dinner. Worry had robbed her face of such -sparkle as it possessed and had accentuated its ungirlish heaviness. -She felt that her engagement to Latimer must be announced, for the -Count de Lamolle was exhibiting those signs of a coming proposal that -she knew well, and what excuse could she give her mother for rejecting -him? She must tell the truth, and the thought alarmed her shrinking -and peaceable soul. She sat silent, crumbling her bread with a nervous -hand and wondering how she could possibly avert the offer if the count -showed symptoms of making it that evening. - -After dinner her mother left her in the small reception-room, a rich -and ornate apartment, furnished in an oriental manner with divans, -cushions, and Moorish hangings. The zeal for chaperonage had not -yet penetrated to the West, and Bessie considered that to leave her -daughter thus alone was to discharge her duties as a parent with -delicate correctness. She retired to the adjoining library, where -the count, on entering, had a glimpse of her sitting in a low chair, -languidly turning the pages of a magazine. He, on his part, had lived -in the West long enough to know that the disposal of the family in -these segregated units was what custom and conventionality dictated. - -The count was a clever man and had studied the United States from other -points of vantage than the window of a Pullman car. - -With the murmur of his greetings to Maud in her ears, Bessie rose from -her chair. She found the library chill and cheerless after her cozy -boudoir on the floor above, and decided to go there. Glancing over her -shoulder, as she mounted the stairs, she could see the count standing -with his back to the fire, discoursing with a smile--a handsome, -personable man, with his dark face and pointed beard looking darker -than ever over his gleaming expanse of shirt bosom. It would be an -entirely desirable marriage for Maud. Bessie had found out all about -the count’s position and title in his native land, and both were all -that he said they were, which had satisfied and surprised her. - -In her own room she sat down before the fire to think. Maud’s future -was in her own hands now, molding itself into shape downstairs in the -reception-room. Bessie could do no more toward directing it than she -had already done, and her active mind immediately seized on the other -subject that had been engrossing it. She drew out Mrs. Willers’ letter -and read it again. Then crumpling it in her hand, she looked into the -fire with eyes of somber perplexity. - -What was the matter with the girl? Mrs. Willers stated positively that, -as far as she could ascertain, there was no man that had the slightest -influence over Mariposa Moreau’s affections. She was acting entirely on -her own volition. But what had made her change her mind, Mrs. Willers -did not know. Something had undoubtedly occurred, she thought, that had -influenced Mariposa to a total reversal of opinion. Mrs. Willers said -she could not imagine what this was, but it had changed the girl, not -only in ambition and point of view, but in character. - -The letter frightened Bessie. It had made her silent all through -dinner, and now brooding over the fire, she thought of what it might -mean and felt a cold apprehension seize her. Could Mariposa know? -Her behavior and conduct since Shackleton’s death suggested such -a possibility. It was incredible to think of, but Lucy might have -told. And also, might not the girl, in arranging her mother’s effects -after her death, have come on something, letters or papers, which had -revealed the past? - -A memory rose up in Bessie’s mind of the girl wife she had supplanted, -clinging to the marriage certificate, which was all that remained to -remind her of the days when she had been the one lawful wife. Bessie -knew that this paper had been carefully tied in the bundle which held -Lucy’s few possessions when they left Salt Lake. She knew it was still -in the bundle when she, herself, had handed it to the deserted girl in -front of Moreau’s cabin. Might not Mariposa have found it? - -She rose and walked about the room, feeling sick at the thought. She -was no longer young, and her iron nerve had been permanently shaken -by the suddenness of her husband’s death. Mariposa, with her mother’s -marriage certificate, might be plotting some desperate _coup_. No -wonder she refused to go to Paris! If she could establish her claim as -Shackleton’s eldest and only legitimate child, she would not only sweep -from Win and Maud the lion’s share of their inheritance, but, equally -unbearable, she would drag to the light the ugly story--the terrible -story that Jake Shackleton and his second wife had so successfully -hidden. - -Her thoughts were suddenly broken in on by the bang of the front door. -She looked at the clock and saw it was only nine. If it was the count -who was going he had stayed less than an hour. What had happened? She -moved to the door and listened. - -She heard a light step, slowly and furtively mounting the stairs. It -was Maud, for, though she could attempt to deaden her footfall, she -could not hush the rustling of her silken skirts. As the sweeping sound -reached the stair-head, Bessie opened her door. Maud stopped short, -her black dress fading into the darkness about her, so that her white -face seemed to be floating unattached through the air like an optical -delusion. - -“Why, mommer,” she said, falteringly, “I thought you were in bed.” - -“Has the count gone?” queried her mother, with an unusual sternness of -tone. - -“Yes,” said the girl, “he’s gone. He--he--went early to-night.” - -“Why did he go so early?” - -“He didn’t want to stay any longer.” - -Maud was terrified. Her hand clutching the balustrade was trembling and -icy. In her father’s lifetime she had known that she would never dare -to tell of her engagement to Latimer. She would have ended by eloping. -Now, the fear of her mother, who had always been the gentler parent, -froze her timid soul, and even the joy of her love seemed swamped in -this dreadful moment of confession. - -“Did the count ask you to marry him?” said Bessie. - -“Yes! and--” with tremulous desperation, “I said no, I couldn’t.” - -“You said no! that’s not possible. You couldn’t be such a fool.” - -“Well, I was, and I said it.” - -“Come in here, Maud,” said her mother, standing back from the doorway; -“we can’t talk sensibly this way.” - -But Maud did not move. - -“No, I don’t want to go in there,” she said, like a naughty child; -“there’s nothing to talk about. I don’t want to marry him and I told -him so and he’s gone, and that’s the end of it.” - -“The end of it! That’s nonsense. I want you to marry Count de Lamolle. -I don’t want to hear silly talk like this. I’ll write to him to-morrow.” - -“Well, it won’t do you or him any good,” said Maud, to whom fear was -giving courage, “for I won’t marry him, and neither you nor he can drag -me to the altar if I won’t go. It’s not the time of the Crusades.” - -If Maud’s allusion was not precisely illuminating, her mother -understood it. - -“It may not be the time of the Crusades,” she said, grimly, “but -neither is it a time when girls can be fools and no one hold out a -hand to check them. Do you realize what this marriage means for you? -Position, title, an entrance into society that you never in any other -way could put as much as the end of your nose into.” - -“If I don’t want to put even the end of my nose into it, what good does -it do me? You know I hate society. I hate going to dinners and sitting -beside people who talk to me about things I don’t understand or care -for. I hate going to balls and dancing round and round like a teetotum -with men I don’t like. And if it’s bad here, what would it be over -there where I don’t speak their language or know their ways, and they’d -think I was just something queer and savage the count had caught over -here with a lasso.” - -Fears and doubts she had never spoken of to any one but Latimer came -glibly to her lips in this moment of misery. Her mother was surprised -at her fluency. - -“You’re piling up objections out of nothing,” she said. “When those -people over in France know what your fortune is, make no mistake, -they’ll be only too glad to know you and be your friend. They’ll not -think you queer and savage. You’ll be on the top of everything over -there, not just one of a bunch of bonanza heiresses, as you are here. -And the count? Do you know any one so handsome, so gentlemanly, so -elegant and polite in San Francisco?” - -“I know a man I like better,” said Maud, in a muffled voice. - -The white face, with its dimly suggested figure, looked whiter than -ever. - -“What do you mean by that?” said her mother, stiffening. - -“I mean Jack Latimer.” - -“Jack Latimer? One of your father’s clerks! Maud, come in here at once. -I can’t stand talking in the hall of things like this.” - -“No, I won’t come in,” cried Maud, backing away against the baluster, -and feeling as she used to do in her juvenile days, when she was hauled -by the hand to the scene of punishment. “There’s nothing more to talk -about. I’m engaged to Jack Latimer, and I’m going to marry him, and -that’s the beginning and the end of it all.” - -She felt desperately defiant, standing there in the darkness looking at -her mother’s massive shape against the glow of the lit doorway. - -“Jack Latimer!” reiterated Mrs. Shackleton, “who only gets a hundred -and fifty dollars a month and has to give some of it to his people.” - -“Well, haven’t I got enough for two?” - -“Maud, you’ve gone crazy. All I know is that I’ll not let you spoil -your future. I’ll write to Count de Lamolle to-morrow, and I’ll write -to Jack Latimer, too.” - -“What good will that do anybody? Count de Lamolle can’t marry me if -I don’t want to. And why should Jack Latimer throw me over because -you ask him to? He,” she made a tremulous hesitation that would have -touched a softer heart, and then added, “he likes me.” - -“Likes you!” repeated her mother, with furious scorn, “he likes the -five million dollars.” - -“It’s me,” said Maud, passionately; “it isn’t the money. And he’s the -only person in the world except Win who has ever really liked me. I -don’t feel when I’m with him that I’m so ugly and stupid, the way I -feel with everybody else. He likes to hear me talk, and when he looks -at me I don’t feel as if he was saying to himself, ‘What an ugly girl -she is, anyway.’ But I feel that he doesn’t know whether I’m pretty or -ugly. He only knows he loves me the way I am.” - -She burst into wild tears, and before her mother could answer or arrest -her, had brushed past her and fled up the next flight of stairs, -the sound of her sobs floating down from the upper darkness to the -listener’s ears. Bessie retreated into the boudoir and shut the door. - -Maud ran on and burst into her own room, there to throw herself on the -bed and weep despairingly for hours. She thought of her lover, the -one human being besides her brother who had never made her feel her -inferiority, and lying limp and shaken among the pillows, thought, with -a wild thrill of longing of the time when she would be free to creep -into his arms and hide the ugly face he found so satisfactory upon his -heart. - -In the morning, before she was up, Bessie visited her and renewed the -conversation of the night before. Poor Maud, with a throbbing head and -heavy eyes, lay helpless, answering questions that probed the tender -secrets of the clandestine courtship, which had been to her an oasis -of almost terrifying happiness in the lonely repression of her life. -Finally, unable longer to endure her mother’s sarcastic allusions to -Latimer’s disingenuousness, she sprang out of bed and ran into the -bath-room, which was part of the suite she occupied. Here she turned -on both taps, the sound of the rushing water completely drowning her -mother’s voice, and sitting on the side of the tub, looked drearily -down into the bath, while Bessie’s concluding and indignant sentences -rose from the outer side of the door. - -Mrs. Shackleton lunched alone that day. Win generally went to his club -for his midday meal, and Maud had gone out early and found hospitality -at the house of Pussy Thurston. Bessie had done more thinking that -morning in the intervals of her domestic duties--she was a notable -housekeeper and personally superintended every department of her -establishment--and had decided to dedicate part of the afternoon to -the society of Mrs. Willers. One of the secrets of Mrs. Shackleton’s -success in life had been her power to control and retain interests in -divers matters at the same time. Maud’s unpleasant news had not pushed -the even more weighty subject of Mariposa into abeyance. It was as -prominent as ever in the widow’s mind. - -She drove down to _The Trumpet_ office soon after lunch and slowly -mounted the long stairs. It would have been a hardship for any other -woman of her years and weight, but Bessie’s bodily energy was still -remarkable, and she had never indulged herself in the luxury of -laziness. At the top of the fourth flight she paused, panting, while -the astonished office boy stared at her, recognizing her as the chief’s -mother. - -Mrs. Willers was in her cubby-hole, with a drop-light sending a little -circle of yellow radiance over the middle of the desk. A litter of -newspaper cuttings surrounded her, and Miss Peebles, at the moment of -Mrs. Shackleton’s entrance, was in the cane-bottomed chair, in which -aspirants for journalistic honors usually sat. The rustle of Mrs. -Shackleton’s silks and the faint advancing perfume that preceded her, -announced an arrival of unusual distinction, and Miss Peebles had -turned uneasily in the chair and Mrs. Willers was peering out from the -circle of the drop-light, when the lady entered the room. - -Miss Peebles rose with a flurried haste and thrust forward the chair, -and Mrs. Willers extricated herself from the heaped up newspapers and -extended a welcoming hand. The greetings ended, the younger woman bowed -herself out, her opinion of Mrs. Willers, if possible, higher even than -it had been before. - -Mrs. Willers was surprised, but discreetly refrained from showing it. -She had known Mrs. Shackleton for several years, and had once heard, -from her late chief, that his wife approved her matter and counseled -her advancement. - -But to have her appear thus unannounced in the intimate heat and burden -of office hours was decidedly unexpected. Mrs. Shackleton knew this and -proceeded to explain. - -“You must think it queer, my coming down on you this way, when you’re -up to your neck in work, but I won’t keep you ten minutes.” She looked -at the small nickel clock that ticked aggressively in the middle of the -desk. “And I know you are too busy a woman to ask you to come all the -way up to my house. So I’ve come down to you.” - -“Pleased and flattered,” murmured Mrs. Willers, pushing back her chair, -and kicking a space in the newspapers, so that she could cross her -knees at ease. “But, don’t hurry, Mrs. Shackleton. Work’s well on and -I’m at your disposal for a good many ten minutes.” - -“It’s just to talk over that letter you sent me by Win. What do you -understand by Miss Moreau’s behavior, Mrs. Willers?” - -“I don’t understand anything by it. I don’t understand it at all.” - -“That’s the way it seems to me. There’s only one explanation of it that -I can see, and you say that isn’t the right one.” - -“What was that?” - -“That there’s some man here she’s interested in. When a girl of that -age, without a cent, or a friend or a prospect, refuses an offer that -means a successful and maybe a famous future, what’s a person to think? -Something’s stopping her. And the only thing I know of that would stop -her is that she’s fallen in love. But you say she hasn’t.” - -“She don’t strike me as being so. She don’t talk like a girl in love.” - -“Is there any man who is interested in her and sees her continually?” - -Mrs. Willers was naturally a truthful woman, but a hard experience -of life had taught her to prevaricate with skill and coolness when -she thought the occasion demanded it. She saw no menace now, however, -and was entirely in sympathy with Mrs. Shackleton in her annoyance at -Mariposa’s irritating behavior. - -“Yes,” she said, nodding with grave eyes, “there _is_ a man.” - -“Oh, there _is_,” said the other, bending forward with a sudden eager -interest that was not lost upon Mrs. Willers. “Who?” - -“One of our men here, Barry Essex.” - -“Essex!” exclaimed the widow, with a sudden light of relieved -comprehension suffusing her glance. “Of course. I know him. That dark, -foreign-looking man that nobody knows anything about. Mr. Shackleton -thought a great deal of him; said he was thrown away on _The Trumpet_. -He’s not a bit an ordinary sort of person.” - -“That’s the one,” said Mrs. Willers, nodding her head in somber -acquiescence. “And you’re right about nobody knowing anything about -him. He’s a dark mystery, I think.” - -“And you say he’s in love with her?” - -“That’s what I’d infer from what she tells me.” - -“What _does_ she tell you?” - -“He’s asked her to marry him.” - -“Then they’re engaged. That accounts for the whole thing.” - -“No, they’re not engaged. She’s refused him.” - -“Refused him? That girl who’s been living in an adobe at Santa Barbara, -refuse that fine-looking fellow? Why, she’ll never see a man like that -again in her life. _She’s_ not refused him? Of course, she’s engaged to -him.” - -“No, you’re mistaken. She’s not. She doesn’t like him.” - -“That’s what she tells you. Girls always say that sort of thing. That -explains the way she’s acted from the start. He hadn’t asked her when -Mr. Shackleton was alive. She’s engaged to him now and doesn’t want to -leave him. She struck me as just that soft, sentimental sort.” - -“You’re wrong, Mrs. Shackleton; I know Mariposa Moreau. She tells the -truth; all of it. That’s why it’s so hard sometimes to understand what -she means. We’re not used to it. She doesn’t like that man, and she -wouldn’t marry him if he was hung all over with diamonds and was going -to give her the Con Virginia for a wedding present.” - -“Bosh!” ejaculated her companion, with sudden, sharp irritation. -“That’s what she says. They have no money to marry on, I suppose, and -she’s trying to keep her engagement secret. It explains everything. -I must say I’m relieved. I had the girl on my mind, and it seemed to -me she was so senseless and fly-away that you didn’t know where she’d -fetch up.” - -Mrs. Willers was annoyed. It was not pleasant to her to hear Mariposa -spoken of this way. But a long life of struggle and misfortune had -taught her, among other valuable things, the art of hiding unprofitable -anger under a bland smile. - -“Well, all I can say,” she said, laughing quite naturally, “is that I -hope you’re wrong. I’m sure I don’t want to see her married to that -man.” - -“Why not?” queried Mrs. Shackleton, with the sudden arrested glance of -surprised curiosity. “What is there to object to in such a marriage?” - -“Hundreds of things,” answered Mrs. Willers, feeling that there are -many disadvantages in having to converse with your employer’s mother -on the subject of one of your best friends. “Who knows anything about -Barry Essex? No one knows where he comes from, or who he is, or even -if Essex is his name. I don’t believe it is, at all. I think he just -took it because it sounds like the aristocracy. And what’s his record? -I’ll lay ten to one there are things behind him he wouldn’t like to see -published on the front page of _The Trumpet_. He’s no man to make a -girl happy.” - -“You seem to be taking a good deal for granted. Because you don’t know -anything about him, it’s no reason to suppose the worst. He certainly -looks and acts like a gentleman, and he’s finely educated. And isn’t it -better for a girl like Miss Moreau to have a husband to take care of -her than to go roaming around by herself, throwing away every chance -she gets, for some crazy notion? That young woman’s not able to take -care of herself. The best thing for her is to get Barry Essex to do it -for her.” - -“I’ve known women,” said Mrs. Willers, judicially, “who thought that -a bad husband was better than no husband at all. But I’m not of that -opinion myself, having had one of the bad ones. Solomon said a corner -of a housetop and a dinner of herbs was better than a wide house with -a brawling woman. And I tell you that one room in Tar Flat and beef’s -liver for every meal is better than a palace on Nob Hill with a husband -that’s no account.” - -“I’m afraid you’re inclined to look on the dark side of matrimony,” -said Mrs. Shackleton, laughing, as she rose from her chair. - -“May be so,” said the other; “but after my experience I don’t think it -such a blissful state that I want to round up all my friends and drive -them into the corral, whether they want to go or not.” - -Mrs. Shackleton looked down for a pondering moment. She was evidently -not listening. Raising her head she met Mrs. Willers’ half-sad, -half-twinkling eyes with a gaze of keen scrutiny, and said: - -“Then if it isn’t a love affair, what is it that’s made Miss Moreau -change her mind?” - -“Ah!” Mrs. Willers shrugged her shoulders. “That’s what I’d like to -know as well as you. I can only say what it’s not.” - -“And that’s Barry Essex. Well, Mrs. Willers, you’re a smart woman, but -you know your business better than you do the vagaries of young girls. -I don’t know Miss Moreau well, but I’d like to bet that I understand -her this time better than you do.” - -She smiled genially and held out her hand. - -“My ten minutes are up,” nodding at the clock. “And I’m too much of -a business woman to outstay my time limit. No”--in answer to Mrs. -Willers’ polite demur--“I must go.” - -She moved toward the door, then paused and said: - -“Isn’t Essex a sort of Frenchman? Or wasn’t he, anyway, brought up in -Paris, or had a French mother, or something?” - -“As to his mother,” said Mrs. Willers, sourly, “the Lord alone knows -who she was. I’ve heard she was everything from the daughter of a duke -to a snake-charmer in a dime museum. But he told me he was born and -partly educated in Paris, and Madame Bertrand, at the Rôtisserie, tells -me he must have been, as he talks real French French, not the kind you -learn out of a book.” - -“He certainly looks like a Frenchman,” said the departing guest. -“Well, good by. It’s a sort of bond between us to try to settle to -her advantage this silly girl who doesn’t want to be settled. If you -hear any more of her affair with Essex, you might let me know. In spite -of my criticisms, I take the greatest interest in her. I wouldn’t -criticize if I didn’t.” - -As Mrs. Shackleton was slowly descending the long stairs, Mrs. Willers -still stood beside her desk, thinking. The visit had surprised her in -the beginning. Now it left her feeling puzzled and vaguely disturbed. -Why did Mrs. Shackleton seem to be so desirous of thinking that -Mariposa was betrothed to Essex? The bonanza king’s widow was a woman -of large charities and carelessly magnificent generosities, but she -was also a woman of keen insight and unwavering common sense. Her -interest in Mariposa was as strong as her husband’s, and was entirely -explainable as his had been, in the light of their old acquaintance -with the girl’s father. What Mrs. Willers could not understand was how -any person, who had Mariposa Moreau’s welfare at heart, could derive -satisfaction from the thought of her marrying Barry Essex. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -FRIEND AND BROTHER - - “Wisdom is good with an inheritance, and by it there is profit to - them that see the sun.”--ECCLESIASTES. - - -Mariposa’s sixteen dollars a month had been augmented to twenty-eight -by the accession of three new pupils. These had been acquired through -Isaac Pierpont, who was glad to find a cheap teacher for his potential -prima donnas, who were frequently lacking in the simplest knowledge of -instrumental music. - -Mariposa was impressed and flattered by her extended clientele, and at -first felt some embarrassment in finding that one of the pupils was -a woman ten years older than herself. The worry she had felt on the -score of her living was now at rest, for Pierpont had promised her his -continued aid, and her new scholars professed themselves much pleased -with her efforts. - -Her monthly earnings were sufficient to cover her exceedingly modest -living expenses. The remnants of her fortune--the few dollars left -after her mother’s funeral and the money realized by the sale of -the jewelry and furniture that were the last relics of their _beaux -jours_--made up the amount of three hundred and twenty dollars. This -was in the bank. In the little desk that stood on a table in her room -was the five hundred dollars in gold Shackleton had sent her. She -had not touched it and never intended to, seeming to repudiate its -possession by keeping it thus secret and apart from her other store. - -The time was wearing on toward mid-December. Christmas was beginning -to figure in the conversation of Miguel and Benito, and with an eye -to its approach they had both joined a Sunday-school, to which they -piously repaired every Sabbath morn. They had introduced the question -of presents in their conversations with Mariposa with such smiling -persistence that she had finally promised them that, on her first free -afternoon, she would go down town and price certain articles they -coveted. The afternoon came within a few days after her promise, one of -her pupils sending her word that she was invited out of town for the -holidays, and her lessons would cease till after New Year’s. - -The pricing had evidently been satisfactory, for, late in the -afternoon, Mariposa turned her face homeward, her hands full of small -packages. It was one of the clear, hazeless days of thin atmosphere, -with an edge of cold, that are scattered through the San Francisco -winter. There is no frost in the air, but the chill has a searching -quality which suggests winter, as does the wild radiance of the sunset -spread over the west in a transparent wash of red. The invigorating -breath of cold made the young girl’s blood glow, and she walked rapidly -along Kearney Street, the exercise in the sharp air causing a faint, -unusual pink to tint her cheeks. Her intention was to walk to Clay -Street and then take the cable-car, which in those days slid slowly up -the long hills, past the Plaza and through Chinatown. - -She was near the Plaza, when a hail behind her fell on her ear, and -turning, she saw Barron close on her heels, his hands also full of -small packages. He had been at the mines for two weeks, and she could -but notice the unaffected gladness of his greeting. She felt glad, -too, a circumstance of which, for some occult reason, she was ashamed, -and the shame and the gladness combined lent a reserved and yet -conscious quality to her smile and kindled a charming embarrassment -in her eye. They stood by the curb, he looking at her with glances of -naïve admiration, while she looked down at her parcels. Passers-by -noticed them, setting them down, she in her humble dress, he in his -unmetropolitan roughness of aspect, as a couple from the country, a -rancher or miner and his handsome sweetheart. - -He took her parcels away from her, and they started forward toward the -Plaza. - -“Do you hear me panting?” he said, laying his free hand on his chest. - -“No, why should you pant?” - -“Because I’ve been running all down Kearney Street for blocks after -you. I never knew any one to walk as fast in my life. I thought even if -I didn’t catch you you’d hear me panting behind you and think it was -some new kind of fire-engine and turn round and look. But you never -wavered--simply went on like a racer headed for the goal. Did you walk -so fast because you knew I was behind you?” - -She looked at him quickly with a side glance of protest and met his -eyes full of quizzical humor and yet with a gleam of something eager -and earnest in them. - -“I like to walk fast in this cold air. It makes me feel so alive. For -a long time I’ve felt as though I were half dead, and you don’t know -how exhilarating it is to feel life come creeping back. It’s like being -able to breathe freely after you’ve been almost suffocated. But where -did you see me on Kearney Street?” - -“I was in a place buying things for the boys. I was looking at a drum -for Benito, and I just happened to glance up, and there you were -passing. I dropped the drum and ran.” - -“A _drum_ for Benito! Oh, Mr. Barron, don’t get Benito a drum!” - -He could not control his laughter at the sight of her expression of -horrified protest. He laughed so loudly that people looked at him. She -smiled herself, not quite knowing why, and insensibly, both feeling -curiously light-hearted, they drew closer together. - -“What can I get?” he said. “I looked at knives and guns, and I knew -that they wouldn’t do. Benito would certainly kill Miguel and probably -grandma. I thought of a bat and ball, and then I knew he’d break all -the windows. The man in the store wanted me to buy a bow and arrow, -but I saw him taking his revenge on the crab lady. Benito’s a serious -problem any way you take him.” - -They had come to the Plaza, once an open space of sand, round which the -wild, pioneer city swept in whirlpool currents, now already showing the -lichened brick and dropping plaster, the sober line of house-fronts, -of an aging locality. Where Chinatown backed on the square the houses -had grown oriental, their western ugliness, disguised by the touch of -gilding that, here and there, incrusted their fronts, the swaying of -crimson lanterns, the green zigzags of dwarf trees. Over the top of the -Clay Street hill the west shone red through smoke which filled the air -with a keen, acrid smell. It told of hearth-fires. And oozing out of -a thousand chimneys and streaming across the twilight city it told of -homes where the good wife made ready for her man. - -“Let’s not take the cars,” said Barron. “Let’s walk home. Can you -manage those hills?” - -She gave a laughing assent, and they turned upward, walking slowly as -befitted the climb. Chinatown opened before them like the mysterious, -medieval haunt of robbers in an old drawing. The murky night was -settling on it, shot through with red gleams at the end of streets, -where the sunset pried into its peopled darkness. The blackness of -yawning doorway and stealthy alley succeeded the brilliancy of a -gilded interior, or a lantern-lit balcony. Strange smells were in the -air, aromatic and noisome, as though the dwellers in this domain were -concocting their wizard brews. There was a sound of shifting feet, a -chatter of guttural voices, and a vision of faces passing from light to -shadow, marked by a weird similarity, and with eyes like bits of onyx -let into the tight-drawn skin. - -It was an alien city, a bit of the oldest civilization in the world, -imbedded in the heart of the newest. Touches of bizarre, of sinister -picturesqueness filled it with arresting interest. On the window-sills -lilies, their stalks bound with strips of crimson paper, grew in blue -and white china bowls filled with pebbles round which their white roots -clung. Miniature pine-trees, in pots of brass, thrust their boughs -between the rusty ironwork of old balconies. Through an open doorway a -glimpse was given down a dark hallway, narrow, black, a gas-jet, like a -tiny golden tear, diffusing a frightened gleam of light. From some dim -angle the glow of a blood-red lantern mottled a space of leprous wall. -On a tottering balcony a woman’s face, rounded like a child’s, crimson -lipped, crowned with peach blossoms, looked down from shadows, the -light of a lantern catching and loosening the golden traceries of her -rich robe, the trail of peach blossoms against her cheek. - -The ascent was long and steep, and they walked slowly, talking in a -desultory fashion. Mariposa recounted the trivial incidents that had -taken place in the Garcia house during her companion’s absence. As they -breasted the last hill the light grew brighter, for the sunset still -lingered in a reluctant glow. - -“Take my arm,” said Barron. “You’re out of breath.” - -She took it, and they began slowly to mount the last steep blocks. She -glanced up at him to smile her thanks for his support, and met his -eyes, looking intently at her. The red light strengthened on her face -as they ascended. - -“You’ve the strangest eyes,” he said suddenly. “Do you know what -they’re the color of?” - -“My father used to say they were like a dog’s,” she answered, feeling -unable to drop them and yet uneasy under his unflinching gaze. - -“They’re the color of sherry--exactly the same.” - -“I won’t let you see them any more if that’s the best you can say of -them,” she said, dropping them. - -“I could say they were the color of beer,” he answered, “but I thought -sherry sounded better.” - -“Beer!” she exclaimed, averting not only her eyes, but her face. -“That’s an insult.” - -“Well, then, I’ll only say in the simplest way what I think. I’m not -the kind of man who makes fine speeches--they’re the most beautiful -eyes in the world.” - -“That’s the worst of all,” she answered, extremely confused and not -made more comfortable by the thought that she had brought it on -herself. “Let’s leave my eyes out of the question.” - -“All right, I’ll not speak of them again. But I’ll want to see them now -and then.” - -He saw her color mounting, and in the joy of her close proximity, -loitering arm in arm up the sordid street, he laughed again in his -happiness and said: - -“When a person owns something that’s rare and beautiful he oughtn’t to -be mean about it.” - -“I suppose not,” said the owner of the rare and beautiful possessions, -keeping them sternly out of sight. - -He continued to look ardently at her, not conscious of what he was -doing, his step growing slower and slower. - -“It’s a long climb,” he said at length. - -“Yes,” she assented. “Is that why you’re going so slowly?” - -“Are we going so slowly?” he asked, and as if to demonstrate how slow -had been their progress, they both came to a stop like a piece of -run-down machinery. - -They looked at each other for a questioning moment, then burst into -simultaneous peals of laughter. - -One of the last and daintiest charms that nature can give a woman -is a lovely laugh. It suggests unexplored riches of tenderness and -sweetness, unrevealed capacity for joy and pain, as a harsh and -unmusical laugh tells of an arid nature, hard, without juice, devoid of -imagination, mystery and passion. Like her mother before her, Mariposa -possessed this charm in its highest form. The ripple of sound that -flowed from her lips was music, and it cast a spell over the man at -whose side she stood, as Lucy’s laugh, twenty-five years before, had -cast one over Dan Moreau. - -“I never heard you laugh before,” he said in delight. “What can I say -to make you do it again?” - -“You didn’t say anything that time,” said Mariposa. “So I suppose the -best way is for you to be silent.” - -Barron took her advice and surveyed her mutely with dancing eyes. For -a moment her lips, puckered into a tremulous pout, twitched with the -premonitory symptoms of a second outburst. But she controlled them, -moved by some perverse instinct of coquetry, while the laughter welled -up in the eyes that were fixed on him. - -“I see I’ll have to make a joke,” he said, “and I can’t think of any.” - -“Mrs. Garcia’s got a book full. You might borrow it.” - -“Couldn’t you tell me one that’s made you laugh before and loan it to -me?” - -“But it mightn’t work a second time. I might take it quite solemnly. A -sense of humor’s a very capricious thing.” - -“I think the lady who’s got it is even more so,” he said. - -And then once again they laughed in concert, foolishly and gaily and -without knowing why. - -They had gained the top of the hill, and the blaze of red that swept -across the west shone on their faces. They were within a few minutes’ -walk of the house now and they continued, arm in arm, as was the custom -of the day, and at the same loitering gait. - -“Didn’t you tell me your people came originally from Eldorado County, -somewhere up near Hangtown?” he asked. “I’ve just been up that way, and -if I’d known the place I might have stopped there.” - -“Oh, you never could have found it,” said Mariposa hastily. “It was -only a cabin miles back in the foothills. My mother often told me -of it--just a cabin by a stream. It has probably disappeared now. -My father and mother met and were married there among the mines, -and--and--I was born there,” she ended, stammeringly, hating the lies -upon which her youthful traditions had been built. - -“If I’d known you had been born there I’d have gone on a pilgrimage to -find that cabin if it had taken a month.” - -“But I tell you it can’t be standing yet. I’m twenty-four years old--” -she suddenly realized that this, too, was part of the necessary web of -misstatement in which she was caught. The color deepened on her face -into a conscious blush. She dropped her eyes, then raising them to his -with a curious defiance, said: - -“No--that’s a mistake. I’m--I’m--more than that, I’m twenty-five, -nearly twenty-six.” - -Barron, who saw nothing in the equivocation but a girl’s foolish desire -to understate her age, burst into delighted laughter, and pressing the -hand on his arm against his side, said: - -“Why, I always thought you were _years_ older than that--thirty to -thirty-five at least.” - -And he looked with teasing eyes into her face. But this time Mariposa -did not laugh, nor even smile. The joy had suddenly gone out of her, -and she walked on in silence, her head drooped, seeming in some -mysterious way to have grown suddenly anxious and preoccupied. - -“There’s the house,” she said at length. “I was getting tired.” - -“There’s a light in the parlor,” said Barron, as he opened the gate. -“What can be the matter? Has Benito killed grandma, or is there a -party?” - -Their doubts on this point were soon set at rest. Their approaching -footsteps evidently were heard by a listening ear within, for the hall -door opened and Benito appeared in the aperture. - -“There’s a man to see you in the parlor,” he announced to Mariposa. - -Inside the hallway the door on the left that led to Mrs. Garcia’s -apartments opened and the young woman thrust out her head, and said in -a hissing whisper: - -“There’s a gentleman waiting for you in the parlor, Miss Moreau.” - -At the same time Miguel imparted similar information from the top of -the stairs, and the Chinaman appeared at the kitchen door and cried -from thence, with the laconic dryness peculiar to his race: - -“One man see you, parlor.” - -Mariposa stood looking from one to the other with the raised eyebrows -of inquiring astonishment. The only person who had visitors in the -Garcia house was Pierpont, and they did not come at such a fashionably -late hour. - -“He’s a thin, consumpted-looking young man with eye-glasses,” said -Mrs. Garcia, curling round the door the better to project the hissing -whisper she employed, “and he said he’d wait till you came in.” - -Mariposa turned toward the parlor door, leaving the family, with -Barron, on the stairs, and the Chinaman, peering from the kitchen -regions, watching her with tense interest, as if they half expected -they would never see her again. - -Two of the gases in the old chandelier were lit and cast a sickly light -over the large room, which had the close, musty smell of an unaired -apartment. The last relics of Señora Garcia’s grandeur were congregated -here--bronzes that once had cost large sums of money, a gilt console -that had been brought from a rifled French château round the Horn in -a sailing ship, a buhl cabinet with its delicate silvery inlaying -gleaming in the half-light, and two huge Japanese vases, with blue and -white dragons crawling round their necks, flanking the fireplace. - -On the edge of a chair, just under the chandelier, sat a young man. He -had his hat in his hand, and his head drooped so that the light fell -smoothly on the crown of blond hair. He looked small and meager in the -surrounding folds of a very large and loose ulster. As the sound of -the approaching step caught his ear he started and looked up, with the -narrowed eyes of the near-sighted, and then jumped to his feet. - -“Miss Moreau?” he said inquiringly, and extended a long, thin hand -which, closing on hers, felt to her warm, soft grasp like a bunch of -chilled sticks. She had not the slightest idea who he was, and looking -at him under the wan light, saw he was some one from that world of -wealth with which she had so few affiliations. Something about him--the -coldness of his hand, an indescribable trepidation of manner--suggested -to her that he was exceedingly ill at ease. She looked at him -wonderingly, and said: - -“Won’t you sit down?” - -He sat at her bidding on the chair he had risen from, subsiding into -the small, shrunken figure in the middle of enveloping folds of -overcoat. One hand hung down between his knees holding his hat. He -looked at Mariposa and then looked down at the hat. - -“Cold afternoon, isn’t it?” he said. - -“Very cold,” she responded, “but I like it. I hope you haven’t been -waiting long.” - -“Not very,” he looked up at her, blinking near-sightedly through the -glasses; “I don’t know whether you know what my name is, Miss Moreau? -It’s Shackleton--Winslow Shackleton. I forgot my card.” - -Mariposa felt a lightning-like change come over her face, in which -there was a sudden stiffening of her features into something hard and -repellent. To Win, at that moment, she looked very like his father. - -“Oh!” she said, hearing her voice drop at the end of the interjection -with a note of vague disapproval and uneasiness. - -“I’ve seen you,” continued Win, “once at _The Trumpet_ office, when you -were there with Mrs. Willers. I don’t think you saw me. I was back in -the corner, near the table where Jack--that’s the boy--sits.” - -Mariposa murmured: - -“No, I didn’t see you.” - -She hardly knew what he said or what she responded. What did _this_ -mean? What was going to happen now? - -“You must excuse my coming this way, without an introduction or -anything, but as you knew my father and mother, I--I--thought you -wouldn’t mind.” - -He glanced at her again, anxiously, she thought, and she said suddenly, -with her habitual directness: - -“Did you come from your mother?” - -“No, I came on--on--my own hook. I wanted”--he looked vaguely about and -then laid his hat on a table near him--“I wanted to see you on business -of my own.” - -The nervousness from which he was evidently suffering began to -communicate itself to Mariposa. The Shackleton family had come to mean -everything that was painful and agitating to her, and here was a new -one wanting to talk to her about business that she knew, past a doubt, -was of some unusual character. - -“If you’ve come to talk to me about going to Europe,” she said -desperately, “I may as well tell you, there’s no use. I won’t go to -Paris now, as I once said I would, and there’s no good trying to make -me change my mind. Your mother and Mrs. Willers have both tried to, and -it’s very kind of them, but I--can’t.” - -She had an expression at once of fright and determination. The subject -was becoming a nightmare to her, and she saw herself attacked again -from a strange quarter, and with, she imagined, a new set of arguments. - -“It’s nothing to do with going to Europe,” he said. “It’s--it’s”--he -put up one of the long, bony hands, and with the two first fingers -pressed his glasses back against his eyes, then dropped the hand and -stared at Mariposa, the eyes looking strangely pale and prominent -behind the powerful lenses. - -“It’s something that’s just between you and me,” he said. - -She surveyed him without answering, her brows drawn, her mind -concentrated on him and on what he could mean. - -“Do you want me to teach somebody music?” she said, wondering if this -could be the pleasant solution of the enigma. - -“No. The--er--the business I’ve come to talk to you about ought to do -away altogether with the necessity of your giving lessons.” - -They looked at each other silently for a moment. Win was conscious that -his hands were trembling, and that his mouth was dry. He rose from his -chair and mechanically reached for his hat. When he had started on his -difficult errand he had been certain that she knew her relationship to -his father. Now the dreadful thought entered his mind that perhaps she -did not. And even if she did, it was evident that she was not going to -give him the least help. - -“What _is_ the business you’ve come to see me about?” she asked. - -“It’s a question of money,” he answered. - -“Money!” ejaculated Mariposa, in baffled amaze. “What money? Why?” - -He glanced desperately into his hat and then back at her. She saw the -hat trembling in his hand and suddenly realized that this man was -trying to say something that was agitating him to the marrow of his -being. - -“Mr. Shackleton,” she said, rising to her feet, “tell me what you -mean. I don’t understand. I’m completely at sea. How can there be -any question of money between us when I’ve never seen you or met you -before? Explain it all.” - -He dropped the hat to his side and said slowly, looking her straight in -the face: - -“I want to give you a share of the estate left me by my father. I look -upon it as yours.” - -There was a pause. He saw her paling under his gaze, and realized that, -whatever she might pretend, she knew. His heart bled for her. - -“As mine!” she said in a low, uncertain voice. “Why?” - -“Because you have a right to it.” - -There was another pause. He moved close to her and said, in a voice -full of a man’s deep kindness: - -“I can’t explain any more. Don’t ask it. Don’t let’s bother about -anything in the background. It’s just the present that’s our affair.” - -He suddenly dropped his hat and took her hand. It was as cold now as -his had been. He pressed it, and Mariposa, looking dazedly at him, saw -a gleam like tears behind the glasses. - -“It’s hateful to have you living here like this, while we--that is, -while other people--have everything. I can’t stand it. It’s too mean -and unfair. I want you to share with me.” - -She shook her head, looking down, a hundred thoughts bursting in upon -her brain. What did he know? How had he found it out? In his grasp, her -hand trembled pitifully. - -“Don’t shake your head,” he pleaded, “it’s so hard to say it. Don’t -turn it down before you’ve heard me out.” - -“And it’s hard to hear it,” she murmured. - -“No one knows anything of this but me,” he continued, “and I promise -you that no other ever shall. It’ll be just between us as between”--he -paused and then added with a voice that was husky--“as between brother -and sister.” - -She shook her head again, feeling for the moment too upset to speak, -and tried to draw away from him. But he put his other hand on her -shoulder and held her. - -“I’ll go halves with you. I can have it all arranged so that no one -will ever find out. I can’t make the regular partition of the property -until the end of the year. But, until then, I’ll send you what would -be your interest, monthly, and you can live where, or how, you like. -I--I--can’t go on, knowing things, and thinking of you living in this -sort of way and teaching music.” - -“I can’t do it,” she said, in a strangled undertone, and pulling her -hand out of his grasp. “I can’t. It’s not possible. I can’t take money -that was your father’s.” - -“But it’s not his--it’s mine now. Don’t let what’s dead and buried come -up and interfere.” - -She backed away from him, still shaking her head. She made an effort -toward a cold composure, but her pain seemed to show more clearly -through it. He looked at her, vexed, irresolute, wrung with pity, that -he knew she would not permit him to express. - -It was impossible for them to understand each other. She, with -her secret knowledge of her mother’s lawful claim and her own -legitimacy--he regarding her as the wronged child of his father’s -sin. In her dazed distress she only half-grasped what he thought. The -strongest feeling she had was once again to escape the toils that these -terrible people, who had so wronged her mother, were spreading for her. -They wanted to pay her to redeem the stain on their past. - -“Money can’t set right what was wrong,” she said. “Money can’t square -things between your family and mine.” - -“Money can’t square anything--I don’t want it to. I’m not trying to -square things; I’ve not thought about it that way at all. I just wanted -you to have it because it seemed all wrong for you not to. You had a -right, just as I had, and Maud had. I don’t think I’ve thought much -about it, anyway. It just came to me that you ought to have what was -yours. I wouldn’t make you feel bad for the world.” - -“Then remember, once and forever, that I take nothing from you or your -people. I’d rather beg than take money that came from your father.” - -“But he has nothing to do with it. It’s mine now. I’ve done you no -injury, and it’s I that want you to take it. Won’t you take it from me?” - -He spoke simply, almost wistfully, like a little boy. Mariposa answered: - -“No--oh, Mr. Shackleton, why don’t you and your people let me alone? -I won’t tell. I’ll keep it all a secret. But your mother torments me -to go to Europe--and now you come! If I were starving, I wouldn’t--I -couldn’t--take anything from any of you. I think _you’re_ kind. I think -you’ve just come to-day because you were sorry. But don’t talk about -it any more. Let me be. Let me go along teaching here where I belong. -Forget me. Forget that you ever saw me. Forget the miserable tie of -blood there is between us.” - -“That’s the thing I can’t forget. That’s the thing that worries me. -It’s not the past. I’ve nothing to do with that. It’s the present -that’s my affair. I can’t have everything while you have nothing. It -don’t seem to me it’s like a man to act that way. It goes against me, -anyhow. I don’t offer you this because of anything in the past; that’s -my father’s affair. I don’t know anything about it. I offer it because -I--I--I”--he stammered over the unfamiliar words and finally jerked -out--“because I want to give back what belongs to you. That’s all there -is to it. Please take it.” - -She looked directly into his eyes and said, gravely: - -“No. I’m sorry if it’s a disappointment, but I can’t.” - -Then she suddenly looked down, her face began to quiver, and she said -in a broken undertone: - -“Don’t talk about it any more; it hurts me so.” - -Win turned quickly away from her and picked up his hat. He was confused -and disappointed, and relieved, too, for he had done the most difficult -piece of work of his life. But, at the moment, his most engrossing -feeling was sympathy for this girl, so bravely drawing her pride -together over the bleeding of her heart. - -She murmured a response in a steadier voice and he turned toward her. -Had any of his society friends been by they would hardly have known -him. The foolish manner behind which he sheltered his shy and sensitive -nature was gone. He was grave and looked very much of a man. - -“Well, of course, it’s for you to say what you want. But there’s one -thing I’d like you to promise.” - -“To promise?” she said uneasily. - -“Yes, and to keep it, too. And that is, if you ever want anything--help -in any way; if you get blue in your spirits, or some one’s not doing -the straight thing by you, or gone back on you--to come to me. I’m not -much in some ways, but I guess I could be of use. And, anyway, it’s -good for a girl to have some friend that she can count on, who’s a man. -And”--he paused with the door-handle in his hand--“and now you know me, -anyway, and that’s something. Will you promise?” - -“Yes, I’ll promise that,” said Mariposa, and moving toward him she gave -him her hand. - -He pressed it, dropped it, and opened the door. A moment later Mariposa -heard the hall door bang behind him. She sat down in the chair from -which she had risen, her hands lying idle in her lap, her eyes on a -rose in the carpet, trying to think, to understand what it meant. - -She did not hear the door open or notice Benito’s entrance, which was -accomplished with some disturbance, as he was astride a cane. His -spirited course round the room, the end of the cane coming in violent -contact with the pieces of furniture that impeded his route, was of so -boisterous a nature that it roused her. She looked absently at him, and -saw him wreathed in smiles. Having gained her attention, he brought his -steed toward her with some ornamental prancings. She noticed that he -held a pair of gloves in his hands. - -“That man what came to see you,” he said, “left this cane. It was in -the hat-rack, and I came out first, so I swiped it. I took these for -Miguel”--he flourished the gloves--“but the cane’s mine all right. Come -in to supper.” - -And he wheeled away with a bridling step, the end of his cane rasping -on the worn ribs of the carpet. Mariposa, mechanically following him, -heard his triumphant cries as he entered the dining-room and then his -sudden wails of wrath as Miguel expressed his disapprobation of the -division of the spoils in the vigorous manner of innocent childhood. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -WITH ME TO HELP - - “Look in my face, my name is--Might Have Been! - I am also called, No More, Too Late, Farewell.” - - --ROSETTI. - - -Had Essex realized that Mrs. Willers was an adverse agent in his -pursuit of Mariposa, he would not have greeted her with the urbane -courteousness that marked their meetings. He was a man of many manners, -and he never would have wasted one of his best on the newspaper woman, -to him essentially uninteresting and unattractive, unless he had -intended thereby to further his own ends. Mrs. Willers he knew to be a -friend of Mariposa’s, and he thought it a wise policy to keep in her -good graces. He made that mistake, so often the undoing of those who -are unscrupulous and clever, of not crediting Mrs. Willers with her -full amount of brains. He had seen her foolish side, and he knew that -she was a good journalist of the hustling, energetic, unintellectual -type, but he saw no deeper. - -Since their meeting in the park and her unequivocal rejection of him -his feeling for Mariposa had augmented in force and fire until it had -full possession of him. He was of the order of men whom easy conquests -cool. Now added to the girl’s own change of front was the overwhelming -inducement of the wealth she represented. His original idea of Mariposa -as a handsome mistress that he would take to France and there put on -the operatic stage, of whom he would be the proud owner, while they -toured Europe together, her voice and beauty charming kings, had been -abandoned since the night of his talk with Harney. He would marry her, -and, with her completely under his dominion, he would turn upon the -Shackleton estate and make her claim. He supposed her to be in entire -ignorance of her parentage, and his first idea had been to marry her -and not lighten this ignorance till she was safely in his power. He -had a fear of her shrinking before the hazards of the enterprise, but -he was confident that, once his, all scruples, timidity and will would -give way before him. - -But her refusal of him had upset these calculations, and her coldness -and repugnance had been as oil to the flame of his passion. He was -enraged with himself and with her. He thought of the night in the -cottage and cursed himself for his precipitation, and his gods for the -ill luck that, too late, had revealed to him her relationship to the -dead millionaire. At first he had thought the offer of marriage would -obliterate all unpleasant memories. But her manner that day in the park -had frightened him. It was not the haughty manner, adopted to conceal -hidden fires, of the woman who still loves. There had been a chill -poise about her that suggested complete withdrawal from his influence. - -Since then he had cogitated much. He foresaw that it was going to -be very difficult to see and have speech of her. An occasional walk -up Third Street to Sutter with Mrs. Willers kept him informed of her -movements and doings. Had he guessed that Mrs. Willers, with her rouge -higher up on one cheek than the other, the black curls of her bang -sprawlingly pressed against her brow by a spotted veil, was quite -conversant with his pretensions and their non-success, he would have -been more guarded in his exhibition of interest. As it was, Mrs. -Willers wrote to Mariposa after one of these walks in which Essex’s -questions had been carelessly numerous and frank, and told her that he -was still “camped on her trail, and for goodness’ sake not to weaken.” -Mariposa tore up the letter with an angry ejaculation. - -“Not to weaken!” she said to herself. If she had only dared to tell -Mrs. Willers the whole instead of half the truth! - -The difficulty of seeing Mariposa was further intensified by the -fullness of his own days. He had little time to spare. The new -proprietor worked his people for all there was in them and paid them -well. Several times on the regular weekly holiday the superior men on -_The Trumpet_ were given, he loitered along streets where she had been -wont to pass. But he never saw her. The chance that had favored him -that once in the park was not repeated. Mrs. Willers said she was very -busy. Essex began to wonder if she suspected him of lying in wait for -her and was taking her walks along unfrequented byways. - -Finally, after Christmas had passed and he had still not caught a -glimpse of her, he determined to see her in the only way that seemed -possible. He had inherited certain traditions of good breeding from -his mother, and it offended this streak of delicacy and decency that -was still faintly discernible in his character to intrude upon a lady -who had so obviously shown a distaste for his society. But there was -nothing else for it. Interests that were vital were at stake. Moreover, -his desire, for love’s sake, to see her again was overmastering. Her -face came between him and his work. There were nights when he stood -opposite the Garcia house watching for her shadow on the blind. - -He timed his visit at an hour when, according to the information -extracted from Mrs. Willers, Mariposa’s last pupil for the day should -have left. He loitered about at the corner of the street and saw -the pupil--one of the grown-up ones in a sealskin sack and a black -Gainsborough hat--open the gate and sweep majestically down the street. -Then he strode from his coign of vantage, stepped lightly up the -stairs, and rang the bell. - -It was after school hours, and Benito opened the door. Essex, in his -silk hat and long, dark overcoat, tall and distinguished, was so much -more impressive a figure than Win that the little boy stared at him in -overawed surprise, and only found his breath when the stranger demanded -Miss Moreau. - -“Yes, she’s in,” said Benito, backing away toward the stairs; “I’ll -call her. She has quite a lot of callers sometimes,” he hazarded -pleasantly. - -The door near by opened a crack, and a female voice issued therefrom -in a suppressed tone of irritation. - -“Benito, why don’t you show the gentleman into the parlor?” - -“He’ll go in if he wants,” said Benito, who evidently had decided that -the stranger knew how to take care of himself; “that’s the door; just -open it and go in.” - -Essex, who was conscious that the eye which pertained to the voice was -surveying him intently through the crack, did as he was bidden and -found himself in the close, musty parlor. It was late in the afternoon, -and the long lace curtains draped over the windows obscured the light. -He wanted to see Mariposa plainly and he looped the curtains back -against the brass hooks. His heart was beating hard with expectation. -As he turned round to look at the door he noticed that the key was in -the lock, and resolved, with a sense of grim determination, that if she -tried to go when she saw who it was, he could be before her and turn -the key. - -Upstairs Benito had found Mariposa sitting in front of the fire. She -had been giving lessons most of the day and was tired. She stretched -herself like a sleepy cat as he came in, and put her hand up to her -hair, pushing in the loosened hairpins. - -“It’s some one about lessons, I guess,” she said, rising and giving a -hasty look in the glass. “At this rate, Ben, I’ll soon be rich.” - -“What’ll we do then?” said Benito, clattering to the stair-head beside -her. - -“We’ll buy a steam yacht, just you and I, and travel round the world. -And we’ll stop in all sorts of strange countries and ride on elephants -and buy parrots, and shoot tigers and go up in balloons and do -everything that’s dangerous and interesting.” - -She was in good spirits at the prospect of a new pupil, and, with her -hand on the door-knob, threw Benito a farewell smile, which was still -on her lips as she entered. - -It remained there for a moment, for at the first glance she did not -recognize Essex, who was standing with his back to the panes of the -unveiled windows; then he moved toward her and she saw who it was. - -She gave a smothered exclamation and drew back. - -“Mr. Essex!” she said; “why do you come here?” - -He had intended to meet her with his customary half impudent, half -cajoling suavity, but found that he could not. The sight of her filled -him with fiery agitation. - -“I came because I couldn’t keep away,” he said, advancing with his hand -out. - -“No,” she said, glancing at the hand and turning her head aside with an -impatient movement; “there can’t be any pretenses at friendship between -us. I don’t want to shake hands with you. I don’t want to see you. What -did you come for?” - -“To see you. I had to see you.” - -His eyes, fixed on her as she stood in the light of the window, seemed -to italicize the words of the sentence. - -“There’s no use beginning that subject again,” she said hurriedly; -“there’s no use talking about those things.” - -“What things? What are you referring to?” - -For a moment she felt the old helpless feeling coming over her, but she -forced it aside and said, looking steadily at him: - -“The things we talked about in the park the last time we met.” - -She saw his dark face flush. He was too much in earnest now to be able -to assert his supremacy by teasing equivocations. - -“Nevertheless, I’ve come to-day to repeat those things.” - -“Don’t--don’t,” she said quickly; “there’s no use. I won’t listen to -them. It’s not polite to intrude into a lady’s house and try to talk -about subjects she detests.” - -“The time has passed for us to be polite or impolite,” he answered -hotly; “we’re not the man and woman as society and the world has made -them. We’re the man and woman as they are and have always been from -the beginning. We’re not speaking to each other through the veils of -conventionality; we’re speaking face to face. We have hearts and souls -and passions. We’ve loved each other.” - -“Never,” she said; “never for a moment.” - -“You have a bad memory,” he answered slowly; “is it natural or -cultivated?” - -He had the satisfaction of seeing her color rise. The sight sent a -thrill of hope through him. He moved nearer to her and said in a voice -that vibrated with feeling: - -“You loved me once.” - -“No, never, never. It was never that.” - -“Then why,” he answered, his lips trying to twist themselves into -a sardonic smile, while rage possessed him, “why did you--let us -say--encourage me so that night in the cottage on Pine Street?” - -Though her color burned deeper, her eyes did not drop. He had never -seen her dominating her own girlish impulses like this. It seemed to -remove her thousands of miles from the circle of his power. - -“I’ll tell you,” she answered; “I was lonely and miserable, and you -seemed the only creature that I had to care for. I thought you were -fond of me, and I thought it was wonderful that any one as clever as -you could really care for me. That you regarded me as you did I could -no more have imagined than I could have suspected you of picking my -pocket or murdering me. And that night in the cottage, when in my -loneliness and distress I seemed to be holding out my arms to you, -asking you to protect and comfort me, you laughed at me and struck me -a blow in the face. It was the end of my dream. I wakened then and saw -the reality. But you--you as you are--as I know you now--I never loved, -I never could have loved.” - -Her words inflamed his rage, not alone against her, but against -himself, who had had her in this pliant mood in his very arms and had -lost her. - -“And was it only a desire for consolation and sympathy that made you -behave toward me in what was hardly--a--” he paused as if hesitating -for a word that would in a seemly manner express his thought, -in reality racking his brains for the one that would hurt her -most--“hardly a maidenly way considering your lack of interest in me?” - -The word he had chosen told. Her color sank suddenly away, leaving her -very pale. Her face seemed to stiffen and lose its youthful curves. - -“I don’t think,” she said slowly, “that it’s necessary to continue this -conversation. It doesn’t seem to me to be very profitable to anybody.” - -She looked at him, but he made no movement. - -“You will have to excuse me, Mr. Essex,” she said, moving toward the -door, “but if you won’t go I must.” - -The expected had happened. He sprang before her and locked the door. -Leaning his back against it, he stared at her. Both were now very pale. - -“No,” he said, hearing his own voice shaken by his rapid breathing, -“you’re not going. I’ve not said half I came to say. I’ve not come -to-day to plead and sue like a beggar for the love that you’re ready to -give one day and take back the next. I’ve other things to talk about.” - -“Open the door,” she commanded; “open the door and let me out. I want -to hear nothing that you have to say.” - -“Don’t you want to hear who you are?” he asked. - -The words passed through Mariposa like a current of electricity. Every -nerve in her body seemed to tighten. She looked at him, staring and -repeating: - -“Hear who I am?” - -“Yes,” he said, leaning toward her while one hand still gripped the -door-handle; “hear what your real name is, and who you are? Hear who -your father was and where you were born?” - -Her face blanched under his eyes. The sight pleased him, suggesting as -it did weakness and fear that would give him back his old ascendancy. -Horror invaded her. He, of all people on earth, to know! She could say -nothing; could hardly think; only seemed a thing of ears to hear. - -“Hear who my father was!” she repeated, this time almost in a whisper. - -“Yes; I can tell you all that, and more, too. I’ve got a wonderfully -interesting story for you. You’ll not want to go when I begin. Sit -down.” - -“What do you know? Tell me quickly.” - -“Don’t be impatient. It’s a long story. It begins on the Nevada desert. -That’s where you were born; not in the cabin in Eldorado County, as I -heard you telling Jake Shackleton that day at Mrs. Willers’.” - -He was watching her like a tiger, still standing with his back against -the door. Her eyes were on him, wild and intent. Each word fell like a -drop of vitriol on her brain. She saw that he knew everything. - -“Your mother was Lucy Fraser, but your father was not Dan Moreau. He -was a very different man, and you were his eldest child, his eldest and -only legitimate child. Do you know what his name was?” - -“Yes,” said Mariposa in a low voice; “Jake Shackleton.” - -It was Essex’s turn to be amazed. He stared at her, speechless, -completely staggered. - -[Illustration: “DON’T YOU WANT TO HEAR WHO YOU ARE?”] - -“You know it?” he cried, starting forward toward her; “you know it?” - -“Yes,” she answered; “I know it.” - -He stood glaring, trying to collect his senses and grasp in one -whirling moment what difference her knowledge would make to him. - -“How--how--did you know it?” he stammered. - -“That’s not of any consequence. I know that I am Jake Shackleton’s -eldest living child; that my mother was married twice; that I was born -in the desert instead of in Eldorado County. I know it all. And what -is there so odd about that?” She threw her head up and looked with -baffling coldness into his eyes. “Why shouldn’t I know my own parentage -and birthplace?” - -“And--and--” he continued to speak with eager unsteadiness--“you’ve -done nothing yet?” - -“Done nothing yet,” she repeated; “what should I do?” - -“That’s all right,” he said hastily, evidently relieved; “you couldn’t -do anything alone. There must be some one to help you.” - -“Help me do what?” - -Both had forgotten the quarrel, the locked door, the fever pitch -of ten minutes earlier. All other thoughts had been crowded out of -Mariposa’s mind by the horrible discovery of Essex’s knowledge, and -by the apprehensions that were cold in her heart. She shrank from him -more than ever, but had no desire now to leave the room. Instead, she -persisted in her remark: - -“Help me do what? I don’t know what you mean.” - -“Help you in establishing your claim. And fate has put into my hands -the very person, the one person who can do that. You know there was a -man who was in the cabin with Moreau--a partner. Did you ever hear of -him?” - -She nodded, swallowing dryly. Her sense of apprehension strengthened -with his every word. - -“Well, I have that man under my hand. He and Mrs. Shackleton are the -only living witnesses of the transaction whereby your mother and you -passed into Moreau’s keeping. And I have him. I’ve got him here.” He -made a gesture with his thumb as though pressing the ball of it down -on something. Then he looked at Mariposa with eyes full of an eager -cupidity. - -She did not respond with the show of interest he had expected, but -stood looking down, pale and motionless. Her brain was in an appalled -chaos from which stood out only a few facts. This terrible man knew her -secret--the secret of her mother’s life and honor--that she would have -died to hide in the sacredness of her love for the dead man and woman -who could no longer defend themselves. - -“It seems as if fate had sent me to help you,” he went on; “you -couldn’t do it alone.” - -“Do what?” she asked without moving. - -“Establish your claim as the real heir. Of course you’re the chief -heir. I’ve been looking it up. The others will get a share as -acknowledged children. But you ought to get the bulk of the fortune as -the only legitimate child.” - -“Establish my claim?” she repeated. “Do you mean, prove that I’m Jake -Shackleton’s daughter?” - -“Yes. And there’s a tremendously important point. Did your mother have -papers or letters showing that she had been Shackleton’s wife?” - -“She left her marriage certificate,” she said dully, hardly conscious -of her words. “I have it.” - -“Here?--by you?” with quick curiosity. - -“Yes; upstairs--in my little desk.” - -“Ah,” he said, with almost a laugh of relief. “That settles it. You -with the certificate and I with Harney! Why, we’ve got them.” - -“We?” she said, looking up as though waking. “We?” - -“Yes; we,” he answered. - -He had come close to her and, standing at her side, bent his head in -order to look more directly into her face. - -“This ought to put an end, dear, to your objections,” he said gently; -“you can’t do it alone. No woman could, much less one like you--young, -inexperienced, ignorant of the world. You’ve got no idea what a big -contest like this means. There must be a man to help you, and I must be -that man, Mariposa. We can marry quietly as soon as you are ready. It -would be better not to make any move until after that, as it would be -much easier for me to conduct the campaign as your husband than as your -fiancé. I’d take the whole thing off your shoulders. You’d have almost -nothing to do, except be certain of your memories and dates, and I’d -see to it that you were letter perfect in that when the time came. I’d -stand between you and everything that was disagreeable.” - -He took her hand, which for the moment was passive in his. - -“When will it be?” he said, giving it a gentle squeeze; “when, -sweetheart?” - -She tore her hand away. - -“Why, you’re crazy,” she cried. “There’ll never be any of it. Never be -any claim made or contest, or anything that you talk of. You want me -to make money out of my mother’s story that was a tragedy--that I can -hardly think of myself! Oh!--” She turned around, speechless, and put -her hand to her mouth. - -She thought of her dying mother, and grief for that smitten soul, -so deeply loved, so tenderly loving, rent her with a throe of pity, -poignant as bodily pain. - -“Your mother is dead,” he said, understanding her and feeling some real -sympathy for her. “It can’t hurt her now.” - -“Drag it all out into the light,” she went on. “Fight in a court with -those horrible Shackletons! Have it in the papers and all the mean, low -people in California, who couldn’t for one moment understand anything -that was pure and noble, jeering and talking over my father and mother! -That’s what you call establishing my claim, isn’t it?” - -“That’s not all of it,” he stammered, taken aback by her violence. -“And, anyway, it’s all true.” - -“Well, then, I’ll lie and say it was false. If it came to fighting I’d -say it was false. That I was not Jake Shackleton’s daughter, and that -my mother never knew him, or saw him, or heard of him. I’d burn that -certificate and say there never was such a thing, and that anybody who -suggested it was a liar or a madman. And when it comes to you, there’s -just one thing to say: I wouldn’t marry you if forty fortunes hung on -it. I’d rather beg or steal than be your wife if you owned all the -Comstock mines. That’s the future you think is going to tempt me--you -for a husband and a fortune for us both, made by proving that my mother -was never really married to the man I called my father!” - -“But--but,” he said, not heeding her anger in his bewildered amazement, -“you intended it sooner or later yourself?” - -“I?--I?--Betray my parents for money? _I_ do that?” - -She stared at him, with eyes of wild indignation. He began to have a -cold comprehension of what she felt, and it shook him as violently as -his passion for her had ever done. - -“But you don’t understand,” he cried. “This is not a matter of -thousands; it’s millions, and it’s yours by right. It’s a colossal -fortune here in your hand--yours almost for the asking.” - -“It will never be mine. I wouldn’t have it. Oh, let me go! This is too -horrible.” - -“Wait--just one moment. If it came to an actual suit it might be -painful and trying for you. But how if I can arrange a compromise with -Mrs. Shackleton? I think I can. When she knows that you have the proofs -of the marriage she’ll be glad enough to settle. She doesn’t want these -things to come out any more than you do. She’s a smart woman, and -she’ll know that your silence is the most valuable thing she can buy. -Do you understand?” - -“I understand just one thing.” - -“What’s that?” - -“You.” - -For the second time they looked at each other for a motionless, -deep-breathing moment. There was nothing in their faces or attitudes -that suggested lovers. They looked like a pair of antagonists at pause -in their struggle--on the alert for a continuance of battle. - -“Yes, I understand you now,” she said in a low voice; “you’ve made me -understand you.” - -“I only want to make you understand one thing--how much I love you.” - -She drew back with a movement of violent repugnance. He suddenly -stretched out his arms and came toward her. - -She ran toward the door, for the moment forgetting it was locked. Then, -as it resisted, memory awoke. He was beside her and tried to take her -in his arms, but she turned and struck him, with all her force, a blow -on the face. She saw the skin redden under it. - -“Open the door!” she gasped; “open the door!” - -For the moment the blow so stunned and enraged him that he drew back -from her, his hand instinctively rising to the smarting skin. An oath -burst from his compressed mouth. - -“I’d like to kill you for that,” he said. - -“Open the door,” she almost shrieked, rattling the handle. - -“I’ll pay you for this. You seem to forget that I know all the -disreputable secrets of your beginnings. I can tell all the world how -your mother was sold to Dan Moreau, and how--” - -Mariposa heard the click of the gate and a step on the outside stairs. -She drowned the sound of Essex’s voice in a sudden furious pounding on -the door, while she cried with the full force of her lungs: - -“Benito! Miguel! Mrs. Garcia!--Come and open this door! Come and let me -out! I’m locked in! Come!” - -Essex was at the door in an instant, the key in the lock. As he turned -it he gave her a murderous look. - -“You fool!” he said under his breath. - -As the portal swung open and he passed into the hall, the front door -was violently pushed inward, and Barron almost fell against him in the -hurry of his entrance. - -The new-comer drew back from the departing stranger with an apologetic -start. - -“Beg your pardon,” he said bruskly, “but I thought I heard some one -scream in here.” - -“Scream?” said Essex, languidly selecting his hat from the disreputable -collection on the rack; “I didn’t notice it, and I’ve been sitting -in there for nearly an hour with Miss Moreau. I fancy you’ve made a -mistake.” - -“I guess I must have. It’s odd.” - -The hall door slammed behind Essex, and the other man turned into the -parlor, where the light was now very dim. In his exit from the room -Essex had flung the door open with violence, and Mariposa, who had -backed against the wall, was still standing behind it. As Barron pushed -it to he saw her, a vague black figure with white hands and face, in -the dark. - -“What on earth are you doing there?” he said; “standing behind the door -like a child in the corner.” - -She thanked heaven for the friendly dark and answered hurriedly: - -“I--I--I--didn’t want you to catch me. I’m so--so--untidy.” - -“Untidy? I never saw you untidy, and don’t believe you ever were. I met -a man in the hall, who said he’d been here for an hour. You must have -been playing puss in the corner with him.” - -“Yes; his name’s Essex, and he’s a friend of Mrs. Willers’ that I know. -He was here, and I thought he’d come about music lessons, so I came -down looking rather untidy. That was how it happened.” - -“And he stayed an hour talking about music lessons?” - -“No--oh, no; other things.” - -They turned into the hall, Barron, in his character of general guardian -of the Garcia fortunes, shutting the door of the state apartment. He -had the appearance of taking no notice of Mariposa, but as soon as he -got into the light of the hall gas he sent a lightning-like glance over -her face. - -“It was funny,” he said, “but as I came up the steps I thought I heard -some one calling out. I dashed in and fell into the arms of your -music-lesson man, who said no cries of any kind had disturbed the joy -of his hour in your society.” - -Mariposa had begun to ascend the stairs. - -“Cries?” she said over her shoulder; “I don’t think there were any -cries. Why should any one cry out here?” - -“That’s exactly what I wanted to know,” he said, watching her ascending -back. - -She turned and passed out of sight at the top of the stairs. Barron -stood below under the hall gas, his head drooped. He was puzzled, for, -say what they might, he was certain he had heard cries. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -NOT MADE IN HEAVEN - - “Women are like tricks by sleight of hand - Which to admire we should not understand.” - - --CONGREVE. - - -At _The Trumpet_ office the next morning Essex found a letter awaiting -him. It was from Mrs. Shackleton, asking him to dinner on a certain -evening that week--“very informally, Mr. Essex would understand, as the -family was in such deep mourning.” - -Essex turned the letter over, smiling to himself. It was an admirable -testimony to Bessie’s capability. Her monogram, gilded richly, adorned -the top of the sheet of cream-laid paper, and beneath it, in a fine -running hand, were the few carefully-worded sentences, and then -the signature--Bessie A. Shackleton. It was a remarkable letter, -considering all things; wonderful testimony to that adaptive cleverness -which is the birth-right of Bessie’s countrywomen. In her case this -care of externals had not been a haphazard acquirement. She was not the -woman to be slipshod or trust to the tutoring of experience. When her -husband’s star had begun to rise with such dazzling effulgence she had -hired teachers for herself, as well as those for Maud, and there were -many books of etiquette on the shelves in her boudoir. - -The letter contained more for Essex than a simple invitation to dinner. -It was the first move of the Shackleton faction in the direction he -desired to see them take. Bessie had evidently heard something that -had made her realize he, too, might be more than a pawn in the game. -He answered the note with a sentence of acceptance and a well-turned -phrase, expressing his pleasure at the thought of meeting her again. - -He was not in an agreeable frame of mind. His interview with Mariposa -had roused the sleeping devil within him, which, of late, had only -been drowsy. His worst side--ugly traits inherited from his rascally -father--was developing with overmastering force. Lessons learned in -those obscure and unchronicled years when he had swung between London -and Paris were beginning to bear fruit. At the blow from Mariposa a -crop of red-veined passions had burst into life and grown with the -speed of Jack’s beanstalk. His face burned with the memory of that -blow. When he recalled its stinging impact, he did not know whether he -loved or hated Mariposa most. But his determination to force her to -marry him strengthened with her openly expressed abhorrence. The memory -of her face as she struck at him was constantly before his mental -vision, and his fury seethed to the point of a still, level-brimming -tensity, when he recalled the fear and hatred in it. - -The dinner at Mrs. Shackleton’s was a small and informal one. The -company of six--for, besides himself, the only guests were the Count -de Lamolle and Pussy Thurston--looked an exceedingly meager array in -the vast drawing-room, whose stately proportions were rendered even -larger by mirrors which rose from the floor to the cornice, elongating -the room by many shadowy reflections. A small fire burned at each -end, under mantels of Mexican onyx, and these two little palpitating -hearts of heat were the brightest spots in the spacious apartment where -even Miss Thurston’s dress of pale-blue gauze seemed to melt into the -effacing shadows. - -The Count de Lamolle gave Essex a quick glance, and, as they stood -together in front of one of the fires--the two girls and Win having -moved away to look at a painting of Bouguereau’s on an easel--addressed -a casual remark to him in French. The count had already met the -newspaper man, and set him down, without illusion or hesitation, as a -clever adventurer. He overcame his surprise at meeting him in the house -of the bonanza widow, by the reflection that this was the United States -where all men are equal, and women with money free to be wooed by any -of them. - -The count was in an uncertain and almost uncomfortable state of mind. -The letter he had received from Mrs. Shackleton, bidding him to the -feast, was the second from her since Maud’s rejection of him. The first -had been of a consolatory and encouraging nature. Mrs. Shackleton told -him that Maud was young, and that many women said no, when they meant -yes. The count knew both these things as well as Mrs. Shackleton; the -latter, even better. But it seemed to him that Maud, young though she -was, had not meant yes, and the handsome Frenchman was not the man to -force his attentions on any woman. He watched her without appearing to -notice her. She had been greatly embarrassed at sight of him, and only -for the briefest moment let her cold fingers touch his palm. Under the -flood of light from the dining-room chandelier she looked plainer than -ever; her lack of color and stolid absence of animation being even more -noticeable than usual in contrast with the brilliant pink and white -prettiness of Pussy Thurston, who chattered gaily with everybody, and -attempted a little French with De Lamolle. - -Maud sat beside Essex, and even that easily fluent gentleman found her -difficult to interest. She appeared dull and unresponsive. Looking at -her with slightly narrowed eyes, he wondered how the count, of whose -name and exploits he had often heard in Paris, could contemplate so -brave an act as marrying her. - -The count, who, having more heart, could see deeper, asked himself -if the girl was really unhappy. As he listened to Miss Thurston’s -marvelous French he wondered, with a little expanding heat of -irritation, if the mother was trying to force the marriage against the -daughter’s wish. He had broken hearts in his day, but it was not a -pastime he found agreeable. He was too gallant a gentleman to woo where -his courtship was unwelcome. - -When the gentlemen entered the drawing-room from their after-dinner -wine and cigars, they found the ladies seated by one of the fires below -the Mexican onyx mantels. Bessie rose as they approached and, turning -to Essex, asked him if he had seen the Bouguereau on the easel, and -steered him toward it. - -“It was one of Mr. Shackleton’s last purchases,” she said; “he was very -anxious to have a fine collection. He had great taste.” - -Her companion, looking at the plump, pearly-skinned nymph and her -attendant cupids, thought of Harney’s description of Shackleton in the -days when he had first entered California, and said, with conviction: - -“What a remarkably versatile man your husband was! I had no idea he was -interested in art.” - -“Oh, he loved it,” said Bessie, “and knew a great deal about it. We -were in Europe two years ago for six months, and Mr. Shackleton and I -visited a great many studios. That is a Meissonier over there, and that -one we bought from Rosa Bonheur. She’s an interesting woman, looked -just like a man. Then in the Moorish room there’s a Gérôme. Would you -like to see it? It’s considered a very fine example.” - -He expressed his desire to see the Gérôme, and followed Bessie’s -rustling wake into the Moorish room. The little room was warm, with its -handful of fire, and softly lit with chased and perforated lanterns of -bronze and brass. The heat had drawn the perfume from the bowls full -of roses and violets that stood about and the air was impregnated with -their sweetness. The Gérôme, a scene in the interior of a harem, with a -woman dancing, stood on an easel in one corner. - -“That’s it,” said Bessie, drawing to one side that he might see it -better. “One on the same sort of subject was in the studio when we -first went there, but Mr. Shackleton thought it was too small, and this -was painted to order.” - -“Superb,” murmured Essex; “Gérôme at his best.” - -“We hoped,” continued Bessie, sinking into a seat, “to have a fine -collection, and build a gallery for them out in the garden. There was -plenty of room, and they would have shown off better all together that -way, rather than scattered about like this. But I’ve no ambition to do -it now, and they’ll stay as they are.” - -“Why don’t you go on with the collection?” said the young man, taking -a seat on a square stool of carved teak wood. “It would be a most -interesting thing to do, and you could go abroad every year or two, and -go to the studios and buy direct from the artists. It’s much the best -way.” - -“Oh, I couldn’t,” she said, with a little shrug; “I don’t know -enough about it. I only know what I like, and I generally like the -wrong thing. I’m not versatile like my husband. When I first came to -California I didn’t know a chromo from an oil painting. In fact,” she -said, looking at him frankly and laughing a little, “I don’t think I’d -ever seen an oil painting.” - -Essex returned the laugh and murmured a word or two of complimentary -disbelief. He was wondering when she would get to the real subject of -conversation which had led them to the Gérôme and the Moorish room. She -was nearer than he thought. - -“It would be a temptation to go to Paris every year or two,” she said. -“That’s the most delightful place in the world. It’s your home, isn’t -it? So, of course, you agree with me.” - -“Yes, I was born there, and have lived there off and on ever since. To -me, there is only one Paris.” - -“And can you fancy any one having the chance to go there, and live and -study, with no trouble about money, refusing?” - -Essex looked into the fire, and responded in a tone that suggested -polite indifference: - -“No, that’s quite beyond my powers of imagination.” - -“I have a sort of--I think you call it protégée--isn’t that the -word?--yes”--in answer to his nod--“whom I want to send to Paris. She’s -a young girl with a fine voice. Mr. Shackleton was very much interested -in her. He knew her father in the mining days of the early fifties and -wanted to pay off some old scores by helping the daughter. And now the -daughter seems to dislike being helped.” - -“There are such people,” said Essex in the same tone. “Does she dislike -the idea of going to Paris, too?” - -“That seems to be it. We both wanted to send her there, have her voice -trained, and put her in the way of becoming a singer. Lepine, when he -was here, heard her and thought she had the making of a prima donna. -But,” she suddenly looked at him with a half-puzzled expression of -inquiry, “I think you know her--Miss Moreau?” - -Essex looked back at her for a moment with bafflingly expressionless -eyes. - -“Yes, I know her. She’s a friend of Mrs. Willers’, one of the Sunday -edition people on _The Trumpet_. A very handsome and charming girl.” - -“That’s the girl,” said Bessie, mentally admiring his perfect aplomb. -“She’s a very fine girl, and, as you say, handsome. But I don’t think -she’s got much common sense. Girls don’t, as a rule, have more than -enough to get along on. But when they’re poor, and so alone in the -world, they ought to pick up a little. - -“Certainly, to refuse an offer such as you speak of, argues a lack of -something. Have you any idea of her reason for refusing?” - -He looked at Bessie as he propounded the question, his eyelids lowered -slightly. She, in her turn, let her keen gray glance rest on him. The -thought flashed through her mind that it was only another evidence of -Mariposa’s peculiarity of disposition that she should have refused so -handsome and attractive a man. - -“No--” she said with unruffled placidity, “I don’t understand it. -She’s a proud girl and objects to being under obligations. But then -this wouldn’t be an obligation. Apart from everything else, there’s no -question about obligations where singers and artists and people like -that are concerned. It’s all a matter of art.” - -“Art levels all things,” said the young man glibly. - -“That’s what I always thought. But Miss Moreau doesn’t seem to agree -with me. The most curious part of it all is that she was willing to go -in the beginning. That was before her mother died; then she suddenly -changed her mind, wouldn’t hear of it, and said she’d prefer staying -here in San Francisco, teaching music at fifty cents a lesson. I must -say I was annoyed. I had her here and talked to her quite severely, -but it didn’t seem to make any impression. I was puzzled to death to -understand it. But after thinking for a while, and wondering what -could make a girl prefer San Francisco and teaching music at fifty -cents a lesson, to Paris and being a prima donna, I came to the -conclusion there was only one thing could influence a woman to that -extent--there was a man in the case.” - -She saw Essex, whose eyes were on the fire, raise his brows by way of a -polite commentary on her words. - -“That sounds a very plausible solution of the problem,” he said. -“Love’s a deadly enemy to common sense.” - -“That’s the way it seemed to me. She had fallen in love, and evidently -the man had not enough money to marry on, or was in a poor position, or -something. When I thought of that I was certain I’d found the clue. The -silly girl was going to give up everything for love. I suppose I ought -to have felt touched. But I really felt sort of mad with her at first. -Afterward, thinking it over, I decided it was not so foolish, and now -I’ve veered round so far that I’m inclined to encourage it.” - -“On general principles you think domesticity is better for a woman than -the glare of the footlights?” - -“No, not that way. I think a gift like Mariposa Moreau’s should be -cultivated and given to the public. I never had any sympathy with that -man in the Bible who buried his talent in the ground. I think talents -were made to be used. What I thought, was, why shouldn’t Mariposa marry -the man she cared for and go with him to Paris. It would be a much -better arrangement all round. She isn’t very smart or capable, and -she’s young and childish for her years. Don’t you think she is, Mr. -Essex?” - -Essex again raised his eyebrows and looked into the fire. - -“Yes,” he said in a dubious tone. “Yes, I suppose she is. She is -certainly not a sophisticated or worldly person.” - -“That’s just it. She’s green--green about everything. Some way or other -I didn’t like the thought of sending her off there by herself, where -she didn’t know a soul. And then she’s so handsome. If she was ugly -it wouldn’t matter so much. But she’s very good-looking, and when you -add that to her being so inexperienced and green about everything you -begin to realize the responsibility of sending her alone to a strange -country, especially Paris.” - -“Paris is not a city,” commented her companion, “where young, -beautiful and unprotected females are objects of public protection and -solicitude.” - -“That’s the reason why I want, now, to encourage this marriage. With a -husband that she loves to take care of her, everything would be smooth -sailing. She’d be happy and not homesick or strange. He’d be there with -her, to watch over her and probably help her with her studies. Perhaps -he could get some position, just to occupy his time. Because, so far -as money went, I’d see to it that they were well provided for during -the time she was preparing. Lepine said that he thought two or three -years would be sufficient for her to study. Well, I’d give them fifteen -thousand dollars to start on. And if that wasn’t enough, or she was -not ready to appear at the expected time, there would be more. There’d -be no question about means of living, anyway. They could just put that -out of their heads.” - -“I have always heard that Mrs. Shackleton was generous,” said Essex, -looking at her with a slight smile. - -“Oh, generous!” she said, with a little movement of impatience, which -was genuine. “This is no question of generosity; I want the girl to go -and be a singer, and I don’t want her to go alone. Now, I’ve found out -a way for her to go that will be agreeable to her and to me, and, I -take for granted, to the man.” - -She looked at Essex with a smile that almost said she knew him to be -that favored person. - -“Of course,” she continued, “it would be better for him to get some -work. It’s bad for man or woman to be idle. If he knows how to write, -it would be an easy matter to make him Paris correspondent of _The -Trumpet_. It was my husband’s intention to have a correspondent, and he -had some idea of offering it to Mrs. Willers. But it’s not the work for -her, nor she the woman for it. It ought to be a man, and a man that’s -conversant with the country and the language. There’ll be a good salary -to go with it. Win was talking about it only the other evening.” - -“What a showering of good fortune on one person,” said Essex--“a -position ready-made, a small fortune and a beautiful wife! He must be a -favorite of the gods.” - -“You can call it what you like, Mr. Essex,” said Bessie. “It’s been my -experience that the gods take for their favorites men and women who’ve -got some hustle. Everybody has a chance some time or other. Miss Moreau -and her young man have theirs now.” - -She rose to her feet, for at that moment, Pussy Thurston appeared in -the doorway to say good night. - -The pretty creature had cast more than one covertly admiring look at -Essex, during the dinner, and now, as she held out her hand to him in -farewell, she said after the informal Western fashion: - -“Won’t you come to see me, Mr. Essex? I’m always at home on Sunday -afternoon. If you’re bashful, Win will bring you. He comes sometimes -when he’s got nowhere else in the world to go to.” - -Win, who was just behind her, expressed his willingness to act as -escort, and laughing and jesting, the party passed through the doorway -into the drawing-room. The little fires were burning low. By the light -of one, Maud and Count de Lamolle were looking at a book of photographs -of Swiss views. The count’s expression was enigmatic, and as Bessie -approached them she heard Maud say: - -“Oh, that’s a mountain. What’s the name of it, now? I can’t remember. -It’s very high and pointed, and people are always climbing it and -falling into holes.” - -“The Matterhorn, perhaps,” suggested the count, politely. - -To which Maud gave a relieved assent. Her words were commonplace -enough, but there was a quality of light-heartedness, of suppressed -elation, in her voice, that her mother’s quick ear instantly caught. As -the girl looked up at their approaching figures her face showed the -same newly-acquired sparkle that was almost joyous. - -It had, in fact, been a critical evening for Maud, and so miserable did -she feel her situation to be, that she had taken her courage in both -hands and struck one desperate blow for freedom. - -When her mother and Essex had begun their pictorial migrations she had -felt the cold dread of a tête-à-tête with the count creeping over her -heart. For a space she had tried to remain attached to Win and Pussy -Thornton, but neither Win nor Pussy, who were old friends and had -many subjects of mutual interest to discuss, encouraged her society. -Maud was not the person to develop diplomatic genius under the most -favorable circumstances. Half an hour after the men had entered the -drawing-room, she found herself alone with the count, in front of the -fire, Win and Pussy having strayed away to the Bouguereau. - -The count had tried various subjects of conversation, but they had -drooped and died after a few minutes of languishing existence. He stood -with his back to the mantelpiece, looking curiously at Maud, who sat -on the edge of an armchair just within reach of the fluctuating light. -Her hands were clasped on her knee and she was looking down so that he -could not see her face. - -Suddenly she rose to her feet and faced him. She was pale and her eyes -looked miserable and terrified. - -“Count de Lamolle,” she breathed in a tremulous voice. - -“Mademoiselle,” he said, moving toward her, very much surprised by her -appearance. - -“I’ve got to say something to you. It may sound queer, but I’ve got to -say it.” - -“Dear Miss,” said the Frenchman, really concerned by her tragic -demeanor, “say whatever pleases you. I am only here to listen.” - -“You don’t really care for me. Oh, if you’d only tell the truth!” - -“That is a strange remark,” he said, completely taken by surprise, and -wondering what this extraordinary girl was going to say next. - -“If I thought you really cared it would be different. Perhaps I -couldn’t say it. I hate making people miserable, and yet so many people -make me miserable.” - -“Who makes you miserable, dear young lady?” he said, honestly touched. - -“You,” she almost whispered. “You do. You don’t mean to, I know, for I -think you’re kinder than lots of other men. But--but-- Oh please, don’t -keep on asking me to marry you. Don’t do it any more; that makes me -miserable. Because I can’t do it. Truly, I can’t.” - -Count de Lamolle became very grave. He drew himself up with an odd, -stiff air, like a soldier. - -“If a lady speaks this way to a man,” he said, “the man can only obey.” - -Maud hung on his words. When she grasped their import, she suddenly -moved toward him. There was something pathetic in her eagerness of -gratitude. - -“Oh, thanks! thanks! I knew you’d do it. It’s not you I object to. -I like you better than any of the others. But”--she glanced over her -shoulder into the lantern-lit brilliance of the Moorish room and -dropped her voice--“there’s some one I like more.” - -“Oh,” said the count, and his dark eyes turned from her face, which had -become very red. - -“He’s going to marry me some day. He’s just Jack Latimer, the -stenographer in the office. But I like him, and that’s all there is -to it. But mommer’s terribly set on you. And she’s so determined. Oh, -Count de Lamolle, it’s very hard 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, that will have to end it.” - -She stopped, her lips trembling. The count took her hand, cold and -clammy, and lifting it pressed his lips lightly on the back. Then, -dropping it, he said, quietly: - -“All is understood. You have honored me highly, Mademoiselle, by giving -me your confidence.” - -They stood silent for a moment. The kiss on her hand, the something -friendly and kind--so different from the cold looks of unadmiring -criticism she was accustomed to--in the man’s eyes brought her -uncomfortably close to tears. Few people had been kind to Maud -Shackleton in the midst of her riches and splendor. - -The count saw her emotion and turned toward the fire. He felt more -drawn to her than he had ever been during his courtship. From the tail -of his eye he saw her little handkerchief whisk out and then into her -pocket. As it disappeared he said: - -“I see, Miss Shackleton, that you have some albums of views on the -table. Might we not look at them together?” - -Thus it was that Bessie and Essex found them. They had worked through -two volumes of Northern Italy, and were in Switzerland. And over the -stiffened pages with their photographs, not one-half of which Maud -could remember though she had been to all the places on her trip -abroad, they had come nearer being friends than ever before. - - - - -CHAPTER XX - -THE WOMAN TALKS - - “My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned; then - I spake with my tongue.”--PSALMS. - - -The morning after her interview with Essex Mariposa had appeared at -breakfast white-cheeked and apathetic. She had eaten nothing, and when -questioned as to her state of health had replied that she had passed -a sleepless night and had a headache. Mrs. Garcia, the younger, in a -dingy cotton wrapper belted by a white apron, shook her head over the -coffee-pot and began to tell how the late Juan Garcia had been the -victim of headaches due to green wall-paper. - -“But,” said Mrs. Garcia, looking up from under the lambrequin of blond -curls that adorned her brow, “there’s nothing green in your wall-paper. -It’s white, with gold wheat-ears on it. So I don’t see what gives you -headaches.” - -“Headaches _do_ come from other things besides green wall-paper,” said -Pierpont; “I’ve had them from overwork. I’d advise Miss Moreau to give -her pupils a week’s holiday. And then she can come down some afternoon -and sing for me.” - -This was an old subject of discourse at the Garcia table, Mariposa -continually refusing the young man’s invitations to let him hear and -pass judgment upon her voice. Since he had met her he had heard further -details of the recital at the opera-house and the opinion of Lepine, -and was openly ambitious to have Mariposa for a pupil. Now she looked -up at him with a sudden spark of animation in her eyes. - -“I will some day. I’ll come in some afternoon and sing for you--some -afternoon when I have no headache,” she added hastily, seeing the -prospect of urging in his eyes. - -Barron, sitting opposite, had been watching her covertly through the -meal. He saw that she ate nothing, and guessed that the headache she -pleaded was the result of a wakeful night. The evening before, when he -had gone in to see the little boys in bed, he had casually asked them -if they had been playing games that afternoon in which shouting had -been a prominent feature. - -“Indians?” Benito had suggested, sitting up in his cot and scratching -the back of his neck; “that’s a hollering game.” - -“Any game with screams. When I came in I thought I heard shouts coming -from somewhere.” - -“That wasn’t us,” said Miguel from his larger bed in the corner. “We -was playing burying soldiers in the back yard, and that’s a game where -you bury soldiers, cut out of the papers, in the sandy place. There’s -no sorter hollering in it. Sometimes we play we’re crying, but that’s -quiet.” - -“P’raps,” said Benito sleepily, “it was Miss Moreau’s gentleman in the -parlor. I let him in. They might have been singing. Now tell us the -story about the Indians and the pony express.” - -This was all 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 littered table, thinking. The details of his entrance -into the house a few hours before were engraved on his mind’s eye. -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 its shield of reserve to the complexities -beneath. The healthily frank American saw in it the intricate -sophistication of older civilizations, of vast communities where “God -hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.” - -On his ear again fell the cold politeness of the voice. Gamaliel -Barron was too lacking in any form of self-consciousness, was too -indifferently confident of himself as a Westerner, the equal of any and -all human creatures, to experience that sensation of _mauvaise 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 -moment of encounter in the hall. Thoughtfully smoking and tilting back -in his chair, he mentally summed him up in the two words, “bad egg.” He -would keep his eye 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 appearance 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 ascending the stairs, one -hand on the balustrade, her long, black dress sliding upward from stair -to stair. - -He followed her noiselessly, and at the top of the flight, turning to -go to her room, she saw him and paused, her hand still touching the -rail. - -“Miss Moreau,” he said, “you’re tired out--too tired to teach. Let me -go and put off your pupils. I’ve a lot of spare time this afternoon.” - -“How kind of you,” she said, looking faintly surprised; “I haven’t any -this afternoon, 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 upturned face and gave a slight smile. - -“_Is_ it overwork that kept you awake last night and makes you look so -pale to-day?” he queried in a lowered voice. - -“Oh, I don’t know,”--she turned away her face rather impatiently,--“I’m -worried, I suppose. Everybody has to be worried, don’t they?” - -“I can’t bear to have you worried. There isn’t one wild, crazy thing in -the world I wouldn’t do to prevent it.” - -He was looking up at her with his soul in his eyes. Barron was not the -man to hide or juggle with his love. It possessed him now and shone -on his face. 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 said, his deep voice shaken. - -Her eyes dropped to the hands and she mechanically noticed how white -her fingers looked between his large, brown ones. She drew them softly -away, feeling his glance keen, impassioned and unwavering on her face. - -“Something’s troubling you,” he continued 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 -uncertainty 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 threatening her. Then -she realized the impossibility of such a thing and drew back from the -railing. - -“You can’t help me,” she said; “no 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 always be here, here close to you, ready -to come when you call me, either 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 -profile, 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, her hair 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.” - -She turned completely away without answering and, opening her door, -vanished into her room. - -For the next three or four days she looked much the same. Mrs. Garcia, -junior, talked about the green wall-paper, and Mrs. Garcia, senior, -cooked her Mexican dainties, which were so hot with chilli peppers that -only a seasoned throat could swallow them. Mariposa tried to eat and to -talk, but both efforts were failures. She was secretly distracted by -apprehensions of Essex’s next move. She thought of his face as he had -raised his hand to his smitten cheek, and shuddered at the memory. She -lived in daily dread of his reappearance. The interview had shattered -her nerves, never fully restored from the series of miserable events -that had preceded and followed her mother’s death. When she heard the -bell ring her heart sprang from her breast to her throat, and a desire -to fly and hide from her persecutor seized her and held her quivering -and alert. - -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 by the man he had seen in the hall. He did not like -to question her, or attempt an intrusion into her confidence, but he -remembered the few words she had dropped that 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 though he did not see her frequently, had retained -an agreeable 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. Her rouge had been applied with the -usual haste, and she was conscious that three buttons on one of her -boots were hardly sufficient to retain that necessary article in place. -But she felt brisk and light-hearted, confident that the article in her -hand was smart and spicy and would lend brightness to her column in -_The Trumpet_. - -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 Sierra, 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 afraid 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 -popper.” - -“There’s a man on your paper called Essex,” said 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 afternoon, 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, considering attention. - -“Why didn’t you like his looks?” she said. - -“Well, I’ve seen men like that before--at the mines. Good-looking -chaps, who are sort of imitation gentlemen, and try to make you take -the imitation 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. Willers, with a strong inflection of -surprise. - -“Yes,” said Barron, uneasy at her tone and the strange look of almost -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 afternoon 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, leaning against the wall and white -as my cuffs.” - -He looked frowningly at Mrs. Willers. 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 I 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 come to see her for, anyway? What’s he after?” - -“Her,” said Mrs. Willers, solemnly; “he 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 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 people’s necks,” said Mrs. Willers, “but -I’m glad you’re in that house. If Barry Essex is going to try to make -her marry him by bullying and bulldozing her, I’m glad 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. I knew 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 paper. 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 marrying him is no good. You can bank on that.” - -“Well,” said Barron, “I’m glad you’ve told me this. I’ll keep my eye on -Mr. Essex. I was going to the mines next week, but guess I’ll put it -off.” - -“Do. But don’t you let on to Mariposa what I’ve told you. She wouldn’t -like it. She’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 look!” glancing at an adjacent clock with a start, “I -must be traveling. This stuff’s got to go in at once.” - -“Good by,” said Barron, holding out his hand; “it’s a good thing we had -this minute of talk.” - -“Good by,” she answered, returning the pressure with a grip almost as -manly; “it’s been awfully good to see you 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 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 -indignation it passed to a state of simmering passion. Her conscience -heated it still further, for it was she who had introduced Essex to -Mariposa, and in the first stages of their acquaintance had in a -careless way encouraged the friendship, thinking it would be cheerful -for the solitary girl to have the occasional companionship of this -clever and interesting man of the world. She had thoughtlessly kindled -a fire that might burn far past her power of control and lead to -irreparable disaster. - -She inferred from Barron’s story that Essex was evidently attempting -to frighten Mariposa into smiling on his suit. The cowardice of the -action enraged her, for, though Mrs. Willers had known many men of many -faults, she had counted no cowards among her friends. Her point of view -was Western. A man might do many things that offend Eastern conventions -and retain her consideration. But, as she expressed it to herself in -the walk down Third Street, “He’s got to know that in this country they -don’t drag women shrieking to the altar.” - -She ran up the stairs of _The Trumpet_ building 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 business 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 drooping with their air of faintly bored insolence. Hearing -the rustle of her dress, he looked up and saw her making a momentary -pause by the doorway. He did not look pleased at the sight of her. - -“Ah, Mrs. Willers,” he said, leaning forward to pick up his pen and -speaking with the crisp clearness of utterance certain people employ -when irritated, “what is it that you want to see me about?” - -“Nothing,” said Mrs. Willers abruptly and with battle in her tone; “why -should I?” - -“I have not the least idea,” he answered, looking at his pen, and then, -dipping it in the ink, “unless perhaps you want a few hints for your -forthcoming article, ‘The Kind of Shoestrings 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 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 became quite unnecessary in the flood -of natural color that rose to her face, “if I was going to tackle -that subject I think you’d be about the best person to come to for -information. For if you ever have had anything to do with crowned heads -it’s been as their bootblack.” - -Essex was startled by the stinging malice revealed in this remark. He -swung round on his swivel chair and sat facing his antagonist, making -no attempt to rise, although she entered the room. 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 professional calm. - -As she entered she pushed the door to behind her, and, taking the chair -beside the desk, sat down. - -“Mr. Essex,” she said, “I want a 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 -suddenly 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 interest 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 don’t happen 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 -interesting facts in local manners and customs. I’m sure they’d be -of value to some one who was making a special study of the subject. -Personally I am not deeply interested in the California aborigines. -Even the original and charming 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, and my time is valuable, my dear -Mrs. Willers.” - -Mrs. Willers rose to her feet, burning 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 persecuting 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 marrying you in California in the nineteenth -century.” - -Essex rose from his chair. He was 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 acquaintance with another lady?” - -“I’d dare more than that, Barry Essex,” 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’s 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 -prominent. - -“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 protégée -of his mother’s.” - -She was at the door and had the handle 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 into a rage ever do any good?” she thought desperately, as -she sank into her desk chair. - -Her article lay unnoticed and forgotten by her side, while she sat -staring at her scattered papers, trying to decide through the storm -that still shook her whether she had not done well in throwing down her -gage in defense of her friend. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - -THE MEETING IN THE RAIN - - “A time to love and a time to hate.” - - --ECCLESIASTES. - - -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 was living under an exhausting tension. She went out with -the fear of meeting him driving her into unfrequented side streets, and -returned, her eyes straining through the foliage of the pepper-tree to -watch for a light in the parlor windows. - -This afternoon, standing at the window drumming on the pane with her -finger-tips, she looked at the dun, low-hanging clouds, and thought -with shrinking of her walk to Sutter Street, at any turn of which she -might meet him. - -“Well, and if I do?” she said to herself, trying to whip up her -dwindling courage, “he can’t do any more than threaten me with telling -all he knows. He can’t make a scene on the street proposing to me.” - -She felt somewhat cheered by these assurances and began putting on her -outdoor things. The day was darkening curiously early, she thought, -for, though it was not yet four, the long mirror, with its top-heavy -gold ornaments, gave back but a dim reflection of her. There had been -fine weather for two weeks, and now rain was coming. She put on her -long cloak, the enveloping “circular” of the mode which fastened at the -throat with a metal clasp, and took her umbrella, a black cotton one, -which seemed to her quite elegant enough for a humble teacher of music. -A small black bonnet, trimmed with loops of ribbon, crowned her head -and showed her rich hair, rippling loosely back from her forehead. - -The air on the outside was warm and at the same time was softly and -stilly humid. There was not a breath of wind, and in this motionless, -tepid atmosphere the gardens exhaled moist earth-odors as if breathing -out their strength in panting expectation of the rain. From the high -places of the city one could see the bay, flat and oily, with its -surrounding hills and its circular sweep of houses, a picture in shaded -grays. The smoke, trailing lazily upward, was the palest tint in this -study in monochrome, while the pall of the sky, leaden and lowering, -was the darkest. A faint light diffused itself from the rim of sky, -visible round the edges of the pall, and cast an unearthly yellowish -gleam on people’s faces. - -Mariposa walked rapidly downward from street to street. She kept a -furtive lookout for the well-known figure in its long overcoat and high -hat, but saw no one, and her troubled heart-beats began to moderate. -The damp air on her face refreshed her. She had been keeping in the -house too much of late, and did not realize that this was still further -irritating her already jangled nerves. The angle of the building in -which Mrs. Willers housed herself broke on her view just as the first -sullen drops of rain began to spot the pavement--slow, reluctant drops, -falling far apart. - -The music lesson had hardly begun when the rain was lashing the window -and pouring down the panes in fury. Darkness fell with it. The night -seemed to drop on the city in an instant, coming with a whirling rush -of wind and falling waters. The housewifely 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, I 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 forgot 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 removing the elastic band that held -together 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 upward. - -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’ -giving Edna her lesson. This is Wednesday, ain’t it? Well, Edna gets -her lesson on Wednesday from half-past four till half-past five, and so -that’s where Mariposa is. But she’s generally late ’cause she stays and -talks to Mrs. Willers.” - -At five o’clock, sheltered by the dripping 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 officious boarders. There was absolute seclusion in -these black and rain-swept streets. - -He had been prowling about for an hour when he finally saw her. A dozen -times he had cursed 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 uncurtained pane she saw -his face, and shrank back against the wall as if she had been struck. -Then a second impulse 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, trying to smile: - -“What are you afraid of? Don’t you know me?” - -“Let me go,” she said, struggling, “you’re hurting me.” - -“I don’t want to hurt you,” he answered, “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 repugnance in face and voice -maddened 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 beneath it, and her mouth, with the lips that all the anger in -the world could not make hard or unlovely. - -“You’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 umbrella and, turning it toward him, pressed it -down between them. The action was so quick and unexpected that the man -did not move back, 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 umbrella and, tearing it from her grasp, -sent it flying into the street. Here the wind snatched it, and its -inverted shape, like a large black mushroom, went sweeping 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 -nothing. 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?” - -“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. -It 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 -gentleness that she hoped would soften him. He heard it with a thrill; -but it had an exactly contrary effect to what she had desired. - -“I would like never to let you go. Just to hold you here and look at -you. Mariposa, 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 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 to -take all that out of 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 revengeful. It’s not -like you. Be kind, be merciful to a man who, if he said what hurt you, -has repented it with all his soul ever since. I am ready to give you my -whole life to make amends. Say you forgive me. Say you love me.” - -He was speaking the truth. 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 don’t like you.” - -“It’s not true--it’s not true,” he vociferated. “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 fierce, pallid moment. Another drop of blood on his -cheek detached itself 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 a madman. It’s early yet 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 before you take such desperate measures. I want -to ask 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 across 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 Trumpet_ -became Shackleton’s property. There’s not a soul here that even -suspects it. It will be a bombshell to the city, involving people of -the highest position, like the Shackletons, and people of the most -unquestioned respectability, like the Moreaus. Oh--it will be good -reading!” - -Her eyes, fastened on him, were full of anguish, but it had not -bewildered her. In 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! Shackleton a Mormon, and you -his only legitimate child. Your mother 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 straighten things out by a bogus marriage -ceremony. 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 knows 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 your mother from Shackleton for a -pair of horses.” - -“A drunken thief! He stole all my father had and ran away. Can his word -carry the same weight as mine to whose interest it would be to prove -myself Shackleton’s daughter? No. The only real proof in existence is -the marriage certificate. And I have that. And so long as I have that -any story you choose to publish I can get 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 marriage--the certificate which she possessed. Her unexpected -recognition of the point staggered him. He had thought to break her -resistance by threats which even to him seemed shameful, and only -excusable because of the stress he found himself in. Now he saw her as -defiantly unconquered as ever. In his rage he pushed her back against -the wall, crying at her: - -“Deny, deny all you like! Whether you deny or not, the thing will have -been said. Next Sunday the whole city, the whole state will be reading -it--how you’re Shackleton’s daughter and your mother was Dan 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--not your -disgrace alone, but your father’s, your mother’s--” - -With a cry of rage and despair Mariposa tried to tear herself from -him. Nature aided her, for at the same moment a savage gust of wind -seized the umbrella and wrenched it this way and that. Instinctively he -loosened his hold on her to grasp it, and in that one moment she tore -herself away from him. He gripped at the flapping wing of her cloak, -and caught it. But the strain was too much for the cheap metal clasp, -which broke, and Mariposa slipped out of it and flew into the fury of -the rain, leaving the cloak in his hand. - -The roar of many waters and the shouting of the wind obliterated the -sound of her flying feet. The darkness, shot through with the blurred -faces of lamps or the long rays from an occasional uncurtained pane, in -a moment absorbed her black figure. Essex stood motionless, stunned at -the suddenness of her escape, the sodden cloak trailing from his hand. -Then shaken out of all reason by rage, not knowing what he intended -doing, he started in pursuit. - -She feared this and her burst of bravery was exhausted. As she ran up -the steep street having only the darkness to hide her, her heart seemed -shriveled with the fear of him. - -Suddenly she heard the thud of his feet behind her. An agony of fright -seized her. The Garcia house was at least two blocks farther on, and -she knew he would overtake her before then. A black doorway with a -huddle of little trees, formless and dark now, loomed close by, and -toward this she darted, crouching down among the small wet trunks of -the shrubs and parting their foliage with shaking hands. - -There was a lamp not far off and in its rays she saw him running up, -still holding the cloak in a black bunch over his arm. He stopped, just -beyond where she cowered, and looked irresolutely up and down. The -lamplight fell on his face, and in certain angles she saw it plainly, -pale and glistening with moisture, all keen and alert with a look of -attentive cunning. He moved his head this way and that, evidently -trusting more to hearing than to sight. His eyes, no longer half veiled -in cold indifference, swept her hiding-place with the preoccupation of -one who listens intently. He looked to her like some thwarted animal -harkening for the steps of his prey. Her terror grew with the sight of -him. She thought if he had approached the bushes she would have swooned -before he reached them. - -Presently he turned and went down the hill. In the pause his reason had -reasserted itself, and he felt that to hound her down with more threats -and reproaches was useless folly. - -But, with her, reason and judgment were hopelessly submerged by terror. -She crept out from among the shrubs with white face and trembling -limbs, and fled up the hill in a wild, breathless race, hearing Essex -in every sound. The rain had dripped on her through the bushes, and -these last two blocks under its unrestrained fury soaked her to the -skin. - -Her haunting terror did not leave her till she had rushed up the stairs -and opened the door of the glass porch. She was fumbling in her pocket -for the latch-key, when the inner door was opened and Barron stood in -the aperture, the lighted hall behind him. - -“What on earth has delayed you?” he said sharply. “They’re all at -supper. I was just going down to Mrs. Willers’ to see what was keeping -you.” - -She stumbled in at the door, and stood in the revealing light of the -hall, for the moment unable to answer, panting and drenched. - -“What’s the matter?” he said suddenly in a different tone; and quickly -stepping back he shut the door into the dining-room. “Has anything -happened?” - -“I’m--only--only--frightened,” she gasped between broken breaths. -“Something frightened me.” - -She reeled and caught against the door-post. - -“I’m all wet,” she whispered with white lips; “don’t let them know. I -don’t want any dinner.” - -He put his arm round her and drew her toward the stairs. He could feel -her trembling like a person with an ague and her saturated clothes left -rillets along the stairs. - -When they were half-way up he said: - -“How did you get so wet? Have you been out in this storm without an -umbrella?” - -“I lost it,” she whispered. - -“Lost it?” he replied. “Where’s your cloak?” - -“Somewhere,” she said vaguely; “somewhere in the street. I lost that, -too.” - -They were at the top of the stairs. She suddenly turned toward him and -pressed her face into his shoulder, trembling like a terrified animal. - -“I’m frightened,” she whispered. “Don’t tell them downstairs. I’ll tell -you to-morrow. Don’t ask me anything to-night.” - -He took her into her room and placed her in an armchair by the -fireplace. He lit the gas and drew the curtains, and then knelt by the -hearth to kindle the fire, saying nothing and apparently taking little -notice of her. She sat dully watching him, her hands in her lap, the -water running off her skirts along the carpet. - -When he had lit the fire he said: - -“Now, I’ll go, and you take off your things. I’ll bring you up your -supper in half an hour. Be quick, you’re soaking. I’ll tell them -downstairs you’re too tired to come down.” - -He went out, softly closing the door. She sat on in her wet clothes, -feeling the growing warmth of the flames on her face and hands. She -seemed to fall into a lethargy of exhaustion and sat thus motionless, -the water running unheeded on the carpet, _frissons_ of cold -occasionally shaking her, till a knock at the door roused her. Then she -suddenly remembered Barron and his command to take off her wet clothes. -She had them on still and he would be angry. - -“Put it down on the chair outside,” she called through the door; “I’m -not ready.” - -“Won’t you open the door and take this whisky and drink it at once?” -came his answer. - -She opened the door a crack and, putting her hand through the aperture, -took the glass with the whisky. - -“Are you warm and dry?” he said; all she could see of him was his big -hand clasped round the glass. - -“Yes, quite,” she answered, though she felt her skin quivering with -cold against the damp garments that seemed glued to it. - -“Well, drink this now, right off. And listen--” as the door began to -close--“if you get nervous or anything just come to your door and call -me. I’ll leave mine open, and I’m a very light sleeper.” - -Then before she could answer she felt the door-handle pulled from the -outside and the door was shut. - -She hastily took off her things and put on dry ones, and then shrugged -herself into the thick wrapper of black and white that had been her -mother’s. Even her hair was wet, she found out as she undressed, -and she mechanically undid it and shook the damp locks loose on her -shoulders. She felt penetrated with cold, and still overmastered by -fear. Every gust that made the long limb of the pepper-tree grate -against the balcony roof caused her heart to leap. When she opened the -door to get her supper, the glow of light that fell from Barron’s room, -across the hallway, came to her with a hail of friendship and life. She -stood listening, and heard the creak of his rocking-chair, then smelt -the whiff of a cigar. He was close to her. She shut the door, feeling -her terrors allayed. - -She picked at her supper, but soon set the tray on the center-table -and took the easy-chair before the fire. The sense of physical cold -was passing off, but the indescribable oppression and apprehension -remained. She did not know exactly what she dreaded, but she felt in -some vague way that she would be safer sitting thus clad and wakeful -before the fire than sleeping in her bed. Once or twice, as the hours -passed and her fears strengthened in the silence and mystery of the -night, she crept to her door, and opening it, looked up the hall. The -square of light was still there, the scent of the cigar pungent on the -air. She shut the door softly, each time feeling soothed as by the -pressure of a strong, loving hand. - -Sometime toward the middle of the night the heaviness of sleep came -on her, and though she fought against it, feeling that the safety she -was struggling to maintain against mysterious menace was only to be -preserved by wakefulness, Nature overcame her. Curled in her chair -before the crumbling fire, she finally slept--the deep, motionless -sleep of physical and mental exhaustion. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - -A NIGHT’S WORK - - “Have is have, however men may catch.” - - --SHAKESPEARE. - - -Under cover of the darkness Essex hurried down the street toward where -the city passed from a place of homes to a business mart. He had at -first no fixed idea of a goal, but after a few moments’ rapid march, -realized that habit was taking him in the direction of Bertrand’s. An -illumined clock face shining on him over the roofs told him it was -some time past his dinner hour. He obeyed his instinct and bent his -steps toward the restaurant, throwing the cloak over the fence of a -vacant lot and wiping the trickle of blood from his cheek with his -handkerchief. - -He was cool and master of himself once more. His brain was cleared, as -a sky by storm, and he knew that to-night’s interview must be one of -the last he would have with the woman who had come to stand to him for -love, wealth, success and happiness. He must win or lose all within the -next few days. - -Bertrand’s looked invitingly bright after the tempestuous blackness -of the streets. Many of the white draped tables were unoccupied. His -accustomed eye noted that the lady in the blue silk dress and black -hat, and her companion with the bald head and cross-eye, who always -sat at the right-hand corner table, were absent. He had fallen into -the habit of bowing to them, and had more than once idly wondered what -their relations were. - -“Monsieur Esseex” to-night ate little and drank much. Etienne, the -waiter, a black-haired, pink-cheeked garçon from Marseilles, noticed -this and afterward remarked upon it to Madame Bertrand. To the few -other habitués of the place, the thin-faced, handsome man with an ugly -furrow down his cheek, and his hair tumbled on his forehead by the -pressure of his hat, presented the same suavely imperturbable demeanor -as usual. But Madame Bertrand, as a woman whose business it was to -observe people and faces, noticed that monsieur was pale, and that when -she spoke to him on the way in he had given a distrait answer, not the -usual phrase of debonair, Gallic greeting she had grown to expect. - -She looked at him from her cashier’s desk and reflected. As Etienne -afterward repeated, he ate little and drank much. And how pale he -looked, with the lamp on the wall above him throwing out the high -lights on his face and deepening the shadows! - -“He is in love,” thought the sentimental Madame Bertrand, “and to-night -for the first time he knows that she does not respond.” - -He sat longer than he had ever done before over his dinner, blowing -clouds of cigarette smoke about his head, and watching the thin blue -flame of the burning lump of sugar in the spoon balanced on his -coffee-cup. - -Everybody had left, and he still sat smoking, leaning back against -the wall, his eyes fixed on space in immovable, concentrated thought. -Bertrand came out of his corner, and in his cap and apron stood cooling -himself in the open door watching the rain. Etienne and Henri, the -two waiters apportioned to that part of the room, hung about restless -and tired, eagerly watching for the first symptoms of his departure. -Even Madame Bertrand began to burrow under the cashier’s desk for her -rubbers, and to struggle into them with much creaking of corset bones -and subdued French ejaculations. It was after nine when the last guest -finally pushed back his chair. Etienne rushed to help him on with his -coat, and Madame Bertrand bobbed up from her rubbers to give him a -parting smile. - -A half-hour later he was lighting the gas in his own room in Bush -Street. The damp air of the night entered through a crack of opened -window, introducing a breath of sweet, moist freshness into the -smoke-saturated chamber. He threw off his coat and lit the fire. As -soon as it had caught satisfactorily he left the room, crossed the -hall noiselessly, and with a slight preliminary knock, opened Harney’s -door. The man was sitting there in a broken rocking-chair, reading the -evening paper by the light of a flaming gas-jet. He had the air of one -who was waiting, and as Essex’s head was advanced round the edge of the -door, he looked up with alert, expectant eyes. - -“Come into my room,” said the younger man; “there’s work for you -to-night.” - -Harney threw down his paper and followed him across the hall. It was -evident that he was sober, and beyond this some new sense of importance -and power had taken from his manner its old deprecation. They were -equals now, pals and partners. The drunken typesetter and one-time -thief was still under Barry Essex’s thumb, but he was also deep in his -confidence. - -He sat down in his old seat by the fire, his eyes on Essex. - -“What’s up?” he said; “what work have you got for me such a night as -this?” - -“Big work, and with big money behind it,” said the younger man; “and -when it’s done we each get our share and go our ways, George Harney.” - -He drew his chair to the other side of the fire and began to talk--his -voice low and quiet at first, growing urgent and authoritative, as -Harney shrank before the dangers of the work expected of him. The -moments ticked by, the fire growing hotter and brighter, the roaring -of the storm sounding above the voices of the master and his tool. The -night was half spent before Harney was conquered and instructed. - -Then the men, waiting for the hour of deepest sleep and darkness, -continued to sit, occasionally speaking, the light of the leaping -flames catching and losing their anxious faces as the firelight in -another room was touching the face of the sleeping girl of whom they -talked. - -It was nearly three when a movement of life stirred the blackness of -the Garcia garden. The rushing of the rain beat down all sound; in the -moist soddenness of the earth no trace lingered. The pepper-tree bent -and cracked to the gusts as it did to the additional weight of the -creeping figure in its boughs. - -This was merely a shapeless bulk of blackness amid the fine and broken -blackness of the swaying foliage. It stole forward with noiseless -caution, though it might have shouted and all sound been lost in the -angry turmoil of the night. Creeping upward along the great limb that -stretched to the balcony roof, a perpendicular knife-edge of light that -gleamed from between the curtains of a window, now and then crossed its -face, sometimes dividing it clearly in two, sometimes illuminating one -attentive eye, a small shining point of life in the dead murk around -it, one eye, aglow with purpose, gleaming startlingly from blackness. - -The loud drumming of the rain on the balcony roof drowned the crackle -of the tin under a feeling foot. To slide there from the limb only -occupied a moment. The branch had grown well up over the roof, grating -now and then against it when the wind was high. The thin streak of -light from between the curtains made the man wary. Why was she burning -a light at this hour unless she was sleepless and up? - -Pressed close to the pane he applied his eye to the crack which was the -widest near the sill. He saw a portion of the room, looking curiously -vivid and distinct in the narrow concentration of his view. It seemed -flooded with unsteady, warmly yellow light. Straight before him he saw -a table with a rifled tea-tray on it, and back of that another table. -The one eye pressed to the crack grew absorbed as it focused itself -on the second table. Among a litter of books, ornaments and feminine -trifles, stood a small desk of dark wood. It was as if it had been -placed there to catch his attention--the goal of his line of vision. - -Shifting his position he pressed his cheek against the glass and -squinted in sidewise to where a deepening and quivering of the light -spoke of a fire. Then he saw the figure of the sleeping woman, lying -in an attitude of complete repose in the armchair. He gazed at her -striving to gage the depth of her sleep. One of her hands hung over the -arm of the chair, with the gleam of the fire flickering on the white -skin. The same light touched a strand of loosened hair. Her face was in -profile toward him, the chin pressed down on the shoulder. It looked -like a picture in its suggestion of profound unconsciousness. - -He pushed fearfully on the cross-bar of the pane, and the window rose a -hair’s-breadth. Then again, and it was high enough up for him to insert -his hand. He did so, and drew forward the curtain of heavy rep so as to -hide from the sleeper the gradual stages of his entrance. By degrees he -raised it to a height sufficient to permit the passage of his body. The -curtain shielded the girl from the current of cold air that entered the -room. He crept in softly on his hands and knees, then rose to his feet. - -For a moment he made no further movement, but stood, his gaze riveted -on the sleeper, watching for a symptom of roused consciousness. She -slept on peacefully, the light sound of her breathing faintly audible. - -The silence of the hushed house seemed weirdly terrifying after the -tumult of the night outside. The thief stole forward to the desk, his -eye continually turned toward her. When he reached the table she was so -far behind him that he could only see the sweep of her wrapper on the -floor, her shoulder, and the top of her head over the chair-back. - -He tried the desk with an unsteady hand. It was locked, but the -insertion of a steel file he carried broke the frail clasp. It gave -with a sharp click and he stood, his hair stirring, watching the top of -her head. It did not move, the silence resettled, he could again hear -her light, even breathing. - -There were many papers in the desk, bundles of letters, souvenirs of -old days of affluence. He tossed them aside with tremulous quickness -until, underneath all, he came on a long, dirty envelope and a little -chamois leather bag. He lifted the latter. It was heavy and emitted a -faint chink. The old thief’s instincts rose in him. But he first opened -the envelope, and softly drew out the two certificates, took the one he -wanted, and put the other back. Then he opened the mouth of the bag. -The gleam of gold shone from the aperture. Stricken with temptation he -stood hesitating. - -At that moment the fire, a heap of red ruins, fell together with a -small, clinking sound. It was no louder noise than he had made when -opening the desk, but it contained some penetrating quality the former -had lacked. Still hesitating, with the sack of money in his hand, he -turned again to the chair. A face, white and wide-eyed, was staring at -him round the side. - -He gave a smothered oath and the sack dropped from his hand to the -table. The money fell from it in a clattering heap and rolled about, -in golden zigzags in every direction. The sound roused the still -unawakened intelligence of the girl. She saw the paper in his hand, -half-opened. Its familiarity broke through her dazed senses. She rose -and rushed at him gasping: - -“The certificate! the certificate!” - -Harney made a dash for the open window, but she caught him by the -shoulder and arm, and with the unimpaired strength of her healthy youth -struggled with him hand to hand, reaching out for the paper he tried to -keep out of her grasp. In the fury of the moment’s conflict, neither -made any sound, but fought like two enraged animals, rocking to and -fro, panting and clutching at each other. - -He finally wrenched his arm free and struck her a savage blow, aimed -at her head but falling on her shoulder, which sent her down on her -knees and then back against the fire. He thought he had stunned her, -and raised his arm again when she sprang up, tore the paper out of his -grasp and pressed it with her hand down into the coals beside her. As -she did so, for the first time she raised her voice and shrieked: - -“Mr. Barron! Mr. Barron! Come, come! Oh hurry!” - -From the hall Harney heard a movement and an answering shout. With the -cries echoing through the room he beat her down against the grate, and -tore the paper, curling with fire on the edges, from her hand. With it, -he dashed through the open sash, a shiver of glass following him. - -Almost simultaneously, Barron burst into the room. He had been reading -and had fallen asleep to be waked by the shrieks of the girl’s voice, -which were still in his ears. The falling of broken glass and a rush -of cold air from the opened window greeted him. Piled on the table and -scattered about the floor were gold pieces. Mariposa was kneeling on -the rug. - -“He’s got it!” she cried wildly, and struggling to her feet rushed to -the window. “He’s got it! Oh go after him! Stop him!” - -“Got what?” he said. “No, he hasn’t got the money. It’s all there.” - -He seized her by the arm, for she seemed as if intending to go through -the broken window. - -“Not the money--not the money,” she shrieked, wringing her hands; “the -paper--the certificate! He’s got it and gone, this way, through the -window.” - -Barron grasped the fact that she had been robbed of something other -than the money, the loss of which seemed to render her half distracted. -With a hasty word of reassurance, he turned and ran from the room, -springing down the stairs and across the hall. In the instant’s pause -by the window he had heard the sound of feet on the steps below and -judged that he could get down more quickly by the stairs than by the -limb of the tree. - -But the few minutes’ start and the darkness of the night were on the -side of the thief. The roar of the rain drowned his footsteps. Barron -ran this way and that, but neither sight nor sound of his quarry was -vouchsafed to him. The man had got away with his booty, whatever it was. - -[Illustration: “WITH THE STRENGTH OF HER HEALTHY YOUTH SHE STRUGGLED -WITH HIM”] - -In fifteen minutes Barron was back and found the Garcia ladies in -Mariposa’s room, ministering to the girl who lay in a heavy swoon, -stark and white on the hearth-rug. - -The old lady, in some wondrous and intimate déshabille, greeted him -eagerly in Spanish, demanding what had happened. He told her all he -knew and knelt down beside the younger Mrs. Garcia, who was attempting -with a shaking hand to pour brandy between Mariposa’s set teeth. - -“We heard the most awful shrieks, and we rushed up, and here she was -standing and screaming: ‘He’s got it! He’s got it!’ And then she fell -flat, quite suddenly, and has lain here this way ever since.” - -“It was a robber,” said the old woman, looking at the scattered gold, -“but he didn’t get her money. What was it he took, I wonder?” - -“Some papers, I think,” said Barron, “that were evidently of value to -her. I’ll lift her up and put her on the bed and then I’ll go. As soon -as she’s conscious ask her what the man took and come and tell me, and -I’ll go right to the police station.” - -“Oh, don’t leave us,” implored Mrs. Garcia, junior--“if there are -burglars anywhere round. Oh, please don’t go. Pierpont’s away and we’d -have no man in the house. Don’t go till morning. I’m just as scared as -I can be!” - -“There’s nothing to be scared about. The man’s got what he wanted, and -he’ll take precious good care not to come back.” - -“Oh, but don’t go till it gets light. The window’s broken and any one -can come in who wants.” - -“All right, I’ll wait till it gets light. I’ll lift her up now, if -you’ll get the bed ready.” - -With the assistance of old Mrs. Garcia he lifted her and carried her -to the bed. One of her arms fell limp against his shoulder as he laid -her down, and the old lady uttered an exclamation. She lifted it up and -showed him a curious red welt on the white wrist. - -“It’s a burn,” she said. “How did she get that?” - -“She must have fallen against the grate,” he answered. His eyes grew -dark as they encountered the scar. “As soon as she’s conscious tell me.” - -A few minutes later, the young widow found him sitting on a chair under -a lamp in the hall. - -“Well,” he said eagerly, “how is she?” - -“She’s come back to her senses all right. But she doesn’t seem to want -to tell what he took. She says it was a paper, and that’s all, and -that she never saw him before. Mother doesn’t think we ought to worry -her. She says she’s got a fever, and she’s going to give her medicine -to make her sleep, and not to disturb her till she wakes up. She’s all -broken up and sort of limp and trembly.” - -“Well, I suppose the señora knows best. It’ll be light soon now, and -I’ll go to the police station. The señora and you will stay with her?” - -“O yes,” said Mrs. Garcia, the younger. “My goodness, what a night -it’s been! It’s lucky the man didn’t get her money. There was quite a -lot; about five hundred dollars, I should think. Oh, my curl papers! I -forget them. Gracious, what a sight I must look!” and she shuffled down -the stairs. - -Barron sat on till the dawn broke gray through the hall window. He -was beginning to wonder if this girl was the central figure of some -drama, secret, intricate and unsuspected, which was working out to its -conclusion. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - -THE LOST VOICE - - “There may be heaven; there must be hell; - Meantime there is our earth here--well!” - - --BROWNING. - - -The fears of Mrs. Garcia held Barron to the house till the morning -light was fully established. This was late, even for the winter season, -as the rain still fell heavily, retarding the coming of day with a -leaden veil. - -He made his report at the police station, and then went down town to -his office where business detained him till noon. It was his habit to -lunch at the Lick House, but to-day he hurried back to the Garcias’, -striding up the series of hills at top speed, urged on by his desire to -hear news of Mariposa. He burst into the house to find it silent--the -hall empty. As he was hanging his hat on the rack, young Mrs. Garcia -appeared from the kitchen, her bang somewhat limp, though it was still -early in the day, her face looking small and peaked after her exciting -night’s vigil. - -Mariposa was still asleep, she said in answer to his query. The señora -had given her a powerful sleeping draft and had said that the rest -would be the best restorative after such a shock. If, when she waked, -she showed symptoms of suffering or prostration, they would send for -the doctor. - -“Have you found her paper?” she asked anxiously. “She seemed in such a -way about it last night.” - -He muttered a preoccupied answer, mentioning his visit to the police -station. - -“What was it, anyway? Do _you_ know?” inquired the young woman who was -not exempt from the weaknesses of her sex. - -“Some legal document, I think, but I don’t know. The police can’t do -much till they know what it is.” - -“Perhaps it was a will,” said the widow, whose sole literature was that -furnished by the daily press; “though I should think if it was a will -she’d have told about it by now and not kept it hid away up there. -Anyway, she thought a lot of it, for when she came to I told her her -money was all right, and she said she didn’t care about the money, she -wanted the paper.” - -“I’ll see her when she wakes,” said Barron, “and find out what it was. -Our affair now is to see that she is not frightened again and gets -well.” - -“Well, mother says to let her sleep. So that’s what we’re going to do. -No one’s going to disturb her, and Pierpont, who got back an hour ago, -has promised not to give any lessons all afternoon.” - -The conversation was here interrupted by the appearance of the -Chinaman, who loungingly issued from the kitchen, shouted an -unintelligible phrase at his mistress, and disappeared into the -dining-room. His words seemed to have meaning to her, for she pulled -off her apron, saying briskly: - -“There, dinner’s ready and we’re going to have enchilados. Don’t you -smell them? The boys will be crazy.” - -A cautious inspection made after dinner by young Mrs. Garcia, resulted -in the information that Mariposa still slept. Barron, who was -feverishly desirous to know how she progressed and also anxious to -learn from her the nature of the lost document, was forced to leave -without seeing her. A business engagement of the utmost importance -claimed him at his office at two or he would have awaited her awakening. - -It was nearly an hour later before this occurred. The drug the señora -had administered was a heroic remedy, relic of the days when doctors -were a rarity and the medicine chest of the hardy Spaniard contained -few but powerful potions. The girl rose, feeling weak and dizzy. For -some time she found it difficult to collect her thoughts and sat on -the edge of her bed, eying the disordered room with uncomprehending -glances. Bodily discomfort at first absorbed her mind. A fever burned -through her, her head ached, her limbs felt leaden and stiff. - -The sight of the opened desk gave the fillip to her befogged memory, -and suddenly the events of the night rushed back on her with stunning -force. She felt, at first, that it must be a dream. But the rifled -desk, with the money which the Garcias had gathered up and laid in a -glittering heap on the table, told her of its truth. The man’s face, -yellow and flabby, with the dark line of the shaven beard clearly -marked on his jaws, and the frightened rat’s eyes, came back to her as -he had turned in the first paralyzed moment of fear. With hot, unsteady -hands she searched through the scattered papers and then about the -room, in the hope that he had dropped the paper in the struggle. But -all search was fruitless. She remembered his tearing it from her grasp -as Barron’s shout had sounded in the passage. He had escaped with it. -The irrefutable evidence of the marriage was in Essex’s hands. He had -her under his feet. It was the end. - -She began to dress slowly and with constant pauses. Every movement -seemed an effort; every stage of her toilet loomed colossal before -her. The one horror of the situation kept revolving in her brain, and -she found it impossible to detach her thoughts from it and fix them on -anything else. At the same time she could think of no way to escape, or -to fight against it. - -Next Sunday it would all be in _The Era_. Those words seemed written -in letters of fire on the walls, and repeated themselves in maddening -revolution in her mind. It would all be there, sensationally displayed -as other old scandals had been. She saw the tragic secret of the two -lives that had sheltered hers, the love that had been so sacred a thing -written of with all the defiling brutality of the common scribe and his -common reader, for all the world of the low and ignoble to jeer at and -spit upon. - -She stopped in her dressing and pressed her hands to her face. How -could she live till next Sunday, and then, when Sunday came, live -through it? There were three days yet before Sunday. Might not -something be done in three days? But she could think of nothing. -Something had happened to her brain. If there was only some one to help -her! - -And with that came the thought of Barron. A flash of relief went -through her. He would help her; he would do something. She had no idea -what, but something, and, uplifted by the idea, she opened the door and -looked up the hall. She felt a sudden drop of hope when she saw that -his door was closed. But she stole up the passage, watching it, not -knowing what she intended saying to him, only actuated by the desire to -throw her responsibilities on him and ask for his help. - -The door was ajar and she listened outside it. There was no sound from -within and no scent of cigar-smoke. She tapped softly and receiving no -answer pushed it open and peered fearfully in. The room was empty. The -man’s clothes were thrown about carelessly, his table littered with -papers and books. From the crevice of the opened window came the smell -and the sound of the rain, with a chill, bleak suggestion. - -A sudden throttling sense of lonely helplessness overwhelmed her. She -stood looking blankly about, at the ashes of cigars in a china saucer, -at an old valise gaping open in a corner. The room seemed to her to -have a vacated air, and she remembered hearing Barron, a few days -before, speak of going to the mines again soon. Her mind leaped to the -conclusion that he had gone. Her hopes suddenly fell around her in -ruins, and in his looking-glass she saw a blanched face that she hardly -recognized as her own. - -Stealing back to her room she sat down on the bed again. The house was -curiously quiet and in this silence her thoughts began once more to -revolve round the one topic. Then suddenly they broke into a burst of -rebellion. She could not bear it. She must go, somewhere, anywhere to -escape. She would flee away like a hunted animal and hide, creeping -into some dark distant place and cowering there. But where would she -go, and what would she do? The world outside seemed one vast menace -waiting to spring on her. If her head would stop aching and the fever -that burned her body and clouded her brain would cease for a moment, -she could think and come to some conclusion. But now-- - -And suddenly, as she thought, a whisper seemed to come to her, clear -and distinct like a revelation--“You have your voice!” - -It lifted her to her feet. For a moment the pain and confusion of -developing illness left her, and she felt a thrill of returning energy. -She had it still, the one great gift neither enemies nor misfortune -could take from her--her voice! - -The hope shook her out of the lethargy of fever, and her mind sprang -into excited action like a loosened spring. She went to her desk and -placed the gold back in its bag. The five hundred dollars that had -seemed so meaningless had now a use. It would take her away to Europe. -With the three hundred she still had in the bank, it would be enough -to take her to Paris and leave her something to live on. Money went a -long way over there, she had heard. She could study and sing and become -famous. - -It all seemed suddenly possible, almost easy. Only leaving would be -hard--fearfully. She thought of the door up the passage and the voice -that in those first days of her feebleness had called a greeting to -her every morning; the man’s deep voice with its strong, cheery note. -And then like a peevish child, sick and unreasonable, she found herself -saying: - -“Why does he leave me now when I want him so?” - -No--her voice was all she had. She would live for it and be famous, and -the year of terror and anguish she had spent in San Francisco would -become a dim memory upon which she could some day look back with calm. -But before she went she would sing for Pierpont and hear what he said. - -The thought had hardly formed in her mind when she was out in the hall -and stealing noiselessly down the stairs of the silent house. It struck -her as odd that the house should be so quiet, as these were the hours -in which Pierpont’s pupils usually made the welkin resound with their -efforts. Perhaps he was out. But this was not so, for in the lower -hall she met the girl with the fair hair and prominent blue eyes who -possessed the fine soprano voice she had so often listened to, and who -in response to her query told her that Mr. Pierpont was in, but not -giving lessons this afternoon. - -In answer to her knock she heard his “come in” and opened the door. -He was sitting on a divan idly turning over some loose sheets of -music. The large, sparsely furnished room--it was in reality the back -drawing-room of the house--looked curiously gray and cold in the drear -afternoon light. It was only slightly furnished--his bed and toilet -articles being in a curtained alcove. In the center of its unadorned, -occupied bareness, the grand piano, gleaming richly, stood open, the -stool in front of it. - -“Miss Moreau,” he said, starting to his feet, “I thought you were -sick in bed. How are you? You’ve had a dreadful experience. I’ve been -sending away my pupils because I was told you were asleep.” - -“Oh, I’m quite well now,” she said, “only my head aches a little. Yes, -I was frightened last night--a burglar came in, crept up the bough of -the pepper-tree. I was dreadfully frightened then, but I’m all right -now. I’ve come to sing for you.” - -“To sing for me!” he exclaimed; “but you’re not well enough to -sing. You’ve had a bad fright and you look--excuse me”--he took her -hand--“you’re burning up with fever. Take my advice and go upstairs, -and as soon as Mrs. Garcia comes in we’ll get a doctor.” - -“No--no!” she said almost violently; “I’m quite well now. My hand’s -hot and so is my head, but that’s natural after the fright I had last -night. I want to sing for you now and see what you say about my voice.” - -“But, you know, you can’t do yourself justice and I can’t form a fair -opinion. Why do you want to sing this afternoon when you wouldn’t all -winter?” - -“Well,” she said, “I don’t mind telling you. I’m going to Europe to -study. I’ve just made up my mind.” - -“Going to Europe! Isn’t that very sudden? But it will be splendid! When -are you going?” - -“Soon--in a day or two--as soon as I can get my things packed in my -trunks.” - -He looked at her curiously. Her manner, which was usually calm and -deliberate, was marked by tremulous restlessness. She spoke rapidly -and like one laboring under suppressed excitement. - -“Come,” she said, going to the piano stool and pushing it nearer the -keyboard, “I’ll be very busy now and I don’t want to waste any time.” - -He moved reluctantly to the piano and seated himself. - -“Have you your music?” he asked. - -“No, but I can sing what some of your pupils do. I can sing ‘Knowest -thou the land?’ and Mrs. Burrell sings that. Where is it?” - -Her feverish haste and nervousness impressed him more than ever as -her hands tossed aside the sheets of piled-up music, throwing them -about the piano and snatching at them as they slipped to the floor. -From there he picked up the ‘Mignon’ aria which she had overlooked and -spreading it on the rack struck the opening notes. She leaned over him -to see the first line and he felt that she was trembling violently. He -raised his hands and wheeled round on the stool. - -“Miss Moreau,” he said, “I truly don’t think you’re well enough to -sing. Don’t you think we’d better put it off till to-morrow?” - -“No, no--I’m going to now. I’m ready. I’m anxious to. I must. Begin -again, please.” - -He turned obediently and began again to play the chords of -accompaniment. He had been for a long time intensely anxious to hear -her voice, of which he had heard so much. It irritated him now to have -her determined to sing when she was obviously ill and still suffering -from the effects of her fright. - -The accompaniment reached the point where the voice joins it. He -played softly, alert for the first rich notes. Mariposa’s chest rose -with an inflation of air and she began to sing. - -A sound, harsh, veiled and thin, filled the room. There was no volume, -nor resonance, nor beauty in it. It was the ghost of a voice. - -The teacher was so shocked that for a moment he stumbled in the -familiar accompaniment. Then he went on, bending his head low over the -keys, fearful of her seeing his face. Sounds unmusical, rasping, and -discordant came from her lips. Everything that had once made it rich -and splendid was gone, the very volume of it had dwindled to a thin, -muffled thread, the color had flown from every tone. - -For a bar or two she went on, then she stopped. Pierpont dared not turn -at first. But he heard her behind him say hoarsely: - -“What--what--is it?” - -Then he wheeled round and saw her with wild eyes and white lips. - -For a moment he could say nothing. Her appearance struck him with -alarm, and he sat dumb on the stool staring at her. - -“What is it?” she cried. “What has happened to it? Where is my voice?” - -“It’s--it’s--certainly not in good condition,” he stammered. - -“It’s gone,” she answered in a wail of agony; “it’s gone. My voice has -gone! What shall I do? It’s gone!” - -“Your fright of last night has affected it,” he said, speaking as -kindly as he could, “and you’re not well. I told you you were feverish -and ought not to sing. Rest will probably restore it.” - -“Let me try it again,” she said wildly. “It may be better. Play again.” - -He played over the opening bars again, and once more she drew the -deep breath that in the past had always brought with it so much -of exultation and began to sing. The same feeble sounds, obscured -as though passing through a thick, muffling medium, hoarse, flat, -unlovely, came with labor from her parted lips. - -They broke suddenly into a wild animal cry of despair. Pierpont rose -from the stool and went toward her where she stood with her arms -drooping by her sides, pallid and terrible. - -“Don’t look like that,” he said, taking her hand; “there’s no doubt the -voice has been injured. But rest does a great deal, and after a shock -like last night--” - -She tore herself away from him and ran to the door crying: - -“Oh, my voice! My voice! It was all I had!” - -He followed her into the hall, not knowing what to say in the face of -such a calamity, only anxious to offer her some consolation. But she -ran from him, up the stairs with a frantic speed. As he put his foot on -the lower step he heard her door. - -He turned round and went back slowly to his room. He was shocked and -amazed, and a little relieved that he had failed to catch her for he -had no words ready for such a misfortune. Her voice was completely -gone. She was unquestionably ill and nervous--but-- He sat down on the -divan, shaking his head. He had never heard a voice more utterly lost -and wrecked. - - * * * * * - -Barron’s business engagement detained him longer than he had expected. -The heavy rain was shortening the already short February day with a -premature dusk when he opened the gate of the Garcia house and mounted -the steps. - -He had made a cursory investigation of the ground under the pepper-tree -when he went out in the early morning. Now, before the light died, -he again stepped under its branches for a more thorough survey. The -foliage was so thick that no grass grew where the tree’s shadow fell, -and the rain sifted through it in occasional dribbles or shaken -showers. The bare stretch of ground was now an expanse of mud, -interspersed with puddles. Here and there a footprint still remained, -full of water. He moved about the base of the tree studying these, then -looking up into the branch along which the burglar had crept to the -balcony. What paper could the girl have possessed of sufficient value -to lure a man to such risks? - -With his mind full of this thought his glance dropped to the root of -the trunk. A piece of burnt paper, half covered with the trampled mud, -caught his eye, and he picked it up and absently glanced at it. He was -about to throw it over the fence into the road, when he saw the name of -Jacob Shackleton. The next moment his eyes were riveted on the printed -lines here and there filled in with writing. He moved so that the full -light fell on it through a break in the branches. It was a minute or -two before he grasped its real meaning. But he knew the name of Lucy -Fraser, too. Mariposa had once told him it had been her mother’s maiden -name. - -For a space he stood motionless under the tree, staring at the paper, -focusing his mind on it, seizing on waifs and strays from the past -that surged to the surface of his memory. It dazed him at first. Then -he began to understand. The mysterious drama that environed the girl -upstairs began to grow clear to him. This was the document that had -been stolen from her last night, the loss of which had thrown her into -a frenzy of despair--the record of a marriage between her mother and -Jake Shackleton. - -Without stopping to think further he thrust it into his pocket and ran -to the house. As he mounted the porch steps the scene of his first -meeting with Mariposa flashed suddenly like a magic-lantern picture -across his mind. He heard her hysterical cry of--“He was my father!” -Another veil of the mystery seemed lifted. - -And now he shrank from penetrating further, for he began to see. If -Mariposa had some sore secret to hide let her keep it shut in her -own breast. All he had to do was to give the paper to her as soon as -he could. In the moment’s passage of the balcony and the pause while -he inserted his latch-key in the door he tried to think how he could -restore it to her without letting her think he had read it. The key -turned and as the door gave he decided that it must be given her at -once without wasting time or bothering about comforting lies. - -He burst into the hall and then stood still, the door-handle in his -hand. In the dim light, the two Garcia ladies and the two boys met -his eyes, standing in a group at the foot of the stairs. There was -something in their faces and attitudes that bespoke uneasiness and -anxiety. Their four pairs of eyes were fastened on him with curious -alarmed gravity. - -He kicked the door shut and said: - -“How’s Miss Moreau?” - -The question seemed to increase their disquietude. - -“We don’t know where she is,” said young Mrs. Garcia. - -“Isn’t she in her room?” he demanded. - -“No--that’s what’s so funny. I thought she was sleeping an awful long -time and I just peeked in and she isn’t there. And Benito’s been all -over the house and can’t find her. It seems so crazy of her to go out -in all this rain, but her outside things are not in the closet or -anywhere.” - -They stood silent for a moment, eying one another with faces of -disturbed query. - -The opening of Pierpont’s door roused them. The young man appeared in -the aperture and then came slowly forward. - -“Have you seen Miss Moreau?” he said to young Mrs. Garcia. - -“No,” said Barron hurriedly; “but have you?” - -“Yes, she was down in my room this afternoon singing.” - -“Singing!” echoed the others in wide-eyed amazement. - -“Yes, and I’m rather anxious about her. That’s why I came out when -I heard your voices. She’s had a pretty severe disappointment, I’m -afraid. She seems to have lost her voice.” - -“Lost her voice!” ejaculated Mrs. Garcia in a low gasp of horror. “Good -heavens!” - -The boys looked from one to the other with the round eyes of growing -fear and dread. The calamity, as announced by Pierpont, did not seem -adequate for the consternation it caused, but an oppressive sense of -apprehension was in the air. - -“What made her want to sing?” said the widow; “she was too sick to -sing.” - -“That’s what I told her, but she insisted. She was determined to. She -said she was going to Europe to study.” - -“Going to Europe!” It was Barron’s deep voice that put the question -this time, Mrs. Garcia being too astonished by this last piece of -intelligence to have breath for speech. “When was she going to Europe?” - -“In a day or two--as soon as she could pack her trunks, she said. I -don’t really think she was quite accountable for what she said. She was -burning with a fever and she seemed in a tremendously wrought-up state. -I think her fright of the night before had quite upset her. I tried to -cheer her up, but she ran away as if she was frantic. Have any of you -seen her?” - -“No,” said Mrs. Garcia, her voice curiously flat. “She’s gone.” - -“Gone?” echoed Pierpont. “Gone where?” - -“We don’t any of us know. But she’s not in the house anywhere. And now -it’s getting dark and--” - -There was a pause, one of those pregnant pauses of mute anxiety while -each eyed the other with glances full of an alarmed surmise. - -“Perhaps the robber came and took her away,” said Benito in a voice of -terror. - -No one paid any attention. As if by common consent all present fastened -questioning eyes on Barron. He stood looking down, his brows knit. The -silence of dumb uneasiness was broken by the entrance of the Chinaman -from the kitchen. With the expressionless phlegm of his race he lit the -two hall gas-jets, gently but firmly moving the señora out of his way, -and paying no attention to the silent group at the stair foot. - -“Ching,” said Barron suddenly, “have you seen Miss Moreau this -afternoon?” - -“Yes,” returned the Celestial, carefully adjusting the tap of the -second gas, “she go out hap-past four. She heap hurry. She look welly -bad--heap sick I guess; no umblella; get awful wet.” - -With his noiseless tread he retreated up the passage to the kitchen. - -“Well, I’ll go,” said Barron suddenly. “She’s just possibly gone out to -see some one and will be back soon. But no umbrella in this rain! Have -her room warm and everything ready.” - -He turned round and in an instant was gone. The little group at the -stairpost looked at one another with pale faces. It was possible that -Mariposa had gone out to see some one. But the dread of disaster was at -every heart. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - -A BROKEN TOOL - - “A plague o’ both your houses! They have made worms’ meat of me.” - - --SHAKESPEARE. - - -It had been close upon half-past two when Harney had left the house in -Bush Street. Essex at the window had heard the sound of his retreating -feet soon lost in the rush of the rain, and had then returned to the -fire. He had made a close calculation of the time Harney should take. -To go and come ought not to occupy more than a half-hour. The theft, -itself, if no mischances occurred, should be accomplished in ten or -fifteen minutes. - -As the hands of the clock on the table drew near three, the man rose -from his post by the fire and began to move restlessly about the room. -The house was wrapped in the dead stillness of sleep, round which the -turmoil of the storm circled and upon which it seemed to press. Pausing -to listen he could hear the creaks and groan of the old walls, as the -wind buffeted them. Once, thinking he heard a furtive step, he went -to the door, opened it and peered out into the blackness of the hall. -The stairs still creaked as if to a light ascending foot, but his eyes -encountered nothing but the impenetrable darkness, charged with the -familiar smell of stale smoke. - -Back in his room he went to the window and throwing it wide, leaned -out listening. The rain fell with a continuous drumming rustle, -through which the chinks and gurgles of water caught in small channels -penetrated with a near-by clearness. Here and there the darkness broke -away in splinters from a sputtering lamp, and where its light touched, -everything gleamed and glistened. Gusts of wind rose and fell, tore the -wet bushes in the garden below, and banged a shutter on an adjacent -house. - -Essex left the window, drawing the curtain to shut its light from the -street. It was a quarter past three. If at four Harney had not returned -he would go after him. The thief might easily have missed his footing -in the tree and have fallen, and be lying beneath it, stunned, dead -perhaps, the papers in his hand. - -The clock hands moved on toward twenty--twenty-five minutes past. The -creaking came from the stairs again, exactly, to the listening ear, -like the soft sound of a cautiously-mounting step. From the cupboard -came a curious loud tick and then a series of rending cracks. It made -Essex start guiltily, and swearing under his breath, he again turned -toward the window and, as he did so, caught the sound of hurrying feet. -He drew the curtain and leaned out. Above the uproar of the night he -heard the quick, regular thud of the feet of a runner, rushing onward -through the storm, and then, across the gleam of a lamp, a dark figure -shot, with head down, flying. - -He dropped the curtain and waited, immense relief at his heart. In a -moment he heard the footsteps stop at the gate, furtively ascend the -stairs of the two terraces, and then the stealthy grating of the door. -He silently pushed his own door open that the light might guide the -ascending man, and he heard Harney’s loud breathing as he crept up. - -The thief rose up out of the gulf of darkness like an apparition of -terror. He dropped into a chair, his face gray, white and pinched, the -sound of his rasping breaths, drawn with pain from the bottom of his -lungs, filling the room. He was incapable of speech, and Essex, pouring -him out whisky, was forced to take the glass from his shaking hand and -hold it to his lips. From his soaked clothes and the cap that crowned -his head, like a saturated woolen rag, water streamed. But the rain had -not been able to efface from his coat a caking of mud that half-covered -one arm and shoulder, and there was blood on one of his hands. He had -evidently fallen. - -“Have you got it?” said Essex, putting the glass down. - -The other nodded and let his head sink on the chair-back. - -“I’m dead,” he gasped, “but I done it.” - -“Where is it? Give it to me.” - -The man made a faint movement of assent, but evidently had not force -enough to produce the paper and lay limp in the chair, Essex watching -him impatiently. Presently he put his feeble hand out for the glass and -drank again. The rattling loudness of his breathing moderated. Without -moving his head he turned his eyes on Essex and said: - -“I’m most killed--I’m all shook up. I fell coming down the tree, some -way--I don’t know how far--but I got it all right. She fought like a -wildcat, tried to burn it--but I got it. Then she hollered and a man -answered. I knew it was a man’s voice, and I made a dash for the winder -only jest in time. I’m cut somewheres--” - -He raised the hand with the blood on it and fumbled at his coat-sleeve. -The other hand was smeared with blood from the contact. - -“Like a pig,” he said in a low voice, and pulled out a rag of -handkerchief which he tried to push up his sleeve; “I’m cut somewheres -all right, but I don’t know where.” - -“Give me the paper and take your things off. You’re dripping all over -everything,” said Essex, extending his hand. - -Harney sat up. - -“I dunno how I done it,” he said; “how I got down. The man was right on -my heels. When I fell I saw him, pullin’ her up on her feet--I saw that -through the winder. Then I riz up and I went--God, how I went!” - -He had stuffed his handkerchief up his sleeve by this time, and now put -his bloody tremulous hand into the outer breast-pocket of his coat. As -the hand fumbled about the opening he said: - -“I didn’t stop to look no more nor take no risks. I wanted to git away -from thar and I tell you I lit out, and--” - -He stopped, his jaw dropped, his nerveless figure stiffened, a look of -animal terror came into his eyes. - -“Where is it?” he almost yelled, staring at Essex. - -“How the devil should I know! Where did you put it? Isn’t it there?” - -Essex himself had suddenly paled. He stood erect before the crouched -and trembling figure of his partner, his eyes fiercely intense. - -“It ain’t here,” cried Harney, his hand clawing about in the pocket. -“It ain’t there. Oh Lordy, Lordy! I’ve lost it! It’s gone. It fell out -when I came off the tree. I fell. I told you I fell. Didn’t I tell you -I fell?” he shouted, as if he had been contradicted. - -He rose up, his face pasty white, wringing his hands like a woman. -There was something grotesque and almost overdone in his terror, but -his pallor and the fear in his eyes were real. - -“Lost it!” cried Essex. “No more of those lies! Give me the paper, you -dog.” - -“Don’t you hear me say I ain’t got it? Ain’t I told you I fell? When -I jumped for the tree I jest smashed it down into my pocket. I had to -have both hands to climb. And I suppose I ain’t pressed it in tight -enough. God, man, it was ten years in San Quentin for me if I’d lost -two minutes.” - -Essex drew closer, his mouth tight, his eyes fixed with a fiercely -compelling gaze on the wretch before him. - -“Don’t think you can make anything by stealing that paper. Give it up; -give it up now; I’ve got you here, and I’ll know what you’ve done with -it before you leave or you’ll never leave at all.” - -“I lost it, and that’s what I done with it. If you want it, come on -with me now and look round under that tree. Ain’t you understood I fell -sideways from the branch to the ground? Look at my hand--” he held up -his arm, pulling the muddy sleeve back from the blood-stained wrist. - -“Where is it?” said Essex, without moving. “You were gone nearly an -hour. Where have you hidden it?” - -“Nowheres. It took time. I had to clim’ up careful, ’cause she had a -light burning, and I thought she was awake. Why can’t you believe me? -What can I do with it alone?” - -“You can blackmail Mrs. Shackleton well enough alone. Give me that -paper, or tell me where you put it, or, by God, I’ll kill you!” - -Fear of the man that owned him gave Harney the air of guilt. He backed -away in an access of pallid terror, shouting: - -“I ain’t lying. Why can’t yer believe me? It took time--it took time! -Ain’t I told you I fell? Look at the mud; and feel, feel in every -pocket.” He seized on them and tore the insides outward. “I’m tellin’ -you the whole truth. I ain’t got it.” - -“Where is it, then? You’ll tell me where you’ve hidden it, or--” - -Essex made a sudden leap forward and caught the man by his neck-cloth -and collar. In his blind alarm Harney was given fictitious strength, -and he tore himself loose and rushed for the door. Essex’s hat, coat -and stick lay on the table. Without thought or premeditation their -owner seized the cane--a heavy malacca--by the end, flew round the -table, and as Harney turned the door-handle, brought the knob of the -loaded cane down on the crown of his head. - -It struck with a thud and sent the water squirting from the saturated -cap. The thief, without cry or word, spun round, waving his hands in -the air, and then fell heavily face downward. For a moment he quivered, -and once or twice made a convulsive movement, then lay still, the water -running from his clothes along the floor. - -With the cane still in his hand, Essex came around the table and looked -at him. For a space he stood staring, his hand resting on the edge of -the table, his neck craned forward, his face set in a rigid intensity -of observation. The sudden silence that had succeeded to the loud tones -of Harney’s voice was singularly deep and solemn. The room seemed held -in a spell of stillness, almost awful in its suddenness and isolation. - -“Get up,” he said in a low voice. “Harney, get up.” - -There was no response, and he leaned forward and pushed at the -motionless figure with the cane. - -“Damn!” he said under his breath, “he’s fainted.” - -And throwing the cane away, he approached the man and bent over him. -There was no sound of breathing or pulse of life about the sodden -figure with its hidden face. Drops formed on Essex’s forehead as he -turned it over. Then, as it confronted him, livid with fallen jaw and a -gleam of white between the wrinkled eyelid, the drops ran down his face. - -With a hand that shook as Harney’s had a few moments before he felt the -pulse and then tore the shirt open and tried the heart. His face was -white as the man’s on the floor as he poured whisky down the throat -that refused to swallow. Finally, tearing off his coat, he knelt beside -his victim and tried every means in his power to bring back life into -the miserable body in which he had only recognized a tool of his own. -But there was no response. The minutes ticked on, and there was no -glimmer of intelligence in the cold indifference of the eyes, no warmth -round the stilled heart, no flutter of breath at the slack, gray lips. - -The night was still dark, the rain in his ears, when he rose to his -feet. A horror unlike anything he had even imagined was on him. All -the things in life he had struggled for seemed shriveled to nothing. -The whole worth of his existence was contained in the unlovely body on -the floor. To bring life back to it he would have given his dearest -ambition--sacrificed love, money, happiness--all for which he had held -life valuable, and thought himself blessed. What a few hours before -were ends to struggle and sin for seemed now of no moment to him. -Mariposa had faded to a dim, undesired shadow; the millions she stood -for to dross he would have passed without a thought. How readily would -he have given it all to bring back the breath to the creature he had -held as a worm beneath his foot! - -He seized the table-cloth and threw it over the face whose solemn, -tragic calm filled him with a sick dread. Then with breathless haste he -flung some clothes into a valise and made the fire burn high with the -letters and papers he threw on it at intervals. The first carts of the -morning had begun their rattling course through the stirred darkness -when he crept out, a haggard, hunted man. - -He had to hide himself in unfrequented corners, cower beneath the -shadow of trees on park benches till the light strengthened and -morning shook the city into life. Then, as its reawakening tides began -to surge round him, he made a furtive way--for the first time in his -life fearful of his fellow men--to the railway station, and there took -the earliest south-bound train for the Mexican border. - -The fire had died down, the leaden light of coming day was filtering in -through the crack between the half-drawn curtains, when the shrouded -shape on the floor moved and a deep groan broke upon the stillness. -Another followed it, groans of physical anguish beating on awakening -consciousness. An early riser from the floor above heard them as he -stole downward, stopped, listened, knocked, then receiving no reply, -opened the door and peered fearfully in. In the dim room, cut with -a sword of faint light, he saw the covered shape, and, as he stood -terrified, heard the groan repeated and saw the drapery twitched. -Shouting his fears over the balustrade, he rushed in, flung the -curtains wide, tore off the table-cloth, and in the rush of pallid -light, saw Harney, leaden eyed, withered to a waxen pallor, smeared -with the blood of the cut wrist which he feebly moved, struggling back -to existence. - - - - -CHAPTER XXV - -HAVE YOU COME AT LAST - - “Yesterday this day’s madness did prepare.” - - --OMAR KHAYYAM. - - -At ten o’clock Barron returned to the Garcia house. His search for -Mariposa in such accustomed haunts as the Mercantile Library, the shops -on Kearney Street, and Mrs. Willers’, had been fruitless. Mrs. Willers -was again at _The Trumpet_ office, where another and more important -portion of the Woman’s Page was going to press, but Edna was at home, -and told Barron that neither she nor her mother had seen Mariposa since -the lesson of the day before. - -In returning to the house he had hopes of finding her there. From the -first his anxiety had been keen. Now, as he put his key in the lock, it -clutched his heart with a suffocating force. The house was silent as he -entered, and then the sound of his step in the hall called the head of -young Mrs. Garcia to the opened door of the kitchen. The first glimpse -of her face told him Mariposa had not returned. - -“Have you got her?” cried the young woman eagerly. - -“No,” he answered, his voice sounding colorless and flat. “I thought -she might be back here.” - -Mrs. Garcia shook her head and withdrew it. He followed her into the -kitchen, where she and the señora were sitting by the stove. A large -fire was burning, the room was warm and bright--the trim, finically -neat kitchen of a clean Chinaman. To the señora’s quick phrase of -inquiry, the younger woman answered with a sentence in Spanish. For a -moment the silence of sick anxiety held the trio. - -“Did you go to Mrs. Willers’?” said young Mrs. Garcia, trying to speak -with some lightness of tone. - -“Yes; she’s not been there since yesterday. I’ve been everywhere I -could think of where it was likely she would be. I couldn’t find a -trace of her.” - -“Then’s she’s gone to Europe, or is going to-morrow, as she told -Pierpont. She took her money. We looked after you’d gone, and it wasn’t -there.” - -“It’ll be too late to find out to-night if she’s gone. The ticket -offices are closed. I can’t think she’s done that--without a word to -any one. It’s not like her.” - -The señora here asked what they said. Barron, who spoke Spanish -indifferently, signaled to the young woman to answer for him. She did -so, the señora listening intently. At the end of her daughter-in-law’s -speech she shook her head. - -“No, she has not gone,” she said slowly in Spanish. “She could not take -that journey. She was not able--she was sick.” - -“Sick, and out on such a night with all that money!” moaned her -daughter-in-law. - -Barron got up with a smothered ejaculation. He knew more than either of -the women. The attempt at robbery the night before had failed. To-night -the girl herself had disappeared. What might it all mean? He was -afraid to think. - -“I’m going out again,” he said. “I’ll be in probably in four or five -hours to see if, by any chance, she’s come back. You have everything -ready--fires and warm clothes and things to eat in case I bring her -with me. The rain’s worse than ever. Ching says she had no umbrella.” - -Without more conversation he left, the two women bestirring themselves -to make ready the supper he had ordered. At three o’clock he returned -again to find the señora sitting alone, by the ruddy stove, Mrs. -Garcia, the younger, being asleep on a sofa in the boys’ room. The old -lady persuaded him to drink a cup of coffee she had kept warm, and, as -she gave it him, looked with silent compassion into his haggard face. - -When day broke he had not again appeared. By this time the household -was in a ferment of open alarm. The boys were retained from school, -as it was felt they might be needed for messages. Pierpont undertook -to visit all Mariposa’s pupils, in the dim hope of finding through -them some clue to her movements, though it was well known she was on -intimate terms with none of them. Soon after breakfast Mrs. Willers -appeared, uneasy, and by the time the now weeping Mrs. Garcia had told -her all, pale and deeply disturbed. - -She repaired to _The Trumpet_ office without loss of time, and there -acquainted her chief with the story of Miss Moreau’s disappearance, not -neglecting to mention the burglary of the night before, which even to -the women, having no knowledge of its real import, seemed to indicate a -sinister connection with subsequent events. Winslow did not disappoint -Mrs. Willers by pooh-poohing the matter, as she had half imagined -he would; a young lady’s disappearance for twelve hours not being a -subject for such tragic consternation. He seemed extremely worried--in -fact, showed an anxiety that struck the head of the Woman’s Page as -almost odd. He assured her that if Miss Moreau was not heard from that -day by midday he would offer secretly to the police department the -largest reward ever given in San Francisco, for any trace or tidings of -her. - -Meantime Barron, having assured himself by visits to all the ticket -offices that she had not left the city on any train, had finally taken -his case to the police. It had been in their hands only an hour or two, -when young Shackleton’s offer of what, in even those extravagant days -seemed an enormous reward, was communicated to the department. It put -life into the somewhat dormant energies of the officers detailed on the -case. Mariposa had not been missing twenty-four hours when the search -for her was spreading over the face of the city, where she had been so -insignificant a unit, in a thorough and secret network of investigation. - -The day wore away with maddening slowness to the women in the house, -whose duty it was to sit and wait. To Barron, whose anxiety had been -intensified by the torture of his deeper knowledge of the girl’s -strange circumstances, existence seemed only bearable as it was -directed to finding her. He did not dare now to pause or think. -Without stopping to eat or rest he continued his search, now with -the detectives, now alone. Several times in the course of the day he -reappeared at the Garcia house, drawn thither by the hope that she -might have returned. The señora, with the curious tranquillity of the -very old which seems not to need the repairing processes of sleep or -food, was always to be found sitting by the kitchen stove, upon which -some dish or drink simmered for him. He rarely stopped to take either. -But returning in the early dusk, he was grateful to find that she had -a dry overcoat hanging before the fire for him. The rain still fell in -torrents, and the long day spent at its mercy had soaked him. - -It was between ten and eleven at night that the old lady and her -daughter-in-law, sitting before the stove as they had done the evening -before, again heard his step and his key. This time there was no -pretense at expectation on either side. His first glance inside the -room showed him the heavy dejection of the two faces turned toward him. -They, on their part, saw him pale and drawn, as by a month’s illness. -They had heard nothing. No investigation of which they were aware had -brought in a crumb of comfort. He had heard worse than nothing. There -had been talk at the police station that evening of the finding of -George Harney, suffering from concussion of the brain, and the sudden -departure of Barry Essex, believed to be his assailant. - -This information added the last straw to Barron’s agony of -apprehension. It seemed as if a plot had culminated in those two days, -a plot dark and inexplicable, in which the woman he loved was in some -mysterious way involved. - -He was standing by the stove responding to the somber queries of the -women, when the sound of feet on the porch steps suddenly transfixed -them all. Young Mrs. Garcia screamed, while the old lady sat with head -bent sidewise listening. Before Barron could get to the door a soft -ring at the bell had drawn another scream from the younger woman, who, -nevertheless, followed him and stood peeping into the hall, clinging to -the door-post. - -The opened door sent a flood of light over three figures huddled in -the glass porch--two men, a detective and policeman, Barron already -knew, and a third, a stranger to him, whose face against the shadowy -background looked fresh and boyish. - -“Ah, Mr. Barron, we’re lucky to strike you this way at the first shot,” -said the detective. “We think we’ve found the lady.” - -“Found her? Where? Have you got her there?” - -“No; we’re not certain yet if it’s the right one.” - -The man, as he spoke, entered the hall, the policeman and the stranger -following him. Under the flare of the two gas-jets they looked big, -ungainly figures in their smoking rubber capes that ran rillets of -water on the floor. The third, revealed in the full light, was a boy -of some fourteen or fifteen years, well dressed and with the air of a -gentleman. - -“This gentleman came to the station a half-hour ago,” said the -policeman, indicating the stranger, “with a story of finding a lady on -his own grounds, and we thought from his description it was the one -you’re looking for.” - -Barron directed on the youth a glance that would have pried open the -lips of the Sphinx. - -“What does she look like? Where is she?” - -“She’s in our garden,” said the boy, “under some trees. She looks tall -and has on black clothes, and has dark red hair and a very white face.” - -Mrs. Garcia gave a loud cry from the background. - -“It’s Mariposa sure,” she screamed. “Is she alive?” - -“Alive!” echoed the youth. “Oh, yes, she’s quite alive, but I don’t -know whether she’s exactly in her right mind. She’s sort of queer.” - -Barron had brushed past him into the streaming night. - -“Come on,” he shouted back. “Good Lord, come quick!” - -At the foot of the zigzag stairs he saw the two gleaming lights of a -hack. With the other men clattering at his heels, he dashed down the -steps, and was in it, chafing and swearing, while they were fumbling -for the latch of the gate. - -As the boy, after giving the coachman an address, scrambled in beside -him, he said peremptorily: - -“When did you find her? Tell me everything.” - -“About two hours ago. My dog found her. I live, I and my mother, on -the slope of Russian Hill. It’s quite a big place with a lot of trees. -I went down to get Jack (that’s my dog) at the vet’s, where he’s been -for a week, and I was bringing him home. When we got to the top of the -steps he began sniffing round and barking, and then he ran to a place -where there’s a little sort of bunch of fir-trees and barked and -jumped round, and went in among the trees. I followed him to see what -was up, and all of a sudden I heard some one say from under the trees: -‘Oh, it’s only a dog.’ I was scared and ran into the house and got a -lamp, and when I came out with my mother, and we went in among the -trees, there was a woman in there, who was lying on the ground. When -she saw us she sort of sat up, as if she’d been asleep, and said: ‘Is -it Sunday yet?’ We saw her distinctly; she was staring right at us. She -didn’t look as if she was crazy, but we both thought she was. She was -terribly white. We knew she couldn’t be drunk, because she was like a -lady--she spoke that way.” - -“And then--and then,” said Barron, “what did she do?” - -“She said again, ‘It isn’t Sunday yet?’ and mother said, ‘No, not yet,’ -and we went away. I ran to the police office, but we left one of the -Chinamen to watch so she wouldn’t get away, ’cause we didn’t know what -was the matter with her. We’ll be there in a minute now. It isn’t far.” - -The hack, which had been rattling round corners at top speed, now began -to ascend. Barron could see the gaunt flank of Russian Hill looming -above them, with here and there a house hanging to a ridge or balanced -on a slope. The lights of the town dropped away on their right in a -series of sparkling terraces. - -“Do you guess it’s the lady you’re hunting?” said the policeman -politely. - -“I’m almost certain it is,” answered Barron. “Can’t you make this man -go faster?” - -“The hill’s pretty steep here,” said the guardian of the city’s peace. -“I don’t seem to think he could do it.” - -“We’re almost there,” said the boy; “it’s just that house where the -aloe is--there on the top of that high wall.” - -Barron looked in the direction, and saw high above them, on the top of -a wall like the rampart of a fortress, the faint outline of a house and -the black masses of trees etched against the only slightly paler sky. - -“I don’t see any aloe,” he growled; “is that the house you mean?” - -“That’s it,” said the boy. “I guess it’s too dark for the aloe -to-night.” - -With a scrambling and jolting the horses began what appeared an even -steeper climb than that of the block before. The beasts seemed to -dig their hoofs into the crevices between the cobbles and to clamber -perilously up. With an oath Barron kicked open the door and sprang out. - -“Come on, boy,” he shouted. “I can’t stand this snail of a carriage any -longer.” And he set out running up the hill. - -The boy, who was light of foot and young, kept up with him, but the two -heavier men, who had followed, were left behind, puffing and blowing in -the darkness. - -Suddenly the great wall, at the base of which they ran, was crossed by -a flight of stairs that made two oblique stripes across its face. - -“Up the stairs,” said the boy. - -And Barron, without reply, turned and began the ascent at the same -breakneck speed. - -“You may as well let me go first,” gasped his conductor from behind -him. “You don’t know the way, and you might scare the Chinaman. He said -he had a gun.” - -Barron stood aside for him to pass and then followed the nimble figure -as it darted up the second flight. The boy was evidently nearing the -top, when he sang out: - -“Ah, there, Lee! It’s me coming back.” - -There was an unmistakable Chinese guttural from somewhere, and then -Barron himself rose above the stair-top. A black mass of garden lay -before him, with the bulk of a large house a short distance back. Many -windows were lit, and in one he saw a woman standing. Their light -fell out over the garden, barring it with long rectangular stripes -of brilliance. The wild bark of the dog rose from the house and on -the unseen walk the Chinaman’s footsteps could be heard crunching the -pebbles. - -“Is she there yet, Lee?” said the boy in a hissing whisper. - -The Chinaman’s affirmative grunt rose from the darkness of massed -trees, into which his footsteps continued to retreat. - -“This way,” said his conductor to Barron. “But hang it all, it’s so -dark we can’t see.” - -“Where is she?” said Barron. “Never mind the light. Show me where she -is. Mariposa!” he said suddenly, in a voice which, though low, had a -quality so thrilling it might have penetrated the ear of death. - -The garden, rain-swept and rustling, grew quiet. The sound of the -Chinaman’s footsteps ceased, even the panting breath of the boy was -suddenly suspended. - -In this moment of pause, when nature seemed to quell her riot to -listen, a woman’s voice, sweet and soft, rose out of impenetrable -darkness: - -“Who called me?” - -The sound broke the agony that had congealed Barron’s heart. With a -shout he answered: - -“It’s I, dearest. Where are you? Come to me.” - -The voice rose again, faint, but with joy in it. - -“Oh, have you come--have you come, at last!” - -He made a rush forward into the blackness before him. At the same -moment the two men rose, spent and breathless, from the stairs. The boy -was behind Barron, and they behind the boy. - -“Where are you? Where are you?” they heard him cry, as he crashed -forward through shrubs and flower beds. - -Then suddenly the policeman drew the small lantern he had carried from -beneath his cape and shot the slide. A cube of clear, steady light cut -through the inky wall in front of them. For a second they all stopped, -the man sending the cylinder of radiance over the shrubs and trees in -swift sweeps. In one of these it crossed a white face, quivered and -rested on it. Barron gave a wild cry and rushed forward. - -She was, as the boy described, crouched under a clump of small -fir-trees, the lower limbs of which had been removed. The place was -sheltered from observation from the house and the intrusion of the -elements. As the light fell on her she was kneeling, evidently having -been drawn to that posture by Barron’s voice. The light revealed her as -hatless, with loosened hair, her face pinched, her eyes large and wild. - -As she saw Barron she shrieked and tried to move forward, but was -unable to and held out her arms. He was at her side in a moment, his -arms about her, straining her to him, his lips, between frantic kisses, -saying words only for him and for her. - -The policeman, with a soft ejaculation, turned the lantern, and its -cube of light fell into the heart of a bed of petunias; then the two -men and the boy stood looking at it silently for a space. - -Presently they heard Barron say: “Come, we must go. I must take you -home at once. Turn the light this way, please.” - -The light came back upon her. She was on her feet, holding to him. - -“Is it Sunday yet?” she said, looking at them with an affrighted air. - -“That’s what she keeps asking all the time,” said the boy in a whisper. - -“No,” said Barron, “it’s Friday. What do you expect on Sunday?” - -“Only Friday,” she said, hanging back. “I thought I’d hide here till -Sunday was over.” - -Without answering, he put his arm about her and drew her forward. At -the steps she hesitated again, and he lifted her and carried her down, -the policeman preceding with the lantern. The men helped him into the -carriage, not saying much, while the boy stood with his now liberated -dog at the top of the steps and shouted, “Good night.” Barron hardly -spoke to any of them. A vague thought crossed his mind that he would go -to see the boy some day and thank him. - -She lay with her head on his shoulder, and as the carriage passed the -first lamp of the route he leaned forward eagerly to scan her face. It -was haggard, white and thin, as by a long illness. He could not speak -for a moment, could only hold her in his arms as if thus to wind her -round with the symbol of his love. - -Presently she groaned, and he said: - -“Are you suffering?” - -“Yes,” she murmured; “always now. I am sick. I don’t breathe well any -more. It hurts in my chest all the time.” - -“Why did you hide under those trees?” he asked. - -“I was too sick to go any farther. I wanted to hide somewhere, to get -away from it all, and anyway, till Sunday was over. It was all to be -published on Sunday, you know. Everything was ruined. My voice was -gone, too. I saw those steps in the dark and climbed up and crept under -the trees. I was terribly tired, and it was very quiet up there. I -don’t remember much more.” - -As the light of another lamp flashed through the window he could not -bear to look at her, but tightened his arms about her and bowed his -face on her wet head. - -“Oh God, dearest,” he whispered, “there can’t be any hell worse than -what I’ve been in for the last two days.” - -She made no response, but lay passively against him. When the carriage -stopped at the Garcia gate, and he told her they were home, she made no -attempt to move, and he saw she was unconscious. - -He lifted her out and carried her up the steps. The door opened as he -ascended and revealed the Garcia family in the aperture. - -“Is she dead?” screamed young Mrs. Garcia, as she saw the limp figure -in his arms. - -“No, but sick. You must get a doctor at once.” - -“Oh, how awful she looks!” cried the young woman as she caught sight -of the white face against his shoulder. “What are you going to do with -her?” - -“Take her upstairs now, and then get a doctor and get her cured, and -when she’s well, marry her.” - - - - -EPILOGUE - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE PRIMA DONNA - - “And thou - Beside me singing in the wilderness.” - - --OMAR KHAYYAM. - - -The plant of the Silver Star Mine lay scattered along the edge of a -mountain river on the site of one of the camps of forty-nine. Where the -pioneers had scratched the surface with their picks, their successors -had torn wounds in the Sierra’s mighty flank. Where once the miners’ -shouts had broken the quiet harmonies of stirred pine boughs, and -singing river, the throb of engines now beat on the air, thick with the -dust, noisy with the strife of toiling men. - -It was a morning in the end of May. The mountain wall was dark against -the rising sun; tall fir and giant pine stood along its crest in inky -silhouette thrown out by a background of gold leaf. Here and there, -far and aërial in the clear, cool dawn, a white peak of the high -Sierra floated above the shadows, a rosy pinnacle. The air was chill -and faintly touched with woodland odors. The expectant hush of Nature -awaiting the miracle of sunrise, held this world of huge, primordial -forms, grouped in colossal indifference round the swarm of men who -delved in its rock-ribbed breast. - -In the stillness the camp’s awakening movements rose upon the morning -air with curious distinctness. Through the blue shadows in which it -swam the tall chimneys soared aloft, sending their feathers of smoke up -to the new day. It lay in its hollow like a picture, all transparent -washes of amethyst and gray, overlaid by clear mountain shadows. The -world was in this waiting stage of flushed sky and shaded earth when -the superintendent’s wife pushed open the door of her house and with -the cautious tread of one who fears to wake a sleeper, stepped out on -the balcony. - -With her hand on the rail she stood, deeply inhaling the freshness of -the hour. The superintendent’s house, a one-story cottage, painted -white, and skirted by a broad balcony, stood on an eminence above the -camp. From its front steps she looked down on the slant of many roofs, -the car tracks, and the red wagon roads that wound along the slopes. -Raising her eyes, they swept the ramparts of the everlasting hills, and -looking higher still, her face met the radiance of the dawn. - -She stepped off the balcony with the same cautious tread, and along -the beaten footpath that led through the patch of garden in front of -the house. Beyond this the path wound through a growth of chaparral -to where the pines ascended the slopes in climbing files. As she -approached she saw the sky barred with their trunks, arrow-straight and -bare of branches to a great height. Farther on she could see the long -dim aisles, held in the cloistral silence of the California forest, -shot through with the golden glimmer of sunrise. - -The joy of the morning was in her heart, and she walked forward with a -light step, humming to herself. Two months before she had come here, -a bride from San Francisco, weak from illness, pale, hollow-eyed, a -shadow of her former self. She had only crept about at first, swung for -hours on the balcony in her hammock, or sat under the trees looking -down on the hive of men, where her husband worked among his laborers. -As her mother had grown back to the fullness of life in the healing -breath of the mountains, so Mariposa slowly regained her old beauty, -with an added touch of subtlety, and found her old beliefs returned to -her with a new significance. - -To-day she had awakened with the first glimmer of dawn, and stirred -by a sudden desire for the air of the morning on her face and in her -lungs, had stolen up and out. Breathing in the resinous atmosphere a -new influx of life seemed to run like sap along her limbs, and lend -her step the buoyancy of a wood-nymph’s. Her eye lingered with a look -that was a caress on flower and tree and shrub. The song she had been -humming passed from tune to words, and she sang softly as she brushed -through the chaparral, snipping off a leaf, bending to pluck a wild -flower, pausing to admire the glossy green of a manzanita bush. Under -the shadow of the pines she halted by a rugged trunk, a point of -vantage she had early discovered, and leaning her hand on the bark, -surveyed the wild prospect. - -The sense of expectancy in the air seemed intensified. The quivering -radiance of pink and gold pulsed up the sky from a point of -concentration which every moment brightened. The blue shadows in the -camp grew thinner, the little wisps of mist that hung over the river -more threadlike and phantasmal. A throwback to unremembered days came -suddenly upon her with a mysterious sense of familiarity. She seemed to -be repeating a dear, long dead experience. The vision and the dream of -days of exquisite well-being, carefree, cherished, were with her again. -Faint recurring glimpses of such mornings, strong of balsam of pine and -fir, musical with the sleepy murmur of a river, serene and sweet with -an enfolding passion of love in which she rested secure, rose out of -the dim places of memory. The perfect content of her childhood spoke to -her across the gulf of years, finding itself repeated in her womanhood. -The old joy in living, the old thrill of wonder and mystery, the old -sense of safety in a surrounding, watchful love, were hers once more. - -The song on her lips passed from its absent undertone to notes -gradually full and fuller. It was the aria from “Mignon,” and, as she -stood, her hand on the tree trunk, looking down into the swimming -shadows of the camp, it swelled outward in tones strong and rich, -vibrating with their lost force. - -Pervaded by a sense of dreamy happiness, she at first failed to notice -the unexpected volume of sound. Then, as note rose upon note, welling -from her chest with the old-time, vibrant facility, as she felt once -again the uplifting sense of triumph possess her, she realized what it -meant. Dropping her hand from the tree trunk she stood upright, and -facing the dawn, with squared shoulders and raised chin, let her voice -roll out into the void before her. - -The song swelled triumphant like a hymn of some pagan goddess to the -rising sun. In the stillness of the dawn-hush, with the columns of the -monumental pines behind her, the mountain wall and the glowing sky in -front, she might have been the spirit of youth and love chanting her -joy in a primeval world. - -When the last note had died away she stood for a moment staring before -her. Then suddenly she wheeled, and, catching up her skirts with one -hand, ran back toward the house, brushing between the tree-trunks and -through the chaparral with breathless haste. As she emerged from the -thicket, she saw her husband, in his rough mining clothes, standing on -the top step of the balcony. - -“Gam,” she cried, “Gam!” - -He started, saw her, and then waited smiling as she came running up -the garden path toward him, the blaze of the sky behind her, her face -alight with life and color. - -“Why, dearest, I didn’t know what had happened to you,” he cried. -“Where did you go?” - -Her unslackened speed carried her up the stairs and into his arms. -Standing on the step below him she flung hers round his shoulders, and -holding him tight, said breathlessly: - -“What do you think has happened?” - -“You met a bear in the wood.” - -“My voice has come back.” - -The two pairs of eyes, the woman’s looking up, the man’s down, gazed -deeply into each other. There was a moment of silence, the silence of -people who are still unused to and a little overawed by their happiness. - -“I heard you,” he said. - -“You did? From here?” - -“Yes. I heard some one singing and stood here listening, watching the -light coming up.” - -“Was it good?” she asked, anxiously. - -“Very. I had never heard you sing before. You’re a prima donna.” - -“That’s what I was going to be. You remember hearing us talking about -it at the Garcias’?” - -He nodded, looking down at the face where health was coming back in -delicate degrees of coral to lips and cheeks. - -“And it really did sound good?” she queried again. - -“Lovely.” - -“Quite soft and full, not harsh and with all the sound of music gone -out of it?” - -“Not a bit. It was fine.” - -She continued to hold him around the shoulders, but her eyes dropped -away from his, which regarded her with immovable earnestness, touched -by a slight, tender humor. She appeared to become suddenly thoughtful. - -“You can be a prima donna still,” he said. - -“Yes,” she answered, nodding slightly. “I suppose I can.” - -“And it’s a great career.” - -“Yes, a splendid career.” - -“You travel everywhere and make a fortune.” - -“If you’re a success.” - -“Oh, you’d be a success all right.” - -She drew away from him, letting one hand rest on his shoulder. Her face -had grown serious. She looked disappointed. - -“Well, do you _want_ me to be a prima donna?” she asked, looking at her -hand. - -He continued to regard her without answering, the gleam of amusement -dying out of his eyes. - -“Of course,” she added in a small voice, “if you’ve set your heart on -it, I will.” - -“What do you think about it yourself?” he asked. - -She gave him a swift, side look, just a raising and dropping of the -lashes. - -“Say what you think first,” she coaxed. - -“Well, then, I will.” - -He put his two hands suddenly on her shoulders, big, bronzed hands, -hard and muscular, that seemed to seize upon her delicate flesh with a -master’s grip. - -“Look at me,” he commanded. - -She obeyed. The gray eyes held hers like a magnet. - -“I think no. You don’t belong to the public, you belong to me.” - -The color ran up into her face to the edge of her hair. - -“Oh, Gam,” she whispered on a rising breath, “I’m so relieved.” - -He dropped his hands from her shoulders and drew her close to him. With -his cheek against hers he said softly: - -“You didn’t think I was that kind of a fool, did you?” - -The sun had risen as they talked, at first slowly peering with a -radiant eye over the mountain’s shoulder, then shaking itself free of -tree-top and rock-point, and swimming up into the blue. The top of -the range stood all glowing and golden, with here and there a white -peak, snowily enameled. The rows of pines were overlaid with a rosy -brilliance, their long shadows slanting down the slopes as if scurrying -away from the flood of heat and light. The clear blues and amethysts -that veiled the hollow of the camp were dispersed; the films of mist -melted; a quivering silvery sparkle played over the river shallows. - -In the clearing beams the life of the hive below seemed to swarm and -fill the air with the clamor of its awakening. The man and woman, -looking down, saw the toiling world turning to its day’s work--the red -dust rising beneath grinding hoof and wheel, the cars sliding swiftly -on their narrow tracks, heard the shouts of men, the hum of machinery, -and through all and over all, the regular throb of the engines like the -heart which animated this isolated world of labor. - -Barron looked at his domain for an attentive moment. - -“There,” he said, pointing down, “is where I belong. That’s my -life,--to work in wild places with men. And yours is with me, my prima -donna. We go together, side by side, I working and you singing by the -way.” - - - - -A LIST _of_ IMPORTANT FICTION - -THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY - - - - -DIFFERENT AND DELIGHTFUL - -UNDER THE ROSE - -A Story of the Loves of a Duke and a Jester - -By FREDERIC S. ISHAM - -Author of The Strollers - -In “Under the Rose” Mr. Isham has written a most entertaining -book--the plot is unique; the style is graceful and clever; the whole -story is pervaded by a spirit of sunshine and good humor, and the -ending is a happy one. Mr. Christy’s pictures mark a distinct step -forward in illustrative art. There is only one way, and it is an -entertaining one, to find out what is “Under the Rose”--read it. - - * * * * * - -“No one will take up ‘Under the Rose’ and lay it down before -completion; many will even return to it for a repeated -reading.”--_Book News._ - -“Mr. Isham tells all of his fanciful, romantic tale delightfully. The -reader who loves romance, intrigue and adventure, love-seasoned, will -find it here.”--_The Lamp._ - -With Illustrations in Six Colors by Howard Chandler Christy - -12mo, Cloth, Price, $1.50 - - - - -A GOOD DETECTIVE STORY - -THE FILIGREE BALL - -By ANNA KATHERINE GREEN - -Author of “The Leavenworth Case” - -This is something more than a mere detective story; it is a thrilling -romance--a romance of mystery and crime where a shrewd detective helps -to solve the mystery. The plot is a novel and intricate one, carefully -worked out. There are constant accessions to the main mystery, so -that the reader can not possibly imagine the conclusion. The story is -clean-cut and wholesome, with a quality that might be called manly. The -characters are depicted so as to make a living impression. Cora Tuttle -is a fine creation, and the flash of love which she gives the hero is -wonderfully well done. Unlike many mystery stories The Filigree Ball -is not disappointing at the end. The characters most liked but longest -suspected are proved not only guiltless, but above suspicion. It is a -story to be read with a rush and at a sitting, for no one can put it -down until the mystery is solved. - -Illustrated by C. M. Relyea. - -12mo, Cloth, Price, $1.50 - - - - -_It is fresh and spontaneous, having nothing of that wooden quality -which is becoming associated with the term “historical novel.”_ - -HEARTS COURAGEOUS - -By HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES - -“Hearts Courageous” is made of new material, a picturesque yet delicate -style, good plot and very dramatic situations. The best in the book are -the defence of George Washington by the Marquis; the duel between the -English officer and the Marquis; and Patrick Henry flinging the brand -of war into the assembly of the burgesses of Virginia. - -Williamsburg, Virginia, the country round about, and the life led in -that locality just before the Revolution, form an attractive setting -for the action of the story. - -With six illustrations by A. B. Wenzell - -12mo. Price, $1.50 - - - - -THE GREAT NOVEL OF THE YEAR - -THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE - -_How the star of good fortune rose and set and rose again, by a -woman’s grace, for one John Law, of Lauriston_ - -A novel by EMERSON HOUGH - -Emerson Hough has written one of the best novels that has come out of -America in many a day. It is an exciting story, with the literary touch -on every page.--JEANNETTE L. GILDER, of _The Critic_. - -In “The Mississippi Bubble” Emerson Hough has taken John Law and -certain known events in his career, and about them he has woven a web -of romance full of brilliant coloring and cunning work. It proves -conclusively that Mr. Hough is a novelist of no ordinary quality.--_The -Brooklyn Eagle._ - -As a novel embodying a wonderful period in the growth of America “The -Mississippi Bubble” is of intense interest. As a love story it is -rarely and beautifully told. John Law, as drawn in this novel, is a -great character, cool, debonair, audacious, he is an Admirable Crichton -in his personality, and a Napoleon in his far-reaching wisdom.--_The -Chicago American._ - -The Illustrations by Henry Hutt - -12mo, 452 pages, $1.50 - - - - -A SPLENDIDLY VITAL NARRATION - -THE MASTER OF APPLEBY - -_A romance of the Carolinas_ - -By FRANCIS LYNDE - -Viewed either as a delightful entertainment or as a skilful and -finished piece of literary art, this is easily one of the most -important of recent novels. One can not read a dozen pages without -realizing that the author has mastered the magic of the storyteller’s -art. After the dozen pages the author is forgotten in his creations. - -It is rare, indeed, that characters in fiction live and love, suffer -and fight, grasp and renounce in so human a fashion as in this -splendidly vital narration. - -With pictures by T. de Thulstrup - -12mo, cloth. Price, $1.50 - - - - -A VIVACIOUS ROMANCE OF REVOLUTIONARY DAYS - -ALICE _of_ OLD VINCENNES - -By MAURICE THOMPSON - -_The Atlanta Constitution says_: - -“Mr. Thompson, whose delightful writings in prose and verse have made -his reputation national, has achieved his master stroke of genius in -this historical novel of revolutionary days in the West.” - -_The Denver Daily News says_: - -“There are three great chapters of fiction: Scott’s tournament -on Ashby field, General Wallace’s chariot race, and now Maurice -Thompson’s duel scene and the raising of Alice’s flag over old Fort -Vincennes.” - -_The Chicago Record-Herald says_: - -“More original than ‘Richard Carvel,’ more cohesive than ‘To Have -and To Hold,’ more vital than ‘Janice Meredith,’ such is Maurice -Thompson’s superb American romance, ‘Alice of Old Vincennes.’ It is, -in addition, more artistic and spontaneous than any of its rivals.” - -VIRGINIA HARNED EDITION - -12mo, with six Illustrations by F. C. Yohn, and a Frontispiece in -Color by Howard Chandler Christy. Price, $1.50 - - - - -“NOTHING BUT PRAISE” - -LAZARRE - -By MARY HARTWELL CATHERWOOD - -Glorified by a beautiful love story.--_Chicago Tribune._ - -We feel quite justified in predicting a wide-spread and prolonged -popularity for this latest comer into the ranks of historical -fiction.--_The N. Y. Commercial Advertiser._ - -After all the material for the story had been collected a year was -required for the writing of it. It is an historical romance of the -better sort, with stirring situations, good bits of character drawing -and a satisfactory knowledge of the tone and atmosphere of the period -involved.--_N. Y. Herald_. - -Lazarre, is no less a person than the Dauphin, Louis XVII. of France, -and a right royal hero he makes. A prince who, for the sake of his -lady, scorns perils in two hemispheres, facing the wrath of kings in -Europe and the bullets of savages in America; who at the last spurns -a kingdom that he may wed her freely--here is one to redeem the sins -of even those who “never learn and never forget.”--_Philadelphia North -American._ - -With six Illustrations by André Castaigne - -12 mo. Price, $1.50 - - - - -YOUTH, SPLENDOR AND TRAGEDY - -FRANCEZKA - -By MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL - -There is no character in fiction more lovable and appealing than is -Francezka. Miss Seawell has told a story of youth, splendor and tragedy -with an art which links it with summer dreams, which drowns the somber -in the picturesque, which makes pain and vice a stage wonder. - -The book is marked by the same sparkle and cleverness of the author’s -earlier work, to which is added a dignity and force which makes it most -noteworthy. - -“Here is a novel that not only provides the reader with a succession -of sprightly adventures, but furnishes a narrative brilliant, witty -and clever. The period is the first half of that most fascinating, -picturesque and epoch-making century, the eighteenth. Francezka -is a winsome heroine. The story has light and shadow and high -spirits, tempered with the gay, mocking, debonair philosophy of the -time.”--_Brooklyn Times._ - -Charmingly illustrated by Harrison Fisher - -Bound in green and white and gold 12mo, cloth. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Tomorrow’s Tangle</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Geraldine Bonner</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Illustrator: Arthur I. Keller</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: February 27, 2022 [eBook #67521]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOMORROW’S TANGLE ***</div> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/cover.jpg" width="40%" alt="" /></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<h1>TOMORROW’S<br /> -TANGLE</h1> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_frontispiece.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">“THAT’S MY LIFE,—TO WORK IN WILD PLACES WITH MEN”</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<p><span class="xlarge">TOMORROW’S<br /> -TANGLE</span></p> - -<p>BY<br /> -<span class="large">GERALDINE BONNER</span></p> - -<p>ILLUSTRATIONS BY<br /> -<span class="large">ARTHUR I. KELLER</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_title.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="large">INDIANAPOLIS<br /> -THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY<br /> -PUBLISHERS</span></p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright 1903</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">The Bobbs-Merrill Company</span><br /> -<br /> -<span class="smcap">October</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -PRESS OF<br /> -BRAUNWORTH & CO.<br /> -BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS<br /> -BROOKLYN, N. Y.</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="ph2">TOMORROW’S<br /> -TANGLE</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2> -</div> - - - -<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" summary="table"> - -<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="3"><span class="large">PROLOGUE</span></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr"><small>CHAPTER</small></td><td> </td><td class="tdr" colspan="2"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">I</td><td> THE DESERT</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">II</td><td> STRIKING A BARGAIN</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">III</td><td> HE RIDES AWAY</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">IV</td><td> THE ENCHANTED WINTER</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="3"> </td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="3"><span class="large">MARIPOSA LILY</span></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">I</td><td> HIS SPLENDID DAUGHTER</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_71">71</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">II</td><td> THE MILLIONAIRE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">III</td><td> RETROSPECT</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">IV</td><td> A GALA NIGHT</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">V</td><td> TRIAL FLIGHTS</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_130">130</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">VI</td><td> THE VISION AND THE DREAM</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">VII</td><td> THE REVELATION</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">VIII</td><td> ITS EFFECT</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_172">172</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">IX</td><td> HOW COULD HE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">X</td><td> THE PALE HORSE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_194">194</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XI</td><td> BREAKS IN THE RAIN</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_214">214</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XII</td><td> DRIFT AND CROSSCUT</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XIII</td><td> THE SEED OF BANQUO</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_245">245</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XIV</td><td> VAIN PLEADINGS</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_260">260</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XV</td><td> THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_276">276</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XVI</td><td> REBELLIOUS HEARTS</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_294">294</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XVII</td><td> FRIEND AND BROTHER</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_311">311</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XVIII</td><td> WITH ME TO HELP</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_331">331</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XIX</td><td> NOT MADE IN HEAVEN</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_350">350</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XX</td><td> THE WOMAN TALKS</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_366">366</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXI</td><td> THE MEETING IN THE RAIN</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_382">382</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXII</td><td> A NIGHT’S WORK</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_398">398</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXIII</td><td> THE LOST VOICE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_410">410</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXIV</td><td> A BROKEN TOOL</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_426">426</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXV</td><td> HAVE YOU COME AT LAST</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_435">435</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="3"> </td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="3"><span class="large">EPILOGUE</span></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">I</td><td> THE PRIMA DONNA</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_451">451</a></td></tr> - -</table> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="nobreak">PROLOGUE</h2> -</div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span> -<p class="ph2">TOMORROW’S TANGLE</p> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER I<br /> - - -<small>THE DESERT</small></h3> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“To every man a damsel or two.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Judges.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>The vast, gray expanse of the desert lay still as a picture -in the heat of the early afternoon. The silence of -waste places held it. It was gaunt and sterile, clad -with a drab growth of sage, flat as a table, and with the -white scurf of the alkali breaking through its parched -skin. It was the earth, lean, sapless, and marked with -disease. A chain of purple hills looked down on its -dead level, over which a wagon road passed like a scar -across a haggard face. From the brazen arch of the -sky heat poured down and was thrown back from the -scorched surface of the land. It was August in the -Utah Desert in the early fifties.</p> - -<p>In the silence and deadness of the scene there was -one point of life. The canvas top of an emigrant wagon -made a white spot on the monotone of gray. At noon -there had been but one shadow in the desert and this -was that beneath the wagon which was stationary in -the road. Now the sun was declining from the zenith -and the shadow was broadening; first a mere edge, -then a substantial margin of shade.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span>In it two women were crouched watching a child -that lay gasping. Some distance away beside his two -horses, a man sat on the ground, his hat over his eyes.</p> - -<p>One of the thousand tragedies the desert had seen -was being enacted. Crushed between that dead indifference -of earth and sky, its participators seemed to -feel the hopelessness of movement or plaint and sat -dumb, all but the child, who was dying with that solemn -aloofness to surroundings, of which only those -who are passing know the secret. His loud breathing -sounded like a defiance in the silence of that savagely -unsympathizing nature. The man, the women, the -horses, were like part of the picture in their mute immobility, -only the dying child dared defy it.</p> - -<p>He was a pretty boy of three, and had succumbed to -one of the slight, juvenile ailments that during the -rigors of the overland march developed tragic powers -of death. His mother sat beside him staring at him. -She was nineteen years of age and had been married -four years before to the man who sat in the shadow -of the horses. She looked forty, tanned, haggard, -half clad. Dazed by hardship and the blow that had -just fallen, she had the air of a stupefied animal. She -said nothing and made no attempt to alleviate the sufferings -of her first-born.</p> - -<p>The other woman was some ten years older, and was -a buxom, handsome creature, large-framed, capable, -stalwart—a woman built for struggles and endurance—the -mate of the pioneer. She, too, was the wife of the -man who sat by the horses. He was of the Mormon -faith, which he had joined a year before for the purpose -of marrying her.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span>The sun sloped its burning course across the pale -sky. The edges of the desert shimmered through veils -of heat. Far on the horizon the mirage of a blue lake, -with little waves creeping up a crescent of sand, painted -itself on the quivering air. The shadow of the wagon -stealthily advanced. Suddenly the child moved, drew -a fluttering breath or two, and died. The two women -leaned forward, the mother helplessly; the other, with -a certain prompt decision that marked all her movements, -felt of the pulse and heart.</p> - -<p>“It’s all over, Lucy,” she said bruskly, but not unkindly; -“I guess you’d better get into the wagon; Jake -and I’ll do everything.”</p> - -<p>The girl rose slowly like a person accustomed to -obey, moved to the back of the wagon, and climbed in.</p> - -<p>The man, who had seen this sudden flutter of -activity, pushed back his hat and looked at his wives, -but did not move or speak. The second wife covered -the dead child with her apron, and approached him.</p> - -<p>“He’s dead,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Oh!” he answered.</p> - -<p>“We must bury him,” was her next remark.</p> - -<p>“Well, all right,” he assented.</p> - -<p>He went to the wagon and detached from beneath it -a spade. Then he walked a few rods away and, clearing -a space in the sage, began to dig. The woman -prepared the child for burial. The silence that had -been disturbed resettled, broken at intervals by the -thud of the spade. The heat began to lessen and a -still serenity to possess the barren landscape. The -desert had received its tribute and was appeased.</p> - -<p>The rites of the burial were nearly completed, when<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span> -a sound from the wagon attracted the attention of the -man and the woman. They stopped, listened and exchanged -a glance of alarmed intelligence. The woman -walked to the wagon rapidly, and exchanged a few remarks -with the other wife. Her voice came to the -man low and broken. He did not hear what she said, -but he thought he knew the purport of her words. As -he shoveled the earth into the grave his brow was contracted. -He looked angrily harassed. The second -wife came toward him, her sunburnt face set in an -expression of frowning anxiety.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said, in answer to his look, “she feels very -bad. We got to stop here. We can’t go on now.”</p> - -<p>He made no answer, but went on building up the -mound over the grave. He was younger by a year or -two than the woman with whom he spoke, but it was -easy to be seen that of her, as of all pertaining to him, -he was absolute master. She watched him for a moment -as if waiting for an order, then, receiving none, -said:</p> - -<p>“I’d better go back to her. I wish a train’d come by -with a doctor. She ain’t got much strength.”</p> - -<p>He vouchsafed no answer, and she returned to the -wagon, and this time climbed in.</p> - -<p>He continued to build up and shape the mound with -sedulous and evidently absent-minded care. The sweat -poured off his forehead and his bare, brown throat and -breast. He was a lean but powerful man, worn away -by the journey to bone and muscle, but of an iron -fiber. He had no patience with those who hampered -his forward march by sickness or feebleness.</p> - -<p>When he had finished the mound the sun was declining<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span> -toward the tops of the distant mountains. The -first color of its setting was inflaming the sky and -painting the desert in tones of strange, hot brilliancy. -The vast, grim expanse took on a tropical aspect. -Against the lurid background the chain of hills turned -a transparent amethyst, and the livid earth, with its -leprous eruption, was transformed into a pale lilac-blue. -Presently the thin, clear red of the sunset was -pricked by a white star-point. And in the midst of -this vivid blending of limpid primary colors, the fire -the man had kindled sent a fine line of smoke straight -up into the air.</p> - -<p>The second wife came out of the wagon to help him -get the supper and to eat hers. They talked a little -in low voices as they ate, drawn away from the heat -of the fire. The man showed symptoms of fatigue; -but the powerful woman was unconquered in her stubborn, -splendid vigor. When she had left him, he lay -down on the sand with his face on his arm and was -soon asleep. The sounds of dole that came from the -wagon did not wake him, nor disturb the deep dreamlessness -of his exhausted rest. The night was half -spent, when he was wakened by the woman shaking -his shoulder. He looked up at her stupidly for a minute, -seeing her head against the deep blue sky with its -large white stars.</p> - -<p>“It’s over. It’s a little girl. But Lucy’s pretty bad.”</p> - -<p>He sat up, fully awake now, and in the stillness of -the night heard the cat-like mew of the new-born. The -canvas arch of the wagon glowed with a fiery effect -from the lighted lanterns within.</p> - -<p>“Is she dying?” he said hurriedly.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>“No—not’s bad as that. But she’s terribly low. -We’ll have to stay here with her till she pulls up some. -We can’t move on with her this way.”</p> - -<p>He rose and, going to the wagon, looked in through -the opened flap. His wife was lying with her eyes -closed, waxen pale in the smoky lantern-light. The -sight of her shocked him into a sudden spasm of feeling. -She had been a fresh and pretty girl of fifteen -when he had married her, four years before at St. -Louis. He wondered if her father, who had given her -to him then, would have known her now. In an excess -of careless pity he laid his hand on her and said:</p> - -<p>“Well, Lucy, how d’ye feel?”</p> - -<p>She shrank from his touch and tried to draw a -corner of the blanket, on which her head rested, over -her face.</p> - -<p>He turned away and walked back to the fire, saying -to the second wife:</p> - -<p>“I guess she’ll be able to go on to-morrow. She can -stay in the wagon all the time. I don’t want to run no -risks ’er gittin’ caught in the snows on the Sierra. I -guess she’ll pull herself together all right in a few days. -I’ve seen her worse ’n that.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER II<br /> - - -<small>STRIKING A BARGAIN</small></h3> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="first">“How the world is made for each of us!</div> -<div class="verse">How all we perceive and know in it</div> -<div class="verse">Tends to some moments’ product thus,</div> -<div class="verse">When a soul declares itself—to wit:</div> -<div class="verse">By its fruit, the thing it does!”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Browning.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>Where the foothills fold back upon one another in -cool, blue shadows, and the tops of the Sierra, brushed -with snow, look down on a rugged rampart of mountains -falling away to a smiling plain, Dan Moreau and -his partner had been working a stream bed since June. -Placerville—still Hangtown—though already past the -feverish days of its first youth, was some twenty-five -miles to the southwest. A few miles to the south the -emigrant trail from Carson crawled over the shoulder -of the Sierra. Small trails broke from the parent one -and trickled down from the summit, by “the line of -least resistance,” to the outposts of civilization that -were planted here and there on foothill and valley.</p> - -<p>The cañon where Moreau and his “pard” were at -work was California, virgin and unconquered. The -forty-niners had passed it by in their eager rush for -fortune. Yet the narrow gulch, that steamed at midday -with heated airs and was steeped in the pungent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span> -fragrance which California exhales beneath the ardors -of the sun, was yielding the two miners a good supply -of gold. Their pits had honeycombed the stream’s -banks far up and down. Now, in September, the -water had dwindled to a silver thread, and they had -dammed it near the rocker into a miniature lake, into -which Fletcher—Moreau’s partner—plunged his dipper -with untiring regularity, at the same time moving -the rocker which filled the hot silence of the cañon -with its lazy monotonous rattle.</p> - -<p>They had been working with little cessation since -early June. The richness of their claim and the prospect -that the first snows would put an end to labors -and profits had spurred them to unremitting exertion. -In a box under Moreau’s bunk there were six small -buckskin sacks of dust, joint profits of the summer’s -toil.</p> - -<p>Moreau, a muscular, fair-haired giant of a man, was -that familiar figure of the early days—the gentleman -miner. He was a New Englander of birth and education, -who had come to California in the first rush, with -a little fortune wherewith to make a great one. Luck -had not been with him. This was his first taste of -success. Five months before he had picked up a -“pard” in Sacramento, and after the careless fashion -of the time, when no one sought to inquire too closely -into another’s antecedents, joined forces with him -and spent a wandering spring, prospecting from bar -to bar and camp to camp. The casual words of an -Indian had directed them to the cañon where now the -creak of their rocker filled the hot, drowsy days.</p> - -<p>Of Harney Fletcher, Moreau knew nothing. He<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span> -had met him in a lodging-house in Sacramento, and the -partnership proved to be a successful one. What the -New Englander furnished in money, the other made -up in practical experience and general handiness. It -was Fletcher who had constructed the rocker on an -improved model of his own. His had been the directing -brain as well as the assisting hand which had -built the cabin of logs that surveyed the stream bed -from a knoll above. The last remnants of Moreau’s -fortune had stocked it well, and there were two good -horses in the brush shed behind it.</p> - -<p>It was now September, and the leaves of the aspens -that grew along the stream bed were yellowing. But -the air was warm and golden with sunshine. Above, -in the high places of the Sierra, where the emigrant -trail crept along the edges of ravines and crawled -up the mighty flank of the wall that shuts the garden -of California from the desert beyond, the snow was -already deep. Fletcher, who had gone into Hangtown -the week before for provisions, had come back full of -stories of the swarms of emigrants pouring down the -main road and its branching trails, higgledy-piggledy, -pell-mell, hungry, gaunt, half clad, in their wild -rush to enter the land of promise.</p> - -<p>There was no suggestion of winter here. The hot -air was steeped in the aromatic scents that the sun -draws from the mighty pines which clothe the foothills. -At midday the little gulley where the men -worked was heavy with them. All about them was -strangely silent. The pines rising rank on rank stirred -to no passing breezes. There was no bird note, and -the stream had shrunk so that its spring-time song had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span> -become a whisper. Heat and silence held the long -days, when the red dust lay motionless on the trail -above, and the noise made by the rocker sounded -strangely intrusive and loud in the enchanted stillness -that held the landscape.</p> - -<p>On an afternoon like this the men were working in -the stream bed—Moreau in the pit, Fletcher at his -place by the rocker. There was no conversation between -them. The picture-like dumbness of their surroundings -seemed to have communicated itself to them. -Far above, glittering against the blue, the white peaks -of the Sierra looked down on them from remote, aërial -heights. The tiny thread of water gleamed in its -wide, unoccupied bed. Save the men, the only moving -thing in sight was a hawk that hung poised in the -sky above, its winged shadow floating forward and -pausing on the slopes of the gulch.</p> - -<p>Into this spellbound silence a sound suddenly broke—a -sound unexpected and unwished for—that of a -human voice. It was a man’s, harsh and loud, evidently -addressing cattle. With it came the creak of -wheels. The two partners listened, amazed and irresolute. -The trail that passed their cabin was an almost -unknown offshoot from the main highway. Then, the -sounds growing clearer, they scrambled up the bank. -Coming down the road they saw the curved top of a -prairie schooner that formed a background for the -forms of two skeleton horses, beside which walked a -man who urged them on with shouts and blows. -Wagon and horses were enveloped in a cloud of red -dust.</p> - -<p>At the moment that the miners saw this unwelcome<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span> -sight, one of the wretched beasts stumbled, and pitching -forward, fell with what sounded like a human -groan. The man, with an oath, went to it and gave -it a kick. But it was too far spent to rally, and settling -on its side, lay gasping. A woman, stout and -sunburned, ran round from the back of the cart, with -a face of angry consternation. As Moreau approached, -he heard her say to the man who, with oaths and blows, -was attempting to drag the horse to its feet:</p> - -<p>“Oh, it ain’t no use doing that. Don’t you see it’s -dying?”</p> - -<p>Moreau saw that she was right. The animal was in -its death throes. As he came up he said, without preliminaries:</p> - -<p>“Take off its harness, the poor brute’s done for,” -and began to unbuckle the rags of harness which held -it to the wagon.</p> - -<p>The man and woman turned, startled, and saw -him. Looking back they saw Fletcher, who was -coming slowly, and evidently not very willingly, -forward. The sight of the exhausted pioneers was -a too familiar one to interest him. The dying horse -claimed a lazy cast of his indifferent eye. Moreau -and the man loosed the harness, lifted the pole, and let -the creature lie free from encumbrance. The other -horse, freed, too, stood drooping, too spent to move -from where it had stopped. If other testimony were -needed of the terrible journey they were ending, one -saw it in the gaunt face of the man, scorched by sun, -seamed with lines, with a fringe of ragged beard, and -long locks of unkempt hair hanging from beneath his -miserable hat.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>This stoppage of his journey with the promised -land in sight seemed to exasperate him to a point -where he evidently feared to speak. With eyes full -of savage despair he stood looking at the horse. Both -he and the woman seemed so overpowered by the -calamity that they had no attention to give to the -two strangers, but stood side by side, staring morosely -at the animal.</p> - -<p>“What’ll we do?” she said hopelessly. “Spotty,” indicating -the other horse, “ain’t no use alone.”</p> - -<p>Moreau spoke up encouragingly.</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you leave the wagon and the other -horse here? You can walk into Hangtown by easy -stages. The Porter ranch is only twelve miles from -here and you can stay there all night. The poor beast -can’t do much more, and we’ll feed it and take care of -your other things while you’re gone.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, damn it, we can’t!” said the man furiously.</p> - -<p>As if in explanation of this remark, a woman suddenly -appeared at the open front of the wagon. She -had evidently been lying within it, and had not risen -until now.</p> - -<p>When Moreau looked at her he experienced a violent -thrill of pity, that the evident sufferings of the -others had not evoked. He was a man of a deeply -tender and sympathetic nature toward all that was -helpless and weak. As his glance met the face of this -woman, he thought she was the most piteous object -he had ever seen.</p> - -<p>“You’d better come into the cabin,” he said, “and -see what you can do. You can’t go on now, and you -look pretty well used up.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>The man gave a grunt of assent, and taking the -other horse by the head began to lead it toward the -cabin, being noticeably careful to steer it out of the -way of all stumbling-blocks. The woman in the sunbonnet -called to her companion in the wagon:</p> - -<p>“Come, Lucy, get a move on! We’re going to stop -and rest.”</p> - -<p>Thus addressed, the woman moved to the back of -the cart, drew the flap aside and slipped out. She -came behind the others, and Moreau, looking back, -saw that she walked slowly, as if feeble, or in pain.</p> - -<p>Advancing to the sunbonneted figure in front of -him he said, with a backward jerk of his head: -“What’s the matter with her? Is she sick?”</p> - -<p>The woman gave an indifferent glance backward. -Like the man, she seemed completely preoccupied by -their disaster.</p> - -<p>“Not now,” she answered, “but she has been. But -good Lord!”—with a sudden burst of angry bitterness—“women -like her ain’t meant to take them sort of -journeys. If it weren’t for her, Jake and I could go -on all right.”</p> - -<p>She relapsed into silence as the cabin revealed itself -through the trees. It appeared to interest her, and she -went to the door and looked in.</p> - -<p>It was the typical miner’s cabin of the period, consisting -of a single room with two bunks. Opposite -the doorway was the wide-mouthed chimney, a slab -of rock before it doing duty as hearthstone. There -was an armchair formed of a barrel, cushioned with -red flannel and mounted on rockers. Moreau’s bunk -was covered with a miner’s blanket, and the ineradicable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span> -habits of the gentleman spoke in the very simple -but sufficient toilet accessories that stood on a shelf -under a tiny square of looking-glass. Over the roof -a great pine spread its boughs, and in passing through -these the slightest breaths of air made soft eolian murmurings. -To the pioneers, the wild, rough place -looked the ideal of comfort and luxury.</p> - -<p>A small spring bubbled up near the roots of the -pine and trickled across the space in front of the -cabin. To this, by common consent, the party made -its way. The exhausted horse plunged its nose in the -cool current and drank and snorted and drank again. -The elder woman knelt down and laved her face and -neck and even the top of her head in the water. The -man stood looking with a moody eye at his broken -animal, and joined by Fletcher, they talked over its -condition. The miner, versed in this as in all practical -matters, deemed the beast incapacitated for journeys -of any length for some time to come. Both animals -had been driven to the limit of their strength.</p> - -<p>The pioneer asserted:</p> - -<p>“I had to get acrost before the snows blocked us, -and they’re heavy up there now,” with a nod of his -head toward the mountains above; “then I wanted to -get down into the settlements as soon’s I could. I -knew there weren’t two more days work in ’em, but -I calk’lated they’d get me in. After that it didn’t -matter.”</p> - -<p>“The only thing for you to do is to walk into Hangtown, -buy a mule there, and come back.”</p> - -<p>The man made a despairing gesture.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>“How the hell can I, with her?” he said, indicating -the younger woman.</p> - -<p>Fletcher turned round and surveyed her with a cold, -exploring eye where she had sunk down on the roots -of the pine, with her back against its trunk.</p> - -<p>“She looks pretty well tuckered out,” he said. “Your -wife?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“And the other one’s your sister?” he continued -with glib curiosity.</p> - -<p>“She’s my wife, too.”</p> - -<p>The inquirer, who was used to such plurality on the -part of the Utah emigrants, gave a whistle and said:</p> - -<p>“Mormons, eh?”</p> - -<p>The man nodded.</p> - -<p>Meantime Moreau had entered the cabin to get some -food and drink to offer the sick woman. In a few -moments he reappeared carrying a tin cup containing -whisky diluted with water from the spring, and approached -the woman sitting by the tree trunk. Her -eyes were closed and she presented a deathlike appearance. -The shawl she had worn round her shoulders -had fallen back and disclosed a small bundle that she -held with a loose carefulness. The man noticed the -way her arms were disposed about it and wondered. -Coming to a standstill before her, he said:</p> - -<p>“I’ve brought you something that’ll brace you up. -Would you like to try it?”</p> - -<p>She raised her lids and looked at him, and then at -the cup. As he met her glance he noticed that her -eyes were a clear brown like a dog’s, and for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span> -first time he realized that she might be young. She -stretched out her hand obediently and taking the cup -drank a little, then silently gave it back.</p> - -<p>“You’ve had a pretty rough time I guess,” he said, -holding the cup which he intended to give her again -in a minute.</p> - -<p>She nodded. Then suddenly the tears began to -well out of her eyes, quantities of tears that ran in a -flood over her cheeks. She did not sob or attempt to -hide her face, but leaning her head against the tree, let -the tears flow as though lost to everything but her -sense of misery.</p> - -<p>“Oh, poor thing! poor thing!” he exclaimed in a -burst of sympathy, “you’re half dead. Here take some -more of this,” and he pressed the cup into her hand, -not knowing what else to do for her.</p> - -<p>She took it, and then, through the tears, he saw her -cast a look of furtive alarm toward her husband. -She was within his line of vision and tried to shift herself -behind Moreau.</p> - -<p>With a sensation of angry disgust he understood -that she feared this unkempt and haggard creature -to whom she belonged. He moved so that he sheltered -her and watched her try to drink again. But her tears -blinded her and she handed the cup back with a shaking -hand.</p> - -<p>“It’s been too much,” she gasped. “If I could only -have died! My boy did. Out there on them awful -plains where there ain’t a tree and it’s hot like a furnace. -And they buried him there—Bessie and he.”</p> - -<p>“Bessie and he?” he repeated vaguely, his pity entirely -preoccupying his mind for the moment.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>“Yes, Bessie,—the second wife. I’m the first.”</p> - -<p>“Oh,” he said, comprehending, “you’re from Utah?”</p> - -<p>“Not me,” she answered quickly, “I’m from Indiana. -I’m no Mormon. He wasn’t neither till he married -Bessie. He wanted her and he did it.”</p> - -<p>Here she was suddenly interrupted by a weak whining -cry from the bundle that one arm still curved -about. She bent her head and drew back the covering, -and Moreau saw a strange wizened face and a tiny, -claw-like hand feeling feebly about. He had never -seen a very young infant before and it seemed to him -a weirdly hideous thing.</p> - -<p>“Is it yours?” he said, amazed.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she answered, “it was born in the desert -three weeks ago.”</p> - -<p>Her tears were dry, and she bent over the feeble -thing that squirmed weakly and made small, cat-like -noises, with something in her attitude that changed -her and made her still a woman who had a life above -her miseries.</p> - -<p>“Wouldn’t you like to go into the cabin?” said the -man, feeling suddenly abashed by his ignorance of all -pertaining to this infinitesimal bit of life. “You might -want to wash it or put it to sleep or give it something -to eat. There’s a basin and soap and—er—some flour -and bacon in there.”</p> - -<p>The woman responded to the invitation with a slight -show of alacrity. She stumbled as she rose, and he -took her arm and guided her. At the cabin door he -left her and as he passed to the back where the rest -of the party had gone, the baby’s feeble cry, weak, but -insistent, followed him.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>The emigrant, Bessie and Fletcher, had repaired to -the brush shed where Moreau’s horses were stabled and -had put the half-dead Spotty under its shelter. Here -the exhausted beast had lain down. The trio had then -betaken themselves to a bare spot on the shaded slope -of the knoll and were eating ship’s biscuits and drinking -whisky and water from a tin cup, that circulated -from hand to hand. As Moreau approached he could -hear his partner volubly expatiating on the barrenness -of the stream-beds in the vicinity. The stranger -was listening to him with a cogitating eye, his seamed, -weather-worn face set in an expression of frowning -attention. Her hunger appeased, Bessie had curled up -on her side, and with her sunbonnet still on, had fallen -into a deep, healthy sleep.</p> - -<p>Moreau joined them, and listened with mingled surprise -and amusement to Fletcher’s glib lies. Then, -when his partner’s fluency was exhausted, he questioned -the emigrant on his trip. The man’s answers -were short and non-committal. He seemed in a morose, -savage state at his ill luck, his mind still engrossed by -the question of moving on.</p> - -<p>“If I’d money,” he said, “I’d give you anything you’d -ask for them two horses ’er your’n in the shed. But -I ain’t a thing to give—not a red.”</p> - -<p>“Your wife, your other wife,” said Moreau, “doesn’t -seem to me fit to go on. She’s dead beat.”</p> - -<p>The man gave an angry snort.</p> - -<p>“She’s been like that pretty near the whole way,” he -said. “Everything’s been put back because of her.”</p> - -<p>He relapsed into moody silence and then said suddenly: -“We’re goin’ if she’s got to walk.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>Moreau went back to the cabin. They had half -killed the woman already; now if they insisted on her -walking the wretched creature might collapse altogether. -Would they leave her on the mountain roads, -he wondered?</p> - -<p>He reached the cabin door, knocked and heard her -answering “come in.” She was sitting on an upturned -box beside the bunk on which the baby slept. Her sunbonnet -was off, and he noticed that she had bright hair, -rippled and thick, and of the same reddish-brown color -as her eyes. She had washed away the traces of her -tears, but her clothes, hardly sufficient covering for -her lean, toil-worn body, were dirty and ragged. No -beggar he had ever seen in the distant New England -town where he had spent his boyhood, had presented -a more miserable appearance. She looked timidly at -him and rose from the box, pushing it toward him.</p> - -<p>“I put the baby on the bunk,” she said apologetically, -“but I can hold her.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t disturb her,” he said quickly. “It’s the -only place you could have put her.” Then, seeing her -standing, he said, “Why don’t you sit down?”</p> - -<p>She sat charily and evidently ill at ease.</p> - -<p>“They’ve been eating out there,” he said, “and I -thought you might like something, too. There’s some -stuff over there in the corner if you’ll wait a moment.”</p> - -<p>He went to the corner where the supplies were -stored and rifled them for more ship’s biscuit and a -wedge of cheese, a delicacy which Fletcher had -brought from Hangtown on his last visit, and which -he carefully refrained from offering to the hungry -emigrants. Coming back with these he drew out another<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span> -box and spread them on it before her. She -looked on in heavy, silent surprise. When he had finished -he said:</p> - -<p>“Now—fall to. You want food as much as anything.”</p> - -<p>She made no effort to eat, and he said, disappointed: -“Don’t you want it? Oh, make a try.”</p> - -<p>She “made a try,” and bit off a piece of cracker, -while he again retired to the supply corner for the tin -cup and the whisky. He tried to step softly so as not -to wake the child, and there was something ludicrous -in the sight of this vast, bearded man, with his mighty, -half-bared arms and muscular throat, trying to be -noiseless, with as much success as one might expect -of a bear.</p> - -<p>Suddenly, in the midst of her repast, the woman -broke down completely; and, with bowed head, she -was shaken by a tempest of some violent emotion. It -was not like her tears of an hour before, which seemed -merely an indication of physical exhaustion. This was -an expression of spiritual tumult. Sobs rent her and -she rocked back and forth struggling with some fierce -paroxysm.</p> - -<p>Moreau, cup in hand, gazed at her in distracted -helplessness.</p> - -<p>“Come now, eat a little,” he said coaxingly, not -knowing what else to suggest, and then getting no response: -“Suppose you lie down on the bunk? Rest -is what you want.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I can’t go on,” she groaned. “I can’t. How -can I? Oh, it’s too much! I can’t go on.”</p> - -<p>He was silent before this ill for which he had no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span> -remedy, and she wailed again in the agony of her spirit:</p> - -<p>“I can’t, I can’t. If I could only die! But now -there’s the baby, and I can’t even die.”</p> - -<p>He got up feeling sick at heart at sight of this hopeless -despair. What could he suggest to the unfortunate -creature? He felt that anything he could say -would be an insult in the face of such a position.</p> - -<p>“Oh God, why can’t we die?” she groaned—“why -can’t we die?”</p> - -<p>As she said the words the sound of approaching -voices came through the open door. Her husband’s -struck through her agony and froze it. She stiffened -and lifted her face full of an animal look of listening. -Moreau noticed her blunt and knotted hands, pitiful -in their record of toil, as she held them up in the transfixed -attitude of strained attention.</p> - -<p>“What now?” she said to herself.</p> - -<p>The pioneer, Fletcher and Bessie came slowly round -the corner of the cabin. Bessie looked sleepily anxious, -Fletcher lazily amused. As Moreau stepped out of -the doorway toward them he realized that they had -come to some decision.</p> - -<p>“Well,” said the man, “we got to travel.”</p> - -<p>“You’re going on?” said Moreau. “How about the -wagon?”</p> - -<p>“We’re goin’ to leave the wagon, and I’ll come back -for it from Hangtown. It’s the only thing to do.”</p> - -<p>“And the horse?”</p> - -<p>“He calk’lates,” said Fletcher, “to mount his wife—the -peaked one—on the horse and take her along till -one or other of ’em drops.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>“Take your wife on that horse?” exclaimed Moreau. -“Why, it can’t go two miles.”</p> - -<p>“Well, maybe it can’t,” returned the man with an -immovable face.</p> - -<p>There was a pause. Moreau was conscious that the -woman was standing behind him in the doorway. He -could hear her breathing.</p> - -<p>“Come on, Lucy,” said the husband. “We got to -move on sometime.”</p> - -<p>Here the second wife spoke up:</p> - -<p>“I don’t see how the horse is goin’ to get Lucy -twelve miles, and this man says the first place we can -stop is twelve miles farther along.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you begin with your everlasting objections,” -said the husband, furiously. “Get the horse.”</p> - -<p>The woman evidently knew the time had passed for -trifling and turned away toward the brush shed. -Fletcher followed her with a grin. The situation appealed -to his sense of humor, and he was curious as -to the outcome.</p> - -<p>Moreau and the emigrant were left facing each -other, with the first wife in the doorway.</p> - -<p>“Your wife’s not able to go on,” said the miner—his -manner becoming suddenly authoritative; “no more -than your horse is.”</p> - -<p>“Maybe not,” said the other, “but they’re both goin’ -to try.”</p> - -<p>“But can’t you see the horse can’t carry her? She -certainly can’t walk into Hangtown, or even to Porter’s -Ranch.”</p> - -<p>“No, I can’t see. And how’s it come to be your -business—what they can do or what they can’t?”</p> - - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_022.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">“YOUR WIFE’S NOT ABLE TO GO ON, NO MORE THAN YOUR<br /> -HORSE IS”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>“It’s any one’s business to prevent a woman from -being half killed.”</p> - -<p>“Since you seem to think so much about her, why -don’t you keep her here yourself?”</p> - -<p>The man spoke with a savage sneer, his eyes full of -steely defiance.</p> - -<p>Before he had realized the full import of his words, -burning with rage against the brutal tyrant to whom -the wife was of no more moment than the horse, -Moreau answered:</p> - -<p>“I will—let her stay!”</p> - -<p>There was a moment’s pause. The emigrant’s face, -dark with rage, was suddenly lightened by a curiously -alert expression of intelligence. He looked at the -woman in the background and then at the miner.</p> - -<p>“I’m not giving anything away just now,” he answered. -“When she’s well she’s of use. But I’ll swap -her for your two horses.”</p> - -<p>In the heat of his indignation and disgust Moreau -turned and looked at the woman. She was leaning -against the door frame, chalk-white, and staring at -him. She made no sound, but her dog-like eyes seemed -to speak for his mercy more eloquently than her tongue -ever could.</p> - -<p>“All right,” he said quietly. “It’s a bargain.”</p> - -<p>“Done,” said the emigrant. “You’ll find her a good -worker when she pulls herself together. You stay on -here, Lucy. Bessie,” he sang out, “bring around them -horses.”</p> - -<p>Under the phlegm of his manner there was a sudden -expanding heat of shame that he strove to hide. -The woman neither stirred nor spoke, and Moreau<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span> -stood with his back to her, struggling with his passion -against the man who had been her owner. The impulse -under which he had spoken had full possession -of him, and his main feeling was his desire to rid himself -of the emigrant and his other wife.</p> - -<p>“Here,” he said, “go on and tell them that you’ll -take the horses. Hurry up!”</p> - -<p>The man needed no second bidding and made off -rapidly round the corner of the cabin.</p> - -<p>Moreau and the woman were silent. For the moment -he had forgotten her presence, engrossed by the -rage that filled his warmly generous nature. Instinctively -he followed the man to the angle of the cabin -whence he could command the brush shed. The trio -were standing there, Fletcher and the woman listening -amazed to the emigrant’s explanation. Moreau turned -back to the cabin and his eye fell on the woman in -the doorway.</p> - -<p>“Well,” he said—trying to speak easily—“you don’t -mind staying on here for a while, do you? I guess -we can make you comfortable.”</p> - -<p>She made no answer, and after waiting a moment he -said:</p> - -<p>“When you get stronger I’ll be able to find you something -to do in Hangtown. You know you couldn’t -go on, feeling so bad. And this air round here”—with -a wave of his hand to the surrounding pines—“will -brace you up finely.”</p> - -<p>She gave a murmured sound of assent, but more -than this made no reply. Only her dog-like eyes again -seemed to speak. Their miserable look of gratitude<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span> -made Moreau uncomfortable and he could think of -nothing more to say.</p> - -<p>The sound of the trio advancing from the shed came -as a welcome interruption. They appeared round the -corner of the cabin, leading the miner’s two powerful -and well-fed horses. Evidently the situation had been -explained. Fletcher’s face was enigmatical. The humorousness -of the novel exchange had come a little -too close to his own comfort to be quite as full of -zest as it had been earlier in the afternoon. He had -insisted that the emigrant leave his horse, which the -man had no objection to doing. Bessie looked flushed -and excited. Moreau thought he detected shame and -disapproval under her agitated demeanor. But to her -work was a matter of second nature. She put the -horses to the tongue of the wagon and buckled the -rags of harness together before she turned for a last -word to her companion. This was characteristically -brief:</p> - -<p>“So long, Lucy,” she said, “let’s see the baby again.”</p> - -<p>It was shown her and she kissed it on the forehead -with some tenderness. Then she climbed on the wheel -of the wagon and took from the interior a bundle tied -up in printed calico and laid it on the ground. It contained -all the personal belongings and wardrobe of the -first wife. There were a few murmured sentences between -them and then she turned to ascend to her seat. -But before she had fairly mounted a sudden impulse -seized her and whirled her back to give Lucy a good-by -kiss.</p> - -<p>There was more feeling in this action than in anything<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span> -that had passed between the trio during the afternoon. -The two wives had been women who had mutually -suffered. There were tears in Bessie’s eyes as -she climbed to her place. The husband never turned -his head in the direction of his first wife. But as he -took the reins and prepared to start the team, he called:</p> - -<p>“Good by, Lucy.”</p> - -<p>He clucked at the horses, and the wagon moved -forward amid a stir of red dust. The woman on the -front seat drew her sunbonnet over her face. The -man beside her looked neither to the right nor the -left, but stared out over his newly-acquired team with -an impassively set visage. His long whip curled out -with a hiss, the spirited animals gave a forward bound, -and the wagon went clattering and jolting down the -trail.</p> - -<p>Moreau stood watching its canvas arch go swinging -downward under the dark boughs of the pines and the -flickering foliage of the aspens. He watched until a -bend in the road hid it. Then he turned toward the -cabin. Fletcher was standing behind him, surveying -him with a cold and sardonic eye:</p> - -<p>“Well, you’ve done it!”</p> - -<p>“I guess I have.”</p> - -<p>“What the devil are you going to do with her?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t know.”</p> - -<p>“And the horses gone; nothin’ but that busted cayuse -left!”</p> - -<p>They stood looking at each other, Fletcher angrily -incredulous, Moreau smilingly deprecating and apologetic.</p> - -<p>As they stood thus, neither knowing what to say,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span> -the emigrant’s wife appeared at the doorway of the -cabin.</p> - -<p>“I’ll get your supper now if it’s the right time,” she -said timidly.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER III<br /> - - -<small>HE RIDES AWAY</small></h3> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="first">“Alas, my Lord, my life is not a thing</div> -<div class="verse">Worthy your noble thoughts! ’Tis not a life,</div> -<div class="verse">’Tis but a piece of childhood thrown away.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Beaumont and Fletcher.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>That night the two miners rolled themselves in their -blankets and lay down on the expanse of slippery -grass under the pine. Moreau did not sleep soon. -The day’s incidents were the first interruption to the -monotony of their uneventful summer.</p> - -<p>Now, the strong man, lying on his back, looking at -the large white stars between the pine boughs, thought -of what he had done with perplexity, but without regret. -In the still peacefulness of the night he turned -over in his mind what he should do when the woman -grew stronger. Women were rare in the mining districts, -and he knew that the emigrant wife could earn -high wages as a servant either in Hangtown or the -growing metropolis of Sacramento. The child might -hamper her, but he could help her to take care of the -child until she got fairly on her feet. He had nothing -much to do with his “dust.” Strong and young and -in California, that always meant money enough.</p> - -<p>So he thought, pushing uneasiness from his mind.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span> -Turning on his hard bed he could see the dark bulk of -the cabin with a glint of starlight on its window. -Above, the black boughs of the pine made a network -against the sky sown with stars of an extraordinary -size and luster. He could hear the river sleepily murmuring -to itself. Once, far off, in the higher mountains, -the shrill, weird cry of a California lion tore the -silence. He rose on his elbow, looking toward the -cabin. The sound was a terrifying one, and he was -prepared to see the woman come out, frightened, and -had the words of reassurance ready to call to her. -But there was no movement from the little hut. She -was evidently wrapped in the sleep of utter fatigue.</p> - -<p>In the morning he was down at a basin scooped in -the stream bed making a hasty toilet, when Fletcher, -sleepy-eyed and yawning, came slipping over the bank.</p> - -<p>“What are we goin’ to do for breakfast?” he said. -“Is that purchase o’ your’n goin’ to git it? She’d -oughter do something to show she’s worth the two -best horses this side er Hangtown.”</p> - -<p>Moreau, with his hair and beard bedewed with his -ducking, was about to answer when a sound from -above attracted them.</p> - -<p>Lucy was standing on the bank. In the clear morning -light she looked white and pinched. Her wretched -clothes of yesterday, a calico sack and skirt, were augmented -by a clean apron of blue check. Her skirt was -short and showed her feet in a pair of rusty shoes -that were so large they might have been her husband’s.</p> - -<p>“Are you comin’ to breakfast?” she said; “it’s -ready.” Then she disappeared. The men looked at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span> -each other and Moreau shook the drops from his beard -and began to try to pat his hair into order. The civilizing -influence of woman—even such an unlovely -woman as the emigrant’s wife—was beginning its -work.</p> - -<p>Lucy had evidently been busy. The litter that had -disfigured the ground in front of the cabin was cleared -away. Through the open door and window a current -of resinous mountain air passed which counteracted -the effect of the fire. Nevertheless she had evidently -feared its heat would be oppressive, and had brought -two of the boxes to the rude bench outside the doorway, -and on these the breakfast was laid. It was of -the simplest—fried bacon, coffee and hot biscuits—but -the scent of these, hot and appetizing, was sweet -in the nostrils of the hungry men.</p> - -<p>Sitting on the bench, they fell to and were not disappointed. -The emigrant’s wife had evidently great -skill in the preparation of the simple food of the -pioneer. With the scanty means at her hand she had -concocted a meal that to the men, used to their own -primitive cooking, seemed the most toothsome they -had eaten since they left San Francisco.</p> - -<p>As she retired into the cabin, Fletcher—his mouth -full of biscuit—said:</p> - -<p>“Well, she can cook anyway. I wonder how she -gets her biscuits so all-fired light? They ain’t all -saleratus, neither.”</p> - -<p>Here she reappeared, carrying the coffee-pot, and, -leaning over Fletcher’s shoulder, prepared to refill his -tin cup.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>“Put it down on the table. He can do it himself,” -commanded Moreau suddenly.</p> - -<p>She set it down instantly, with her invariable -frightened obedience.</p> - -<p>“We’re not used to being waited on,” he continued. -“Now you sit down here,”—he rose from his end of the -bench and pointed to it,—“and next thing we want I’ll -go in and get it. You’ve had your own breakfast, of -course?”</p> - -<p>“No—I ain’t had mine yet,” she answered meekly.</p> - -<p>“Well, why ain’t you?” he almost shouted. “What -d’ye mean by giving us ours first?”</p> - -<p>She looked terrified and shrank a little on the bench. -Moreau had a dreadful idea that for a moment she was -afraid of being struck.</p> - -<p>“Here, take this cup,” he said, giving her his,—“and -this bacon,” picking from the pan, which stood in the -middle of the table, the choicest pieces, and a biscuit. -“There—now eat. I’m done.”</p> - -<p>She tried to eat, but it was evidently difficult. Her -hands, bent and disfigured with work, shook. At intervals -she cast a furtive, questioning look at him -where he sat on an overturned box, eying her with -good-humored interest. As he met the frightened -dog-eyes he smiled encouragingly, but she was grave -and returned to her breakfast with nervous haste.</p> - -<p>As the men descended the bank to the stream bed, -Fletcher said:</p> - -<p>“Well, she’s some use in the world. That’s the first -decent meal we’ve had since we left Sacramento.”</p> - -<p>“She didn’t eat much of it herself,” returned his -pard as he began the morning’s work.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>“She is the gol-darnedest lookin’ woman I ever seen. -Looks as if she’d been fed on shavings. I’ll lay ten -to one that emigrant cuss she b’longs to has ’most -beat the life out er her.”</p> - -<p>Ascending to the cabin an hour later, Moreau came -upon the woman, washing the breakfast dishes in the -stream that trickled from the spring. She did not -hear him approach, and, watching her, he saw that -she was slow and feeble in her movements. The sun -spattered down through the pine boughs on her thick, -brilliant-colored hair, and on the nape of her neck, -where the skin was tanned to a coarse, russet brown.</p> - -<p>“What are you doing that for?” he said, coming to -a standstill in front of her. “You needn’t bother about -the pans.”</p> - -<p>“They’d oughter be cleaned,” she answered.</p> - -<p>“You don’t want to feel,” he said, “that you’ve got -to work all the time. I wanted you to rest up a bit. -It’s a good place to rest here.”</p> - -<p>She made no answer, drying the tin cups on a piece -of flour sack.</p> - -<p>“I ain’t so awful tired,” she said presently in a low -voice.</p> - -<p>“Well, don’t you worry about having everything so -clean; they’ll do anyway. And the cabin’s pretty -clean,—isn’t it?” he asked, somewhat anxiously.</p> - -<p>“Yes—awful clean,” she said. Then, after a moment, -she continued: “I hadn’t oughter have stayed -in the cabin. It’s your’n. Me and the baby’ll be all -right in the brush shed with Spotty.”</p> - -<p>“What nonsense!” retorted Moreau. “Do you suppose -I’d let you and that baby stay in the brush shed,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span> -the place where the horses have been kept all summer? -You’re going to keep the cabin, and if there’s anything -you want—anything that’s short, or that you might -need for the baby—why, Fletcher’ll go to Hangtown -and get it. Just say what you want. Not having -women around, we’re probably short of all sorts -of little fixings.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want nothing,” she said with her head -down—“I ain’t never been so comfortable sence I was -married.”</p> - -<p>“Have you been married long?” he asked, less from -curiosity than from the desire to make her talk.</p> - -<p>“Four years,” she replied; “I was married in St. -Louis, just before dad and I was startin’ to cross the -plains. Dad was taken sick. He was consumpted, -and some one tol’ him to go to California, so we was -goin’ to start along with a heap of other folks. We -was all waitin’ ’round St. Louis for the weather to -settle and that’s how I met Jake.”</p> - -<p>“Jake?” said Moreau, interrogatively; “who was -Jake?”</p> - -<p>“My husband—Jake Shackleton. He was one o’ -the drivers of the train. He drove McGinnes’ teams. -He was there in camp with us, and up and asked me, -and dad was glad to get any one to take care of me, -bein’ as he was so consumpted. We was married a -week afore the train started. I didn’t favor it much, -but dad thought it was a good thing. My father was -a Methodist preacher, and knowin’ as how he couldn’t -last long, he was powerful glad to get some one to -look after me. I was pretty young to be left—just -fifteen.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>“Fifteen!” echoed Moreau—then piecing together -her scant bits of biography—“Then you’re only <i>nineteen</i> -now?”</p> - -<p>“That’s my age,” she said with her laconic dryness.</p> - -<p>He looked at her in incredulous amaze. Nineteen! -A girl, almost a child! A gush of pity and horror -welled up in him, and for the moment he could find -no words. She went on, evidently desirous of telling -him of herself as in duty bound to her new master.</p> - -<p>“Dad died before we got to Salt Lake. Then Jake -and I settled there and Willie was born, and for two -years it wern’t so bad. Jake liked me and was good -to me. But he got to know the Mormons and kep’ -sayin’ all the time it weren’t no good doin’ anything -not bein’ a Mormon. He said they had no use for -him, bein’ a Gentile. And then he seen Bessie,—she -was a waitress in the Sunset Hotel,—and got powerful -set on her. She was a big, strong woman, and could -work. Not like me. I couldn’t never work except -in the house. I was no good for outdoor work. I -was always a sort er drag, he said. So he turned Mormon -and married Bessie, and she came to live with -us.” She stopped and began rubbing a pan with a -piece of flour sack.</p> - -<p>“Don’t tell any more if you don’t want to,” said the -man, hearing his voice slightly husky.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t mind,” she answered with her colorless, -unemotional intonation; “I couldn’t ever come to feel -she was his wife, too. I hadn’t them notions. My -father was a preacher. I hated it all, but I couldn’t -seem to think of anything else to do. I had to stay. -There was no one to go to. Dad was dead and he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span> -didn’t have no relations. Then we started to come -here, and on the way my little boy died. That was -all I had, and I didn’t care then what happened. And -only for the other baby I’d er crep’ out er the wagon -some night and run away and got lost on them plains. -But—”</p> - -<p>She stopped and made a gesture of extending her -hands outward and then letting them fall at her sides. -It was tragic in its complete hopelessness. Of gratitude -to Moreau she seemed to have little. She had -been so beaten down by misfortune that nothing was -left in her but acquiescence. Her very service to him -seemed an instinctive thing, the result of rigorous -training.</p> - -<p>“Well,” he said after a pause, “you’ve had a hard -time. But it’s over now. Don’t you think about it -any more. You’re going to rest up here, and when -you’re strong and well again we’ll think about something -for you to do. Time enough for that then. -But you can always get work and high pay in Hangtown -or Sacramento. Or if you don’t fancy it at any -of those places I’ll see to it that you go down to San -Francisco. Don’t bother any more anyhow. You’d -about got to the bottom of things and now you’re -coming up.”</p> - -<p>She gathered up her pans and said dully: “Thank -you, sir.”</p> - -<p>The cry of the baby struck on her ear and she -scrambled to her feet, and without more words turned -and walked to the cabin.</p> - -<p>At dinner she again made her appearance on the -bank and called the two men. Again they were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span> -greeted by a meal that was singularly appetizing, considering -the limited resources. Obeying Moreau’s -order, she sat down with them, but ate nothing, at intervals -starting to her feet to return to the cabin, then -restraining the impulse and sitting rigid and uncomfortable -on the upturned box. To wait on the men -seemed the only thing she knew how to do, or that -gave her ease in the doing.</p> - -<p>The child cried once or twice during dinner, and, in -the afternoon, working in the pit which was in the -stream bed just below the cabin window, Moreau -heard it crying again. It seemed a louder and more -imperious cry than it had given previously. The -miner, whose knowledge of infancy and its ills was of -the most limited, wondered if it could be sick.</p> - -<p>At sunset, the day’s work over, both men mounted -the bank, their takings of dust in two tin cups, from -which it was transferred to the buckskin sacks in the -box under the bunk. Moreau entered the cabin to -get the sacks and found Lucy there curled on the end -of the bunk where the baby slept. As his great bulk -darkened the door she started up, with her invariable -frightened look of apology.</p> - -<p>“Don’t move—don’t move,” he said, kneeling by -her; “I want to get the box under the bunk.”</p> - -<p>She started up, and being nearer the box than he, -thrust her hand under and tried to pull it out. It was -heavy with the sacks of dust and required a wrench. -She rose from the effort, gave a gasp, and, reeling, -fell against him. He caught her in his arms, and as -her head fell back against his shoulder saw that she -was death-white and unconscious.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>With terrified care he laid her on Fletcher’s bunk, -and, seizing a pan of water, sprinkled her face and -hands, then tore one of the tin cups off its nail, and, -pouring whisky into it, tried to force it between her -lips. A little entered her mouth, though most of it ran -down her chin. As he stood staring at her, Fletcher -appeared in the doorway.</p> - -<p>“Hullo!” he said; “what’s the matter with her? By -gum, but she looks bad!” And then, with a quick -and practised hand, he pulled her up to a sitting posture, -and, prying her mouth open with a fork, poured -some of the whisky down. It revived her quickly. -She sat up, felt for her sunbonnet, and then said:</p> - -<p>“I hadn’t oughter have done that, but it came so -quick.”</p> - -<p>She tried to get up, but Moreau pushed her back.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I ain’t sick,” she said, trying to speak bravely; -“I’ve been took like that before. It’s just tiredness. -I’m all right now.”</p> - -<p>She again tried to rise, stood on her feet for a moment, -then reeled back on the bunk, with white lips.</p> - -<p>“It’s such a weakness,” she whispered; “such a -weakness!”</p> - -<p>At this moment the baby woke up, and, lifting up its -voice, began a loud, violent wail. The woman looked -in terror from one man to the other.</p> - -<p>“Oh, my poor baby!” she cried; “what’ll I do? Is -that one goin’ to go, too?”</p> - -<p>“The baby’s all right,” said Moreau. “Don’t begin -to worry about that. All babies cry, don’t they?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, my poor baby!” she wailed, unheeding, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span> -suddenly beginning to wring her hands. “It’ll die like -Willie. It’ll die, too.”</p> - -<p>“Why should it die? What’s the matter with it? -It was all right this morning, wasn’t it?” he answered, -feeling that there were mysteries here he did not -grasp.</p> - -<p>“It’ll die because it don’t get nothing to eat,” she -cried desperately. “I’ve nothing for it. I’m too sick! -I’m too sick! And it’ll starve. Oh, my poor baby!”</p> - -<p>She burst into the wild, weak tears of exhaustion, -her sobs mingling with the now strident yells of the -hungry baby.</p> - -<p>The two men looked at each other, sheepishly, beginning -to understand the situation. The enfeebled -condition of the mother made it impossible for her to -nourish the child. It was a predicament for which -even the resourceful mind of Fletcher had no remedy. -He pushed back his cap, and, scratching slowly at the -front of his head, looked at his mate with solemn perplexity, -while the cabin echoed to sounds of misery -unlike any that had ever before resounded within its -peaceful walls.</p> - -<p>“Can—can—we get anything?” said Moreau at -length—“any—any—sort of food, meat, eggs—er—er -any sort of stuff for it to eat?”</p> - -<p>“Eat?” exclaimed Fletcher scornfully; “how can it -eat? It hasn’t a tooth.”</p> - -<p>“How would it do if Fletcher went into Hangtown -and brought the doctor?” suggested Moreau, soothingly. -“It’ll take twenty-four hours, but he’s a good -doctor.”</p> - -<p>The woman shook her head.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>“A goat,” she sobbed, the menace to her offspring -having given her a fictitious courage. “If you could -get a goat.”</p> - -<p>“A goat!”</p> - -<p>The two men looked at each other, horror-stricken -at the magnitude of the suggestion.</p> - -<p>“She might as well ask us to get an elephant,” muttered -Fletcher morosely. “There’s not a goat nearer -than San Francisco.”</p> - -<p>“And it would take us two weeks anyway to get -one up from there and across the mountains from Sacramento,” -said Moreau.</p> - -<p>“By the time you got it here it’d be the most expensive -goat you ever bucked up against,” said his -partner disdainfully.</p> - -<p>“A cow!” exclaimed Moreau. “Say, Lucy, would -a cow do?”</p> - -<p>“A cow!” came the muffled answer; “oh, it don’t -need a whole cow.”</p> - -<p>“But a cow would do? If I could get a cow the -baby could be fed on the milk, couldn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes; it ’ud do first-rate.”</p> - -<p>“Very well, I’ll get a cow. Don’t you bother any -more; I’ll have a cow here by to-morrow noon. The -baby’ll have to hold out till then, for, not having a -decent horse, I can’t get it here any sooner.”</p> - -<p>“And where do you calk’late to get a cow?” demanded -Fletcher; “cows ain’t much more common -than goats round these parts.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>“On the Porter ranch. It’s twelve miles off. I can -go in to-night, rest there a bit, and by noon be here -with the cow.”</p> - -<p>“And is that baby goin’ to yell like this from now -till to-morrow noon? You might’s well have a -mountain lion tied up in the bunk.”</p> - -<p>The difficulty was indeed only half solved. The infant’s -lusty cries were unabated. The miserable -mother, with tear-drenched face and quivering chin, -sat up in the bunk and tried to rise and go to it, but -was restrained by Moreau’s hand on her shoulder.</p> - -<p>“You stay here and I’ll get it,” he said, then crossed -to the other bunk, and gingerly lifted with his huge, -hairy hands the shrieking bundle, from which protruded -two tiny, red fists, jerking and clawing about, -and carried it to its mother. Her practised hand -hushed it for a moment, but its pangs were beyond temporary -alleviation, and its cries soon broke forth.</p> - -<p>“If I could git up and mix it some flour and water,” -she said, feebly attempting to rise.</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter with us doing that?” queried -Moreau. “How do you do it? Just give us the proportions -and we’ll dish it up as if we were born to it.”</p> - -<p>Under her direction he put flour in one of the dippers, -and handed Fletcher a tin cup with the order to -fill it with water at the spring. Both men were deeply -interested, and Fletcher rushed back from the spring -with a dripping cup, as if fearful that the infant would -die unless the work of feeding was promptly begun.</p> - -<p>“Now go on,” said Moreau, armed with the dipper -and a tin teaspoon; “what’s next?”</p> - -<p>“Sugar,” she said; “if you put a touch of sugar in -it tastes better to them.”</p> - -<p>“Here, sugar. Hand it over quick. Now, there -we are. How do you mix ’em, Lucy?”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span>She gave the directions, which the men carefully -followed, compounding a white, milky-looking liquid. -The crucial moment came when they had to feed this -to the crimson and convulsively screaming baby.</p> - -<p>To forward matters better they moved two boxes to -the doorway, where the glow of sunset streamed in, -and seated themselves, Fletcher with the dipper and -spoon, Moreau with the baby. Both heads were lowered, -both faces eagerly earnest when the first spoonful -was administered. It was a tense moment till the -tip of the spoon was inserted between the infant’s lips. -Her puckered face took on a look of rather annoyed -surprise; she caught at it, and then, with an audible -smack, slowly drew in the counterfeit. The men -looked at each other with heated triumph.</p> - -<p>“Takes it like a little man, doesn’t she?” said Moreau -proudly.</p> - -<p>“She wasn’t hungry,” said Fletcher. “Oh-h, no! -Listen to her smack.”</p> - -<p>“Here, hold up the dipper. Don’t keep her waiting -when she’s so blamed hungry.”</p> - -<p>“You’re spilling half of it. You’re getting it on -her clothes.”</p> - -<p>“Well, she don’t want to eat any faster. That’s -the way she likes to eat—just slowly suck it out of the -spoon. Take your time, old girl, even if you don’t -swallow it all.”</p> - -<p>“My! don’t she take it down nice! Look alive there, -it’s running outer the corner of her mouth.”</p> - -<p>“Give us that bit of flour sack behind you. We -ought to have put something round her neck.”</p> - -<p>The baby, its round eyes intent, one small red fist<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span> -still fanning the air, sucked noisily at the tip of the -spoon. The mother, sitting up on the bunk in the -background, watched it with craned neck and jealous -eye.</p> - -<p>Finally, when the meal was over, it was triumphantly -handed back to her, sticky from end to end, but sleepy -and satisfied.</p> - -<p>A few hours later, in the star-sown darkness of the -early night, Moreau started on his twelve-mile walk -to the Porter ranch. The next morning, some time -before midday, he reappeared, red and perspiring, but -proudly leading by a rope a lean and dejected-looking -cow.</p> - -<p>The problem of the baby’s nutriment was now satisfactorily -solved. The cow proved eminently fitted for -the purpose of its purchase, and though the two miners -had several unsuccessful bouts in learning to milk it, -the handy Fletcher soon overcame this difficulty, and -the stock of the cabin was augmented by fresh milk.</p> - -<p>The baby throve upon this nourishment. Its cries -no longer disturbed the serenity of the cañon. It slept -and ate most of the time, but kindly consented to keep -awake in the late afternoon and be gentle and patient -when the men charily passed it from hand to hand -during the rest before supper. Fletcher regarded it -tolerantly as an object of amusement. But Moreau, -especially since the feeding episode, had developed a -deep, delighted affection for it. Its helplessness appealed -to all that was tender in him, and the first faint -indications of a tiny formed character were miraculous -to his fascinated and wondering observation. He -was secretly ashamed of letting the sneeringly indifferent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span> -Fletcher guess his sudden attachment, and made -foolish excuses to account for the trips to the cabin -which frequently interrupted his morning’s work in -the stream bed.</p> - -<p>Lucy’s recovery was slow. The collapse from which -she suffered was as much mental as physical. The -anguish of the last two years had preyed on the -bruised spirit as the hardships of the journey had -broken the feeble body. No particular form of ailment -developed in her, but she lay for days silent and almost -motionless on the bunk, too feeble to move or to -speak beyond short sentences. The men watched and -tended her, Moreau with clumsy solicitude, Fletcher -dutifully, but more through fear of his powerful mate -than especial interest in Lucy as a woman or a human -being.</p> - -<p>In his heart he still violently resented Moreau’s -action in acquiring her and parting with the valuable -horses. Had she possessed any of the attractions of -the human female, he could have understood and -probably condoned. But as she now was, plain, helpless, -sick, unable even to cook for them, demanding -care which took from their work and lessened their -profits, his resentment grew instead of diminishing. -Moreau saw nothing of this, for Fletcher had long ago -read the simple secrets of that generous but impractical -nature, and knew too much to bring down on -himself wrath which, once aroused, he felt would be -implacable.</p> - -<p>At the end of two weeks Lucy began to show signs -of improvement. The fragrant air that blew through -the cabin, the soothing silence of the foothills, broken<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span> -only by the drowsy prattle of the river or the sad murmuring -of the great pine, began its work of healing. -The autumn was late that year. The days were still -warm and dreamily brilliant, especially in the little -cañon, where the sun drew the aromatic odors from -the pines till at midday they exhaled a heavy, pungent -fragrance like incense rising to the worship of some -sylvan god.</p> - -<p>Sometimes now, on warm afternoons, Lucy crept -out and sat at the root of the pine where she had found -her first place of refuge. There her dulled eyes began -to note the beauties that surrounded her, the pines -mounting in dark rows on the slopes, the blue distances -where the cañon folded on itself, the glimpses -of chaste, white summits far above against the blue. -Her lungs breathed deep of the revivifying air, clean -and untainted as the water in the little spring at her -feet. The peace of it all entered her soul. Something -in her forbade her to look back on the terrible -past. A new life was here, and her youth rose up and -whispered that it was not yet dead.</p> - -<p>During the period of her illness Moreau had begun -to see both himself and the cabin through feminine -eyes. Discrepancies revealed themselves. He wanted -many things heretofore regarded as luxuries. From -the tin cups of the table service to the towels made of -ripped flour sacks, his domestic arrangements seemed -mean and inadequate. They were all right for two -prospectors, but not fitting for a woman and child. -Lucy’s illness also revealed wants in her equipment -that struck him as piteous. Her only boots were the -ones he had seen her in on the morning after her arrival.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span> -She had no shawl or covering for cold weather. -The baby’s clothes were a few torn pieces of calico -and flannel. Moreau had washed these many times -himself, doing them up in an old flour sack, which was -attached to an aspen on the stream’s bank, and then -placed in one of the deepest parts of the current. -Here it remained for two days, the percolating water -cleansing its contents as no washboard could.</p> - -<p>One evening, smoking under the pine, he acquainted -Fletcher with a design he had been some days formulating. -This was that Fletcher should ride into Hangtown -the next day and not only replenish the commissariat, -but buy all things needful for Lucy and the -baby. Spotty was now also recovered, and, though -hardly a mettlesome steed, was at least a useful pack -horse. But the numerous list of articles suggested -by Moreau would have weighted Spotty to the ground. -So Fletcher was commissioned to buy a pack burro, -and upon it to bring all needful food stuffs for the -cabin and the habiliments for Lucy and the baby.</p> - -<p>“She’s got no shoes. You want to buy her some -shoes, one useful pair and one fancy pair with heels.”</p> - -<p>“What size do I git? I ain’t never bought shoes for -a woman before.”</p> - -<p>This was a poser, and both men cogitated till -Moreau suggested leaving it to the shoe dealer, who -should be told that Lucy was a woman of average size.</p> - -<p>“But her feet ain’t,” said Fletcher spitefully, never -having been able to forgive Lucy her lack of beauty.</p> - -<p>“Never mind; you’ll have to make a bluff at it. Get -the best you can. Then I want a shawl for her. It’ll -be cold soon, and she’s got nothing to keep her warm.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>“What kind of a shawl? I don’t know no more -about shawls than I do about shoes.”</p> - -<p>“A pink crochet shawl,” said Moreau slowly, and -with evident sheepish reluctance at having to make -this exhibition of unexpected knowledge.</p> - -<p>“And what’s that? I dunno what crochet is.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t, either”—and then, with desperate courage—“well, -anyway, that’s what she said she’d like. I -asked her yesterday and she said that. You go into the -store and ask for it. That’ll be enough.”</p> - -<p>Fletcher grunted.</p> - -<p>“And then I want some toys for the kid. Anything -you can get that seems the right kind. She’s a -girl, so you don’t want a drum, or soldiers, or guns, -or things of that kind. Get a doll if you can, and a -musical box, or anything tasty and that’s likely to -catch a baby’s eye.”</p> - -<p>“Why, she can’t hardly see yet. She’s like a blind -kitten. Lucy told me herself yesterday she were only -six weeks old.”</p> - -<p>“Never you mind. She’s a smart kid; knows more -now than most babies at six months. You might get a -rattle—a nice one with bells; she might fancy that.”</p> - -<p>“Silver or gold?” sneered Fletcher, whom this conversation -was making meditative.</p> - -<p>“The best you can get. Don’t stint yourself for -money; everything of the best. Then clothes for her; -she is going to be as well dressed as any baby in California. -I take it you’d better go to Mrs. Wingate, at -the Eldorado Hotel, and get her to make you out a -list; then go to the store and buy the list right down.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>“Seems to me you’ll want a pack train, not a burro, -to carry it all.”</p> - -<p>“Well, if you can’t get everything on Spotty and one -burro, buy two. I’ll give you a sack of dust and you -can spend it all.”</p> - -<p>Fletcher was silent after this, and as he lay rolled -in his blanket that night he looked at the stars for -many hours, thinking.</p> - -<p>Early in the morning he departed on the now brisk -and rejuvenated Spotty. Besides his instructions he -carried one of Moreau’s buckskin sacks, roughly estimated -to contain twelve hundred dollars’ worth of -dust, and, he told Moreau, one of his own. He was -due to return the next morning. With a short word of -farewell, he touched Spotty with the single Mexican -spur he wore, and darted away down the rough trail. -Moreau watched him out of sight.</p> - -<p>The day passed as quietly as its predecessors. The -main events that marked their course had been the -men’s clean-up, Lucy’s gain in strength and the evidences -of increasing intelligence in the child.</p> - -<p>To-day Lucy had walked to a point a little distance -up the cañon, rested there, and in the afternoon came -creeping back with the flush of returning health on her -face. It was still there when Moreau ascended from -the stream bed with his cup. He had had a good day’s -work and was joyful, showing the fine yellow grains in -the bottom of the rusty tin. Then he noticed her improved -appearance and cried:</p> - -<p>“Why, you look blooming. A fellow’d think you’d -panned a good day’s work, too.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>To himself he said with a sudden inward wonder:</p> - -<p>“She looks almost pretty. And she <i>is</i> only nineteen, -I believe.”</p> - -<p>The next morning he awaited the coming of Fletcher -with impatience. He had wanted to surprise Lucy, -having only told her Fletcher had gone to buy a burro -and some supplies. But the morning passed away and -he had not returned. Then the afternoon slipped by, -and Lucy and Moreau took their supper without him, -the latter rather taciturn. The delay wore on his -patience. His knowledge of Fletcher was limited. -He had seen him drunk once in Sacramento, and he -wondered if he had gone on a spree and was now lying -senseless somewhere, the contents of the sacks squandered.</p> - -<p>When the next morning had passed and Fletcher -had still not come, his suspicions strengthened and he -began to think uneasily of his dust. One sack full was -a good deal to lose, now that he had a woman and -child on his hands. Lucy, he could see, was also uneasy. -Twice he surprised her standing by the trail, -evidently listening. When evening drew in and there -were still no signs of him, both were frankly anxious -and oppressed. Suddenly, as they sat by the box that -answered as dinner table, she said:</p> - -<p>“Did he have much dust?”</p> - -<p>“Yes—one sack of mine and one of his own. -They’re equal to about twelve hundred dollars each.”</p> - -<p>She gave a startled look at him and sat with her -mouth a little open, fear and amaze on her face.</p> - -<p>“Where’s the rest?” she asked.</p> - -<p>Moreau indicated the box under the bunk. At the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span> -same moment her suspicion seized him and he pulled -it out and threw up the lid. It was empty of all save -a few clothes. Every sack was gone.</p> - -<p>Moreau shut down the lid quietly, a little pale. He -was not a man of quick mind, and he hardly could -realize what had happened. It was Lucy’s voice that -explained it as she said:</p> - -<p>“He did it while I was out in the morning. I went -up the stream to that pool to wash some things at sun-up. -He took it then.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER IV<br /> - - -<small>THE ENCHANTED WINTER</small></h3> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent2">“I choose to be yours for my proper part,</div> -<div class="verse">Yours, leave me or take, or mar or make;</div> -<div class="verse">If I acquiesce, why should you be teased</div> -<div class="verse">With the conscience prick and the memory smart?”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Browning.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>Fletcher had gone silently and without leaving a -trace, and with him the money. It was a startling -situation for Moreau. From comparative affluence he -suddenly found himself without a cent or an ounce of -dust. This, had he had only himself to look after, -would not have affected his free and jovial spirit, but -now the woman and the child he had so carelessly -come into possession of loomed before him in their true -light of a heavy responsibility. Lucy, as far as supporting -herself went, was still a long way off from the -state of health where that would be possible. And at -the thought of sending her forth, even though she were -cured of her infirmities, Moreau experienced a sensation -of depression. He felt that the cabin would be -unbearably lonely when she and the baby were gone.</p> - -<p>That night under the pine he turned over the situation -in his mind. The conclusion he arrived at was -that there was nothing better to be done than stay by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span> -the stream bed and work it for all it was worth. Lucy -would continue to improve in the fine air and the child -was thriving. If the snows would hold off till late, as -they had done in the open winter of ’50, he could amass -a fair share of dust before it would be necessary to -move Lucy and the baby to the superior accommodations -of Hangtown or Sacramento. It was now October. -In November one might expect the first snows.</p> - -<p>He must do a good deal in the next six weeks. This -he started to do. The next day he spent in raising a -brush shed against the back of the cabin where the -chimney would offer warmth on cold nights. Into -this he moved such few belongings as he had retained -after Lucy and the baby had taken possession of the -cabin. Then the working of the stream bed went on -with renewed vigor. The water was low, hardly more -than a thread, rendering the washing of the dirt harder -labor than during the earlier summer when the watercourses -were still full. But he toiled mightily, rejoicing -in the splendor of his man’s work, not with -the same knightly freedom that he felt when he had -been that king of men, the miner with his pick on his -shoulder and all the world before him, but with the -soberer joy of the man into whose life others have -entered to lay hold upon it with light, clinging hands.</p> - -<p>Against the complete and perfect loneliness of his -life the woman and child, who had started up from -nowhere, stood out as figures of vital significance. -They had grown closer to him in that one month’s -isolation than they would have done in a year of city -life. The child became the object of his secret but -deep devotion. He had been ashamed to let Fletcher<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span> -see it. Now that Fletcher was gone, Moreau often stole -up from his work in the creek to look at it as it slept in -a box by the open door. It was as fresh as a rosebud, -its skin clean and satiny, its tiny hands, crumpled, white -and pink, like the petals of flowers. The big man -leaned on his shovel to watch it adoringly. The -miracle of its growth in beauty never lost its wonder -for him.</p> - -<p>Lucy, too, grew and bloomed in these quiet autumn -days. Never talkative, she became less laconic after -the departure of Fletcher. She seemed relieved by -his absence. Moreau began to understand, as he saw -her daily increase in freshness and youthful charm, -that she was as young in nature as she was in years. -Points of character that were touchingly childish appeared -in her. Her casting of all responsibility on -him was as absolute as if she had been ten years of -age. She obeyed him with trustful obedience and -waited on him silently, her eyes always on him to try -to read his unexpressed wish. Sometimes he caught -these watching eyes and read in them something that -vaguely disturbed him.</p> - -<p>One day, coming up from the creek for one of his -surreptitious views of the baby, he found its cradle -empty, and was about to return to his work, when -he heard a laugh rising from a small knoll among the -aspens. It was a laugh of the most infectious, fresh -sweetness, and made Moreau’s own lips part. He -stole in its direction, and as he advanced it sounded -again, rippling deliciously on the crystal air. He -brushed through the aspens and came on Lucy and her -baby. She was holding it in her lap, one hand on the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span> -back of its head. Something had touched its unknown -sense of the ludicrous, and its lips were parting in a -slow but intensely amused smile over its toothless -gums. Each smile was answered by its mother with a -run of the laughter Moreau had heard.</p> - -<p>He looked at them for a moment, and then, advancing, -his foot cracked a dry branch, and Lucy turned. -Her face was flushed, her eyes still full of their past -merriment, her smiling lips looked a coral red against -the whiteness of her small, even teeth. Her sunbonnet -was off and her rich hair glowed like copper in -the sun. He had never seen her look like this, and -stopped, regarding her with a curious, sudden gravity. -The thought was in his heart:</p> - -<p>“She’s only a girl, and—and—almost beautiful.”</p> - -<p>Lucy looked confused.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I was just laughing at the baby,” she said -apologetically; “she looked so sorter cute smiling that -way.”</p> - -<p>“I never heard you laugh like that before. Why -don’t you do it oftener?”</p> - -<p>She seemed embarrassed and murmured:</p> - -<p>“I didn’t think you’d like to hear me.”</p> - -<p>“I think you’re sometimes afraid of me,” he said; -“is that true?”</p> - -<p>She bent her face over the baby and said very low:</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid as how you might get mad at me. I -don’t know much and—I’m different, and you’ve been -more good to me than—”</p> - -<p>She stopped, her face hidden over the child. Moreau -felt a sudden sense of embarrassed discomfort.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>“Oh, don’t talk that way,” he said, hastily, “or I -may get mad. That’s the sort of talk that annoys me. -Laugh and be happy—that’s the way I want you to be. -Enjoy yourself; that’s the way to please me.”</p> - -<p>He swung himself down from the knoll into the -creek bed and went back to his rocker. He found -it hard to collect his thoughts. The music of Lucy’s -laugh haunted him.</p> - -<p>A week, and then two, passed away. The golden -days slipped by, still warm, still scented with the healing -pine balsam. The nights were white with great -stars, which Moreau could see between the pine -boughs, for it was still warm enough to sleep on the -knoll. His nights’ rests were now often disturbed. A -change had come over the situation in the cabin. The -peace and serenity of the first days after Fletcher’s departure -had gone, leaving a sense of constraint and -uneasiness in their stead. Moreau now looked up at -the stars not with the calm content of the days when -Lucy had first come, but with the trouble of a man -who begins to realize menace in what he thought were -harmless things.</p> - -<p>Nearly a month had passed since Fletcher’s departure -when one day, walking down the stream with -an idea of trying diggings farther down, he came upon -Lucy washing in a pool of water enlarged by a rough -dam she herself had constructed. She was kneeling -on a flat stone on the bank, her sunbonnet off, her -sleeves rolled up, laving in the water the few articles -of dress that made up the baby’s wardrobe. Her arms -above the sunburned wrists shone snow-white, her -roughened hair lay low on her forehead in damp,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span> -curly strands. The sight of her engaged in this -menial toil irritated Moreau and he called:</p> - -<p>“What are you doing there, Lucy? Get up.”</p> - -<p>She started with one of her old nervous movements -and sat back on the stone. Then, seeing who it was, -smiled confidently, and brushed the hair back from -her forehead with one wet hand.</p> - -<p>“I was washing the baby’s things. That’s the dam -I made.”</p> - -<p>Moreau stood looking, not at the dam, but at the -woman, flushed, breathless and smiling, a blooming -girl.</p> - -<p>“No one would ever think you were the same woman -who came here two months ago,” he said, more to -himself than to her.</p> - -<p>“I don’t feel like the same,” she answered, beginning -to wring her clothes. “I don’t feel now as if -that was me.”</p> - -<p>“I thought you were quite an old woman then. Do -you know that? I’d no idea you were young.”</p> - -<p>“I felt old. Oh, God—!” she said, suddenly dropping -her hands and looking across the pool with darkly -reminiscent eyes—“how awful I felt!”</p> - -<p>“But you’re quite well now? You’re really well, -aren’t you?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’m all right,” she said, returning to her tone -of gaiety. “I ain’t never been like this before. Not -sence I was married, anyway.”</p> - -<p>The allusion to her marriage made Moreau wince. -Of late the subject had become hateful to him. Standing, -leaning on his shovel, he said:</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>“You know it’ll be winter here soon, so it’s a good -thing we’ve got you well and nicely rested up.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I guess ’twill be winter soon,” she said, looking -vaguely round; “does it snow?”</p> - -<p>“Sometimes tons of it, if it’s a hard winter. But -we’ve got to get out before that. Or you have, anyhow. -Can’t run any risks with the baby. Got to get -her out and into some decent shelter before the snow -falls.”</p> - -<p>For a moment Lucy made no answer. She had -stopped wringing the clothes and was kneeling on the -stone, her eyes on the water, a faint line drawn between -her brows.</p> - -<p>“Where to—? What sort o’ place?” she said slowly.</p> - -<p>Moreau shifted his eyes from her face to the earth -in which the point of his shovel had imbedded itself.</p> - -<p>“I told you as soon as you got well I’d take you to -Hangtown or Sacramento, or even ’Frisco if they -didn’t suit. Now I haven’t got dust enough to do -that. Fletcher put that spoke in my wheel. But I’ll -take you and the baby into Hangtown.”</p> - -<p>“Hangtown?” she repeated faintly.</p> - -<p>“Yes; it’s quite a ways off. I’ll have to go in myself -and get a horse first, and then I’ll take you both -in on that. I thought I’d go to Mrs. Wingate. Her -husband runs the Eldorado Hotel, and she isn’t strong, -and told me last time I was there she’d give a fancy -salary if she could get a housekeeper. How’d you like -to try that? It would be a first-class home for you -and the baby.”</p> - -<p>Lucy had bent her face over the wet clothes.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>“Ain’t it all right here?” she said in a scarcely -audible voice.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Moreau irritably; “I just told you there -was danger of being snowed in after the first of November. -You don’t want to be snowed in here with -the baby, do you?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t care,” said Lucy.</p> - -<p>“If you don’t feel strong enough to do work like -that,” he continued, “you can stay on in the hotel. I -can make the dust for that easily. Then in the spring, -when the streams are full, I’ll have enough to send -you to Sacramento or San Francisco, and you can -look about you and see how you’d like it there.”</p> - -<p>“Why can’t I stay here?” she said suddenly, her -voice quavering, but full of protest.</p> - -<p>Its note thrilled Moreau.</p> - -<p>“I’ve just told you why,” he said quietly.</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m not afraid. I don’t mind snow. You -can get things to eat from Hangtown. Oh, let me -stay.”</p> - -<p>She turned toward him, still kneeling on the stone. -Her face was quivering with the most violent emotions -he had ever seen on it. The dead apathy was gone -forever, at least as far as he was concerned.</p> - -<p>“Oh, let me stay,” she implored; “don’t send me -away from you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Lucy,” he almost groaned, “don’t you see that -won’t do?”</p> - -<p>“Let me stay,” she reiterated, and stretched out her -hands toward him. The tears began to pour down -her cheeks, and suddenly with the outstretched hands<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span> -she seized him, and burst forth into a stream of impassioned -words:</p> - -<p>“Let me stay. Let me be with you. Don’t send -me away. There ain’t no use in anything if I’m not -with you. Let me work for you. Let me be where -I can see you—that’s all I want. I don’t want no -money nor clothes. If you’ll just let me be near by! -And I kin always work and cook, and you know you -like things clean, and I kin keep ’em clean. Oh, you -can’t mean to send me off. I ain’t never been happy -before. I ain’t never had no one treat me so kind -before. I ain’t never known what it was like to be -treated decent. I can’t leave you—I can’t—I can’t—”</p> - -<p>She sank down at his feet in a quivering heap.</p> - -<p>Moreau raised her and held her in his arms, pressed -against his breast, his cheek against her hair. He had -no thought for the moment but an ecstasy of pity and -joy. Clinging close to him, she reiterated between -broken breaths:</p> - -<p>“I kin stay? Oh! I kin stay?”</p> - -<p>“Lucy,” he said, “how can you? Do you know what -you’re asking?”</p> - -<p>“But I kin stay?” she repeated.</p> - -<p>She slid one arm round his neck, and he felt her -wet cheek against his.</p> - -<p>“Let me just stay and work,” she whispered, “just -where I can see you.”</p> - -<p>“Do you forget that you’re married?” he said -huskily.</p> - -<p>“I’ll not be in your way. I’ll not ask for anything -or be any trouble,” was her whispered answer, “so -long’s you let me be near you.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>They walked back to the cabin silently. Lucy knew -that she had gained her point and would stay. Her -childish nature invaded and possessed by a great passion -built on gratitude and reverence, asked no more -than to be allowed to work for and worship the man -who was to her a god. She did not look into the -future, nor demand its secrets. The perfect joy of the -present filled her. In the days that followed she grew -in beauty, and in some subtile way acquired a new girlishness. -Her past seemed wiped out. The blighting -effects of the four previous years fell away from her -and she seemed to revert to the sweet and simple -youthfulness that had been hers when Jake Shackleton -had married her at St. Louis. Silent and gentle -as ever, it was plain to be seen that whatever Moreau -asked for—service, friendship, love—she would unquestioningly -give.</p> - -<p>Early in November a cold evening came with a red -sunset and a sharpening of every outline. For the -first time they were driven into the cabin for supper. -A fire of boughs and dried cones burned in the chimney -and before this, supper being over, they sat, Lucy -in the rocker made of a barrel, Moreau on the end of -an upturned box, staring at the flames.</p> - -<p>Finally the man broke the silence by telling her that -he was going to take his dust and walk into Hangtown -the next day, remaining there over night and returning -in the morning with fresh supplies and a burro.</p> - -<p>“Lucy,” he said, drawing his box nearer to her, “I -want to talk to you of something.”</p> - -<p>She looked up, saw that the moment both had been -dreading had come, and paled.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>“Lucy, the winter’s coming. The snow may be here -now at any moment. Have you thought of what -we’re to do?”</p> - -<p>She shook her head and began to tremble. His -words called up the specter of separation—what she -feared most in the world.</p> - -<p>“You know we can’t live on this way. Will you, if -I go into Hangtown and bring back a mule, ride there -with me the day after to-morrow and marry me? -There are two or three preachers there who will do it.”</p> - -<p>She looked at him with surprised eyes.</p> - -<p>“I’m married already to Jake,” she said. “How kin -I get married again?”</p> - -<p>“I know it, and it’s no good trying to break that -marriage. But in your eyes and mine that was none. -You and your baby are mine to take care of and support -and love for the rest of our lives. Though you -can’t be my lawful wife, I can protect you from scandal -and insult by making you what all the world will -think is my lawful wife. Only you, and I and Jake -and his second wife will know that there has been a -previous marriage and not one of that four will ever -tell.”</p> - -<p>She put her rough hand out and felt his great fist -close over it, like a symbol of the protection he was -offering her.</p> - -<p>“We can be married in Hangtown by your maiden -name. If any one asks I can say I am marrying a -young widow whose husband died on the Sierra. Your -husband <i>did</i> die there when he sold you to me for a -pair of horses.”</p> - -<p>She nodded, not quite understanding his meaning.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>“Kin Jake ever come and claim me?” she asked in a -frightened voice.</p> - -<p>“How could he? How could he dare tell the world -how he left you and his child sick, almost dying, in -the hut of an unknown miner in the foothills? This -is California, where men don’t forgive that sort of -thing.”</p> - -<p>She was silent, and then said: “Yes, let’s go to -Hangtown and be married.”</p> - -<p>“Was your first marriage perfectly legal? Have -you got the marriage certificate?”</p> - -<p>She rose, dragged out the bundle she had brought -with her, and from it drew a long dirty envelope which -she handed to him.</p> - -<p>He opened it and found the certificate. It was accurate -in every detail. His eye ran over the ages and -names of the contracting parties—Lucy Fraser, fifteen, -to Jacob Shackleton, twenty-four, at St. Louis.</p> - -<p>Twisting the paper in his hands he sat moodily eying -the fire. The second marriage was the only way -he could think of by which he could lend a semblance -of right to the impossible position in which his generous -action had placed him. Divorce, in that remote locality -and at that early day of laws, half administered -and chaotic, was impossible, and even had it been easily -obtained he shrank from dragging into publicity the -piteous story of how the woman he loved had been -sold to him.</p> - -<p>That a marriage with Jake Shackleton’s wife was a -legal offense he knew, but with one of those strange -whimsies of character which mark mankind, he felt -that the reading of the marriage service over Lucy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span> -and himself would in some way sanctify what could -never be a lawful tie.</p> - -<p>In a spasm of rage and disgust he held out the -paper to the flames, when Lucy, with a smothered -cry sprang forward and seized it. It was the first -violent action into which he had ever seen her betrayed. -He looked in surprise into her flushed and alarmed -face.</p> - -<p>“Why not? Why not destroy everything that could -connect you with such a past?” he said, almost angrily.</p> - -<p>She hesitated, smoothing out the paper with trembling -hands. Then she said falteringly:</p> - -<p>“I don’t know—but—but—he was her father,” indicating -the sleeping baby. “I was married to him all -right.”</p> - -<p>He understood the instinct that made her wish to -keep the paper as a record of her child’s legitimacy, -and made no further comment.</p> - -<p>The next morning at dawn he started for his long -walk into Hangtown, taking with him all the dust he -had accumulated since Fletcher’s departure. He was -absent till the afternoon of the following day, when -he reappeared leading a small pack-mule, laden with -supplies, among which were several articles of dress -for Lucy and the baby, so that they might make a fitting -appearance when they rode into camp for the -wedding. Lucy was overjoyed at her finery, and arrayed -in it looked so pretty and so girlish that Moreau, -for the first time since the scene by the creek, took -her in his arms and kissed her. It was the kiss of the -bridegroom and the master.</p> - -<p>The next morning when she woke the cabin was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span> -curiously dark. Going to the door to open it, she found -it resisted, and went to the window. The world was -wrapped in a blinding fall of snow. When Moreau -came in for breakfast, he reported a blizzard outside. -The cold was intense, the wind high, and the snow -so fine and so torn by the gale that it was like a mist -of whiteness enveloping the cabin. Already it was -piled high about the walls and had to be shoveled from -the door to permit of its opening. Fortunately they -had collected a large amount of fire wood which was -piled in the brush shed in which the man lived. During -the morning Moreau took the animals from their shelter -and stabled them in his. There was fodder for them -and a bed of leaves, and the heat of the chimney -warmed the fragile hut.</p> - -<p>All day the storm raged, and in the evening, as he -and Lucy sat before the fire, they could hear the turmoil -of the tempest outside, moaning through the -ranks of the sentinel pines. They were silent, listening -to this shouting of the unloosed elements, and feeling -an indescribably sweet sense of home and shelter in -their rugged cabin and each other’s society.</p> - -<p>The storm was one of those unexpected blizzards -which sometimes visit the Sierras in the early winter. -With brief intervals of sunshine, the snow fell off and -on for nearly a month. Moreau had to exercise almost -superhuman effort to keep the cabin from being buried, -and, as it was, the drifts nearly covered the window. It -was impossible to travel any distance, as the snow was -of a fine, feathery texture which did not pack tight, and -into which the wanderer sank to the arm-pits. Fortunately -the last trip into Hangtown had stocked the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span> -cabin well with provisions. No cares menaced its inmates, -who, warm and happy in the vast snow-buried -solitudes of the mountains, led an enchanted existence, -forgetting and forgotten by the world.</p> - -<p>When the storm ended the miner attempted to get -into the settlements with the mule. But the beast, exhausted -by the insufficient food, as the best part of the -fodder had to be given to the cow, fell by the way, -dying in one of the drifts. This seemed to sever their -last link with the world. Nature had drawn an unbroken -circle of loneliness around them. Under its -spell they were drawn closer together till their lives -merged—the primitive man and woman living for and -by love in the primitive wilderness.</p> - -<p>So the enchanted winter passed. The man, at intervals, -making his way into the settlements for food and -the few articles of clothing that they needed. It was -a terrible winter, nearly as fierce as that of ’46, but between -the storms Moreau fitfully worked the stream, -obtaining enough dust to pay for their provisions. The -outside world seemed to fade from their lives, which -were bounded by the walls of the cabin. Here, in -the long fire-lit evenings, Moreau read to Lucy, taught -her from his few books, strove to develop the mind -that misfortune had almost crushed. She responded -to his teachings with the quickness of love. Without -much mental ability she improved because she -lived only for what he desired. She smoothed the -roughness of her speech and studied to correct her -grammatical errors. She made him set her little tasks -such as a child studies, and in the evenings he watched -her with surreptitious amusement, as she conned over<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span> -her spelling, or traced letters in her copy-book. She -was passionately desirous of being worthy of him, and -of leaving her old chrysalis behind her when she issued -from the cabin.</p> - -<p>This was not to be until the early spring. It was -nearly six months from the time the emigrant wagon -had stopped at his door, that Moreau, having accumulated -enough dust to buy another mule and another outfit—took -Lucy and the child into Hangtown for the -marriage. This ceremony, about which in the beginning -she had been somewhat apathetic, she now earnestly -desired. It was accomplished without publicity -or difficulty, Lucy assuming her maiden name of Fraser, -and passing as a young widow. In the afternoon -they started back for the cabin, Moreau on foot, with -his wife and baby on the mule. They had decided to -stay by their claim during the spring and early summer -when the streams were high.</p> - -<p>Thus the spring passed and the summer came. During -this season Lucy, for the first time, saw that most -lovely of Californian wild-flowers, the mariposa lily, -and called her baby after it. As time went on and no -other child was born, Moreau came to regard the little -Mariposa as more and more his own. His affection for -her became a paternal passion. It was decided between -himself and Lucy that she should never know the secret -of her parentage, but be called by his name and be -brought up as his child. As the happiness of the union -grew in depth and strength both the man and woman -desired more ardently to forget beyond all recall the -terrible past from which she had entered his life. It -grew to be a subject to which Moreau could bear no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span> -allusion, and their life was purposely quiet and secluded, -for fear of a chance encounter with some disturbing -reminder.</p> - -<p>So the time passed. In the course of the next few -years Moreau moved from the smaller camps into Sacramento. -Though a man of little commercial ability, -he was always able, in those halcyon days, to make a -good living for the woman and child to whom he had -given his life. Years of prosperity made it possible to -give to Mariposa every educational advantage the -period and town offered. The child showed musical -talent, and for the development of this he was keenly -ambitious.</p> - -<p>Across their tranquil life, now and then, came a lurid -gleam from the career of the man who was Lucy Moreau’s -lawful husband. Jake Shackleton was soon a -marked figure in the new state. But his rise to sensational -fortune began with the booming days of the -Comstock. Then his star rose blazing above the horizon. -He was one of the original exploiters of the -great lode and was one of those who owned that solid -cone of silver which has gone down to history as the -Reydel Monte. Ten years from his entrance into the -state he was a rich man. In twenty, he was one of that -group of millionaires, whose names were sounded from -end to end of an astonished country.</p> - -<p>A quarter of a century from the time when he had -crossed the desert in an emigrant wagon, with his two -wives, he read in the paper he had recently bought as -an occupation and investment, a notice of the death of -Daniel Moreau in Santa Barbara. It was brief, as befitted -a pioneer who had sunk so completely out of sight<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span> -and memory, leaving neither vast wealth nor picturesque -record. The paragraph stated that “the -pioneer’s devoted wife and daughter attended his last -hours, which were tranquil and free from pain. It is -understood that the deceased leaves but little fortune, -having during the last two or three years been incapacitated -for work by enfeebled health.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak">MARIPOSA LILY</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span></p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span> -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER I<br /> - - -<small>HIS SPLENDID DAUGHTER</small></h3> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Kings.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>Four months after the death of Dan Moreau his -adopted daughter, Mariposa, sat at the piano, in a -small cottage on Pine Street, in San Francisco, singing. -Her performance was less melodious than remarkable, -for she was engaged in “trying her voice.” -This was Mariposa’s greatest claim to distinction, and, -she hoped, to fortune. With it she dreamed of conquering -fame and bringing riches to her mother and -herself.</p> - -<p>She was so far from either of these goals that she -permitted herself to speculate on them as one does on -impossible glories. The merits of her voice were as -unknown in San Francisco as she was. Its cultivation -had been a short and exciting episode, relinquished for -lack of means. Now it was not only given up, but -Mariposa was teaching piano herself, and was feverishly -exalted when, the week before, her three pupils -had been augmented by a fourth. Four pupils, at fifty -cents a lesson, brought in four dollars a week—sixteen -a month.</p> - -<p>“If I make sixteen dollars a week after four months’ -work,” Mariposa had said to her mother, on the acquisition -of this fourth pupil, “then in one year I ought to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span> -make thirty-two dollars a month. Don’t you think -that’s a reasonable way of reckoning?”</p> - -<p>From which it will be seen that Mariposa was not -only young in years, but a novice at the work of wage-earning.</p> - -<p>She was in reality twenty-five years of age, but -passed as, and believed herself to be, twenty-four. She -had developed into one of those lordly women, stately -of carriage, wide of shoulder and deep of breast, that -California grows so triumphantly. She had her -mother’s thick, red-brown hair, with its flat loose ripple -and the dog’s brown eyes to match, a skin as white as a -blanched almond with a slight powdering of freckles -over her nose, and lips that were freshly red and delicately -defined against the warm pallor surrounding -them. She was, in fact, a beautified likeness of the Lucy -that Moreau saw come gropingly back to youth and desirableness -in the cabin on the flank of the Sierra. -Only happiness and refinement and a youth passed in -an atmosphere of love, had given her all that richness -of girlhood, that effervescent confidence and joy of -youth that poor Lucy had never known.</p> - -<p>Despite her air of a young princess, her proudly-held -head, her almost Spanish dignity, where only her -brown eyes looked full of alertness and laughter, she -was in character and knowledge of life foolishly young—in -reality, a little girl masquerading in the guise of a -triumphantly maturing womanhood. Her life had -been one of quietude and seclusion. Her parents had -been agreed in their desire for this; the father in the -fear of a reëncounter with some phantom from the -past. Lucy’s ostensible reason was her own delicate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span> -health; but her dread was that Shackleton might see -his child and claim her. It seemed impossible to the -adoring mother that any father could see this splendid -daughter and not rise up and call her his before all -men.</p> - -<p>The afternoon was cold and Mariposa wore a jacket -as she sang. The cottage in Pine Street was all that a -cottage ought not to be,—on the wrong side of the -street, “too far out,” cold, badly built, and with only -one window to catch the western sun. It had one advantage -which went a long way with the widow and -her daughter—the rent was twenty dollars a month. -Mariposa had paid ten dollars of this with her earnings, -and kept the other six for pocket-money. But the -happy day was dawning, so she thought, when she -could pay the whole twenty. She cogitated on this and -the affluence it would indicate, as her real father might -have cogitated when he and the inner ring of his associates -began to realize that the Reydel Monte was not -a pocket, but a solid mound of mineral.</p> - -<p>On this gray afternoon the cold little parlor, with its -bulge of bay window looking out on the dreariness of -the street, seemed impregnated with an air of dejection. -In common with many poor dwellings in that city of -extravagant reverses, it was full of the costly relics of -better days. San Francisco has more of such parlors -than any city in the country. The pieces of buhl and -marquetry hiding their shame in twenty-dollar cottages -and eighteen-dollar flats furnish pathetic commentary -on many a story of fallen fortunes. The furniture looks -abashed and humbled. Sometimes its rich designs have -found a grateful seclusion under the dust of a quarter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span> -century, which finally will be removed by the restoring -processes of the second-hand dealer, who will eventually -become its owner.</p> - -<p>There was a beautiful marquetry sideboard in the -gray front parlor and a fine scarlet lacquer Chinese -cabinet facing it. Moreau had had the tall, gilt-framed -mirror and console brought round The Horn from -New York when he had been in the flush of good times -in Sacramento. The piano Mariposa was playing dated -from a second period of prosperity, and had cost what -would have now kept them for a year. It had been -considered cheap at the time, and had been bought -when the little Mariposa began to show musical tastes. -She had played her first “pieces” on it, and in that -halcyon period when she had had the singing lessons, -had heard the big voice in her chest slowly shaking -itself loose to the accompaniment of its encouraging -notes.</p> - -<p>Now she was singing in single tones, from note to -note, higher and higher, then lower and lower. Her -voice was a mezzo, with a “break” in the middle, below -which it had a haunting, bell-like depth. As it went -down it gained a peculiar emotional quality which -seemed to thrill with passion and tears. As it began -to ascend it was noticeable that her upper tones, though -full, were harsh. There was astounding volume in -them. It was evidently a big voice, a thing of noble -promise, but now crude and unmanageable.</p> - -<p>She emitted a loud vibrant note that rolled restlessly -between the four walls, as if in an effort to find more -space wherein to expand, and her hands fell upon the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span> -keys. In the room opening off the parlor there was an -uncertain play of light from an unseen fire, and a -muffled shape lying on the sofa. To this she now addressed -a query in a voice in which dejection was veiled -by uneasy inquiry:</p> - -<p>“Well, does it seem to improve? Or is it still like a -cow when she’s lost her calf?”</p> - -<p>“It’s wonderfully improved,” came the answer from -the room beyond; “I don’t think any one sings like you. -Anyway, no one has such a powerful voice.”</p> - -<p>“No one howls so, you mean! Oh, mother, do you -suppose I <i>ever</i> shall be able to take any more lessons?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, of course. We are in a large city now. -Even if you don’t make enough money yourself, there -are often people who become interested in fine voices -and educate them. Perhaps you’ll meet one of them -some day. And anyway—” with cheerfulness caught -on the upward breath of a sigh—“you’ll make money -enough soon yourself.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa’s head bent over the keys. When she came -to view it this way, her sixteen dollars a month did not -seem so big with promise as it did when ten dollars for -rent was all it had to yield up.</p> - -<p>“I’ve heard about those rich people who are looking -for prima donnas to develop, but I don’t know where -to find them, and I don’t see how they’re to find me. -The only way I can ever attract their notice is to sing -on the street corner with a guitar, like Rachel. And -then I’d have to have a license, and I’ve got no money -for that.”</p> - -<p>She rose, and swept with the gait of a queen into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span> -the next room. Her mother was lying on a sofa drawn -closely to a tiny grate, in which a handful of fire flickered.</p> - -<p>Lucy was still a pretty woman, with a thin, faded -delicacy of aspect. Her skin was singularly white, especially -on her hands, which were waxen. Though -love and happiness had given her back her youth, her -health had never recovered her child’s rude birth in the -desert and the subsequent journey across the Sierra. -She had twined round and clung to the man whom she -had called her husband, and with his loss she was -slowly sinking out of the world his presence had made -sweet for her. Her daughter—next in adoration to the -hero who had succored her in her hour of extremity—had -no power to hold her. Lucy was slowly fading out -of life. The girl had no knowledge of this. Her -mother had been a semi-invalid for several years, and -her own youth was so rich in its superb vigor, that she -did not notice the elder woman’s gradual decline of -vitality. But the mother knew, and her nights were -wakeful and agonized with the thought of her child, -left alone, poor and unfriended.</p> - -<p>Mariposa sat down on the end of the sofa at the invalid’s -feet and took one of her hands. She had loved -both parents deeply, but the fragile mother, so simple -and unworldly, so dependent on affection for her being, -was the object of her special devotion. They were silent, -the girl with an abstracted glance fixed on the fire, -meditating on the future of her voice; the mother regarding -her with pensive admiration.</p> - -<p>As they sat thus, a footfall on the steps outside -broke upon their thoughts. The cottage was so built<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span> -that one of its conveniences was, that one could always -hear the caller or the man with the bill mounting the -steps before he rang. The former were rarer than the -latter, and Mariposa, in whose eventless life a visit from -any one was a thing of value, pricked up her ears expectantly.</p> - -<p>The bell pealed stridently and the servant could be -heard rattling pans in the kitchen, evidently preparatory -to emerging. Presently she came creaking down -the hall, the door opened and a female voice was heard -asking for the ladies. It <i>was</i> a visitor. Mariposa was -glad she had stayed in that afternoon, and with her -hand still clasping her mother’s, craned her neck -toward the door.</p> - -<p>The visitor was a tall, thin woman of forty years, -her cheaply fashionable dress telling of many a wrestle -between love of personal adornment and a lean -purse. She was one of those slightly known and unquestioningly -accepted people that women, in the -friendless and unknown condition of the Moreaus, constantly -meet in the free and easy social life of western -cities.</p> - -<p>She was a Mrs. Willers, long divorced from a worthless -husband, and supporting, with a desperate and -gallant courage, herself and her child, who was one of -Mariposa’s piano pupils. Her appearance gave no clue -to the real force and indomitable bravery of the woman, -who, against blows and rebuffs, had fought her way -with a smile on her lips. Her appearance and manner, -especially in this, her society pose, were against her. -The former was flashy and over-dressed, the latter loud-voiced -and effusive. A large hat, flaunting with funeral<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span> -plumes, was set jauntily on one side of her head, -and a spotted veil was drawn over a complexion that -was carelessly made up. Her corsets were so long and -so tight that she could hardly bend, and when she did -they emitted protesting creaks. No one would have -thought from her flamboyantly stylish get-up that she -was a reporter and “special” writer on Jake Shackleton’s -newly-acquired paper, <i>The Morning Trumpet</i>! -But in reality she was an energetic and able journalist. -It was only when adorned with her best clothes and her -“society” manners that she affected a sort of gushing -silliness.</p> - -<p>“Well,” she said, rustling in, “here’s the lady! -How’s everybody? Just as cozy and cute as a doll’s -house.”</p> - -<p>She pressed Mrs. Moreau’s hand and then sent an -eagle glance—the glance of the reporter that is trained -to take in every salient object in one sweep—about the -room. She could have written a good description of it -from that moment’s survey.</p> - -<p>“Better? Of course you’re better,” she interrupted -Lucy, who had been speaking of improved health. -“Don’t San Francisco cure everybody? And daughter -there?” her bright tired eye rested on Mariposa for one -inspecting moment. “She looks nice enough to eat.”</p> - -<p>“Mariposa’s always well,” said Lucy, pressing the -hand she still held. “She was always a prize child ever -since she was a baby.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Willers leaned back and folded her white-gloved -hands over her creaking waist.</p> - -<p>“You know she’s the handsomest thing I’ve seen in a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span> -coon’s age,” she said, nodding her head at Mariposa. -“There ain’t a girl in society that compares to her.”</p> - -<p>Lucy smiled indulgently at her daughter. Mariposa, -though embarrassed, was not displeased by these -sledge-hammer compliments. They were a novelty to -her, and she regarded Mrs. Willers—despite a few peculiarities -of style—as a woman of vast knowledge and -experience in that wonderful world of gaiety and -fashion, of which she herself knew so little.</p> - -<p>“I go to most of the big balls here,” continued the -visitor. “It’s always the same thing on <i>The Trumpet</i>—‘Send -up Mrs. Willers to the Cotillion Club to-night; -we don’t want any other reporter but her. If you send -up any of those other jay women we’ll turn ’em down.’ -So up I have to hop. The other night at the Lorley’s -big blow-out, when Genevieve Lorley had her début, it -was the same old war-cry—‘We want Mrs. Willers to-night -to do the Society, and don’t try and work off any -incompetents on us. Send her up early so’s Mrs. Lorley -can give her the dresses herself.’ So up I went, and -was in the dressing-room for an hour and saw ’em all, -black and white and brown, heiresses and beggars, and -not one of ’em, Mrs. Moreau, to touch daughter here—not -one.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>“But there are so many beautiful girls in San Francisco. -Mariposa has seen them on the cars and down -town. She often tells me of them.”</p> - -<p>“Beauties—yes, lots of ’em; dead loads of ’em. But -there’s a lot that get their beauty out of boxes and bottles. -There’s a lot—I don’t say who, I’m not one to -mention names—but there’s a lot that when they go to -bed the beauty all comes off and lies in layers on the -floor. Not that I blame them—make yourself as good-looking -as you can, that’s my motto. It’s every woman’s -duty. But you don’t want to begin so young. I -rouge myself,” said Mrs. Willers, with the careless -truthfulness of one whose reputation is beyond attack, -“but I don’t like it in a young girl.”</p> - -<p>“Who was the prettiest girl at the ball?” said Mariposa, -deeply interested. She had the curiosity of seventeen -on such subjects—subjects of which her girlhood -had been unusually barren.</p> - -<p>“My dear, I’ll tell you all that later—talk for an hour -if you can stand it. But that’s not what I came to say -to-day. It’s business to-day—real business, and I don’t -know but what all your future hangs on it.”</p> - -<p>She gave a triumphant look at the startled mother -and daughter. With the introduction of serious matter -her worn face took on a certain sharp intelligence -and her language grew more masculine and less slovenly.</p> - -<p>“It’s this,” she said, leaning forward impressively: -“I’m not sure that I haven’t found Mariposa’s backer.”</p> - -<p>“Backer,” said Lucy, faintly, finding the word objectionable. -“What’s that?”</p> - -<p>“The person who’s to hear her sing and offer to educate -the finest voice he’s likely to hear in the next ten -years.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa gave a suppressed exclamation and looked -at her mother. Lucy had paled. She was trembling at -what she felt she was to hear.</p> - -<p>“It’s Jake Shackleton,” said Mrs. Willers, proudly -launching her bombshell.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>“Jake Shackleton,” breathed Mariposa, to whom the -name meant only vaguely fabulous wealth. “The Bonanza -Man?”</p> - -<p>Lucy was sitting up, deadly pale, but she said -nothing.</p> - -<p>“The Bonanza Man,” said Mrs. Willers. “My chief.”</p> - -<p>“But what does he know of me?” said Mariposa. -“He’s never even heard of me.”</p> - -<p>“That’s where you’re off, my dear. Jake Shackleton’s -heard of everybody. He has every one ticketed -and put away in some little cell in his brain. He never -forgets a face. Some people say that’s one of the secrets -of his success; that, and the way he knows the -man or woman who’s going to get on and the one -who’s going to fall out of the procession and quit at -the first obstacle. He’s got no use for those people. -Get up and hustle, or get out—that’s his motto.”</p> - -<p>“But about me?” Mariposa entreated. “Go on.”</p> - -<p>“Well, it’s a queer story, anyhow. The other morning -I was sent for to the sanctum. There was a little -talk about work and then he says to me, ‘Didn’t you -tell me your daughter was taking piano lessons, Mrs. -Willers?’ Never forgets a word you say. I told him -yes; and he says: ‘Isn’t her teacher that Miss Moreau, -whose father died a few months ago in Santa Barbara?’ -I told him yes again, and then he wheels round on the -swivel chair, looks at me so, from under his eyebrows, -and says: ‘I knew her father once; a fine man!’”</p> - -<p>“Oh, how odd,” breathed Mariposa, quivering with -interest. “I never heard father speak of him.”</p> - -<p>“It was a long time ago. He knew your father up in -the mines some time in the fifties, and he said he admired<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span> -him considerably. Then he went on and asked -me a lot of questions about you, your circumstances, -where you lived and if you were as good-looking as -your father. He said he’d heard you were an accomplished -young lady. Then I saw my cue and I said, as -carelessly as you please, that Miss Moreau had a fine -voice and plenty of musical ability, but unfortunately -was not able to cultivate either, because her means -were small, and it was a great pity some one with -money didn’t help her. I says—just as casual as could -be—it’s a great shame to see a voice like that lying idle -for want of tuition.”</p> - -<p>“What did he say then?” said Mariposa.</p> - -<p>“Well, that’s the point I’m working up to. He -thought a while, asked a few more questions, and then -said: ‘I’d like to meet the young lady and hear her -sing. It goes against me to have Dan Moreau’s daughter -lack for anything. Her father’d have left a fortune -if he hadn’t been a man that thought of every one else -before himself.’”</p> - -<p>“That was father exactly. He must have known him -well. Mother, isn’t it odd he never spoke of him? -What did you say then?”</p> - -<p>“I? Why, of course, I saw my opening and jumped -in. I said, ‘Well, I guess I can arrange for you to meet -Miss Moreau at my rooms. I see her twice a week -when she comes to give Edna her piano lesson. I’ll ask -her when she can come, and let you know and then -she’ll sing for you.’ He was pleased, he was real -pleased, and said he’d come whenever I said. And now, -young woman,” laying a large white-gloved hand on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span> -Mariposa’s knee, “that ought to be the beginning of a -career for you!”</p> - -<p>“Good gracious!” said Mariposa, whose cheeks were -crimson, “I never heard anything so exciting in my -life, and we were just talking about it. I’ll probably -sing like a dog baying the moon.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you talk that way. You’ll sing your best. And -he’s not a man that you wouldn’t like Mariposa to -meet”—turning to the pale and silent Lucy. “Whatever -other faults he’s had he’s always been a straight -man with women. There’s never been that sort of -scandal about Jake Shackleton. There’s a story you’ve -probably heard, that he was originally a Mormon. I -don’t believe much in that myself. He had, anyway, -only one wife when he entered California, and she’s -been his wife ever since, and she ain’t the kind to have -stood any nonsense of the Mormon sort.”</p> - -<p>Lucy gave a sudden gasping breath and sat up. The -light of the gray afternoon was dying outside, and by -the glow of the fire her unusual pallor was not noticeable.</p> - -<p>“It was very good of you,” she said. “Mariposa will -be glad to go.”</p> - -<p>“And you’ll come, too?” said Mrs. Willers. “He -asked about you.”</p> - -<p>“Did he say he’d ever known me?” said Lucy, -quietly.</p> - -<p>“No—not exactly that. No, I don’t believe he said -that. But he was interested in you as the wife of the -man he’d known so long ago.”</p> - -<p>“Of course it would be only in that way,” murmured<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span> -Lucy, sinking back. “No, I can’t come. It wouldn’t -be possible. I’m not well enough.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, mother, do. You know you go out on the cars -sometimes, and the Sutter Street line is only two -blocks from here. I know you’d enjoy it when you got -there.”</p> - -<p>“No, dearest. No, Mrs. Willers. Don’t, please, urge -me. I am not able to meet new people. No— Oh, -please don’t talk any more about my going.”</p> - -<p>Something of pain and protest in her voice made -them desist. She was silent again, while Mariposa and -Mrs. Willers arranged the details of the party. This -was to be small and choice. Only one other person, a -man referred to as Essex, was to come. At the name of -Essex, Mrs. Willers shot a side look of inspection at -Mariposa, who did what was expected of her in displaying -a fine blush.</p> - -<p>It was decided that Mrs. Willers’ hospitality should -take the form of wine and cake. There was a consultation -about other and lesser viands, and finally an animated -discussion as to the proper garb in which Mariposa -should present herself to the first truly distinguished -person she had ever met. During the conversation -over these varied questions Lucy lay back -among her cushions, sunk in the same pale silence.</p> - -<p>Darkness had fallen when the guest, having threshed -out the subject to the last grain, took herself off. Mariposa -looked from the opened doorway into a black -street, dotted with the yellow blurs of lighted lamps. -The air was cold with that penetrating, marrow-searching -coldness of a foggy evening in San Francisco.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span> -As the night swallowed Mrs. Willers, Mariposa -shut the door and came rushing back.</p> - -<p>“Mother!” she cried, before she got into her room, -“isn’t that the most thrilling thing? Oh, did you ever -know of anything so unexpected and wonderful and -exciting. <i>Do</i> you think he’ll like my voice? <i>Do</i> you -think he really could be interested in me because he -knew father? And he can’t have known him so very -well, or father would have said more of him. Did <i>you</i> -ever hear father speak about him?”</p> - -<p>The mother gave no answer, and the girl bent over -her. Lucy, motionless and white, was lying among her -cushions, unconscious.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER II<br /> - - -<small>THE MILLIONAIRE</small></h3> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“And one man in his time plays many parts.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Shakespeare.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>At two o’clock on the afternoon of her party Mrs. -Willers was giving the finishing touches to her rooms. -These were a sitting and bedroom in one of the large -boarding-houses that already had begun to make their -appearance along Sutter Street. “To reside” on Sutter -Street, as she would have expressed it, was a step -in fashion for Mrs. Willers, who previously had lived -in such ignominious localities as North Beach and -upper Market Street, renting the surplus rooms in -dingy “private families.” Her rise to fairer fortunes -was signalized by the move to Sutter Street. Her parlor -announced it in its over-furnished brilliancy. All -the best furniture of the poor lady’s many migrations -had been squeezed into the little room. The Japanese -fans and umbrellas, flattened against the walls with -pins, were accumulated at some cost, for they represented -one of those strange and unaccountable vagaries -of popular taste that from time to time seize a -community with blighting force. Silk scarfs were -twisted about everything whereon they could twist.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>The “lunch,” as the hostess called it, had already -been prepared and stood on a side table. Edna, Mrs. -Willers’ daughter, had made many trips up and down -the street that morning collecting its component parts -and bringing them home in paper bags. The ladies in -the lower windows of the house had been aware of -these goings and comings, and so were partly prepared -when, at luncheon, Mrs. Willers casually told -them of the distinguished guest she expected. The -newspaper woman had not lived her life with her eyes -shut and her ears closed, and she knew the value to -the fraction of a hair of this information, and just -how much it would add to her prestige.</p> - -<p>She was now fluttering about in a wrapper, and with -a piece of black net tied tight over her forehead. -Through this the forms of dark circular curls outlined -themselves like silhouettes. Mrs. Willers had no war-paint -on, and though she looked a trifle worn, was -much more attractive in appearance than when decorated -with her pink and white complexion and her -spotted veil. Edna, who was already dressed, was a -beautiful, fair-haired child of twelve. The struggles -she had seen her mother pass through, with her eyes -bright and her head high, had developed in her a precocity -of mind that had not spoiled the sweet childishness -of a charming nature. It would be many years -yet before Edna would understand that she had been -the sheet-anchor of the mother who was to her so -clever and so brave; the mother, who, in her moments -of weakness and temptation, had found her child the -one rock to cling to in the welter of life.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Willers retired to the bedroom to dress, occasionally<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span> -coming to the doorway in various stages of -déshabille to give instructions to the child. Her toilet -was accomplished with mutilated rites, and by the time -the sacrificial moment came of laying on the rouge her -cheeks were too flushed with excitement to need it. -When she did appear it would have been difficult to -recognize her as the woman of an hour earlier. Even -the black silhouettes had passed through a metamorphosis -and appeared as a fluff of careless curls.</p> - -<p>The first guest to arrive was the man she had spoken -of as Essex. The ladies at the windows below had -been struck into whispering surprise by his appearance. -San Francisco was still enjoying its original -reputation as a land of picturesque millionaires, who -lived lives of lawlessness and splendor. Men of position -still wore soft felt hats and buttoned themselves -tight into prince-albert coats when they went down to -business in the morning. Perhaps in the traveled circles, -where the Bonanza kings and their associates -lived after European models, there were men who bore -the stamp of metropolitan finish, as Barry Essex did. -But they did not visit Sutter Street boarding-houses -nor wear silk hats when they paid afternoon calls. San -Francisco was still in that stage when this form of -headgear was principally associated in its mind with -the men who drew teeth and sold patent medicines on -the sand lots behind the city hall.</p> - -<p>Barry Essex, anywhere, would have been a striking -figure. He was a handsome man of some thirty years, -tall and spare, and with a dark, smooth-shaven face -where the nose was high and the eyes veiled and cold. -He looked like a person of high birth, and there were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span> -stories that he was, though by the left hand. He -spoke with an English accent, and, when asked his -nationality, shrugged his shoulders and said it was -hard to say what it was—his father had been a Spaniard, -his mother an Englishwoman, and he had been -born and reared in France.</p> - -<p>That he was a man of ability and education, superior -to the work he was doing as special writer on Jake -Shackleton’s paper, <i>The Trumpet</i>, was obvious. But -San Francisco had become so used to mysteriously interesting -strangers, that come from no one knows -where, and suggest an attractively unconventional history, -that the particular curiosity excited by Essex soon -died, and he was merely of moment as the author of -some excellent articles on art, literature and music in -<i>The Sunday Trumpet</i>.</p> - -<p>He greeted Mrs. Willers with a friendly fellowship, -then let a quick, surreptitious glance sweep the room. -She saw it, knew what he was looking for, but affected -unconsciousness. His manner was touched by the -slightest suggestion of something elaborate and theatrical, -which, in Mrs. Willers’ mind, seemed to have -some esoteric connection with the silk hat. This he -now—after slowly looking about for a safe place of -deposit—handed to Edna with the careless remark: -“Will you put this down somewhere, Edna?”</p> - -<p>The child took it, flushing slightly. She was accustomed -to being made much of by her mother’s guests, -and Essex’s manner stung her little girl’s pride. But -she put the hat on the piano and retired to her corner, -behind the refreshment table.</p> - -<p>A few moments later she opened the door to Jake<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span> -Shackleton. Mrs. Willers, red-cheeked and triumphant, -felt that this was indeed a proud moment for -her. She said as much, drawing an amused laugh -from her second guest. He, too, had swept the room -with a quick, investigating glance. This time Mrs. -Willers did not affect unconsciousness, and said -briskly:</p> - -<p>“No, our young lady hasn’t come yet. You’ll have -to try and put up with me for a while.”</p> - -<p>It would have been difficult for the eye of the deepest -affection to see in the Comstock millionaire the emigrant -of twenty-five years before. A mother might -have been deceived. The lean figure had grown chunky -and heavy. The drawn face was now not full—it was -the type of face that would never be full—but was lacking -in the seams that had then furrowed it. The hair -was gray, worn thin on the temples, and the beard, -trimmed and well-tended, was gray, too. Perhaps the -strongest tie with the past was that the man suggested -the same hard, fine-drawn, wiry energy. It still shone -in his narrow, light-colored eyes, and still was to be -seen in his lean, muscular hand, that was frequently -used in gesticulation.</p> - -<p>In manner the change was equally apparent. Though -colloquial, his speech showed none of the coarse illiterateness -of the past. His manner was quiet, abruptly -natural, and not lacking in a sort of easy dignity, the -dignity of the man who has won his place among men. -He was dressed with the utmost simplicity. His soft -felt wide-awake was not new, his black prince-albert -coat did not fit him with anything like the elegance -with which Barry Essex’s outlined his fine shape. A<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span> -little purple cravat tied in a bow appeared from beneath -his turned-down collar. It was somewhat shiny -from the brushing of his beard.</p> - -<p>“You must suppose I’m anxious to see this young -lady,” he said, “after what you’ve told me about her.”</p> - -<p>“Well, ask Mr. Essex if I’ve exaggerated,” said Mrs. -Willers. “He knows her, too.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what you’ve said,” he returned, “but -I don’t think anything could be too complimentary that -was said of Miss Moreau.”</p> - -<p>“Eh!—better and better,” said the elder man. “I -didn’t know you knew her, Essex?”</p> - -<p>He turned his gray eyes, absolutely cold and non-committal -on Essex, who answered them with an -equally expressionless gaze.</p> - -<p>“I’ve known Miss Moreau for three months,” he replied. -“I met her here.”</p> - -<p>Shackleton turned back to Mrs. Willers.</p> - -<p>“I understand from you, Mrs. Willers, that these -ladies are left extremely badly off. Are they absolutely -without means?”</p> - -<p>“No-o,” she answered, “not exactly that. Mr. Moreau -left a life insurance policy of five thousand dollars. -Mariposa tells me that three thousand of that -went to pay his doctors’ bills and funeral expenses. -He was sick a long time. They are now living on -their capital, and they’ve been here four months, and -Mrs. Moreau has constant medical attendance.”</p> - -<p>The millionaire gave a little click of his tongue significant -of annoyance.</p> - -<p>“Moreau had a dozen chances of making his pile, as -every man did in those days,” he said. “He was the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span> -sort of man who is predestined to leave his family -poor.”</p> - -<p>“Yet they worship his memory,” said Mrs. Willers. -“He must have been very good to them.”</p> - -<p>Shackleton made no answer. She was used to reading -his expression, and the odd thought crossed her -mind that this remark of hers was unpleasant to him.</p> - -<p>Before she had time to reply a knock at the door -announced the arrival of Mariposa. As she entered -the two men stood up, both looking at her with veiled -eagerness. To Essex his feeling for her was making -her every appearance an event. To Shackleton it was -a moment of quivering interest in a career full of -tumultuous moments.</p> - -<p>A slight flush mounted to his face as he met her -eyes. She instinctively looked at him first, with a -charming look, girlish, shy, and deprecating. Her -likeness to her mother struck him like a blow, but she -was an Amazonian Lucy, with all that Lucy had lacked. -He saw himself in the stronger jaw and the firm lips. -Physically she was molded of them both. His heart -swelled with a passionate pride. This, indeed, was his -own child, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh.</p> - -<p>The introductions over, they resettled themselves, -and Mariposa found herself beside this quiet, gray-haired -man, talking quite volubly. She was not shy -nor nervous, as she had expected to be, but felt peculiarly -at her ease. Looking at her with intent eyes, -he spoke to her of the early days in California, when -he and her parents had come across.</p> - -<p>“You know, I knew your father in the Sierra, long -ago,” he said.</p> - - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_092.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">“TO SHACKLETON IT WAS A MOMENT OF QUIVERING INTEREST”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>“Yes,” she answered rather hurriedly, fearful lest -he should ask her if her father had not spoken of him, -“so Mrs. Willers said. It must have been a long time -ago. Was I there?” she added with a little smile.</p> - -<p>He was taken aback by the question and said, stammeringly:</p> - -<p>“Well, really now, I—I—don’t quite remember.”</p> - -<p>“I guess I wasn’t,” she said laughing. “You must -have known father before that. <i>He</i> came over in -forty-nine, you know. I was born twenty-four years -ago up in the mountains, in Eldorado County, in a little -cabin miles above Placerville. Mother’s often described -the place to me. They left soon after.”</p> - -<p>He lowered his eyes. He was a man of no sentiment -or tenderness, yet something in this false statement, -uttered so innocently by these fresh young lips, -and taught with all the solicitude of love to this simple -nature, pierced like an arrow to the live spot in his -deadened conscience.</p> - -<p>“It was more than twenty-five years ago that I was -there,” he said. “You evidently were not born then.”</p> - -<p>“But my mother was there then. Do you think I -look like her? My father thought I was wonderfully -like her.”</p> - -<p>He looked into the candid face. Memories of Lucy -before his own harsh treatment and the hardships of -her life had broken her, stirred in him.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he said slowly, “you’re very like her. But -you’re like your father, too.”</p> - -<p>“Am I?” she cried, evidently delighted. “Do you -really think so? I do want to look like my father.”</p> - -<p>“Why?” he could not help asking.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>She stared at him surprised.</p> - -<p>“Wouldn’t you like to look like both your parents, -if they were the two finest people in the world?”</p> - -<p>Here Mrs. Willers cut short the conversation by -asking Mariposa to sing. The girl rose and went directly -to the piano. For days this moment had -been looming before her in nightmare proportions. -She was feverishly anxious to do her best and sickeningly -fearful of failure. Now her confidence was unshaken. -Something—impossible to say just what—had -reassured her. Her hands were trembling a little -as she struck the keys, and her first notes showed the -oscillation of nervousness, but soon the powerful voice -began to come more under her control, and she poured -it out exultantly. She never sang better. Her voice, -much too large for the small space, was almost painful -in its resonant force.</p> - -<p>Of the two men the elder was without musical -knowledge of any kind. He was amazed and delighted -at what seemed to him an astonishing performance. -But Essex knew that with the proper training and -guidance there were possibilities of a brilliant future -for this handsome and penniless young woman. He -had lived much among professional singers, and he -knew that Mariposa Moreau possessed an unusual -voice. For reasons of his own he did not desire her to -know her own power, and he was secretly irritated -that she had sung so well.</p> - -<p>She continued, Shackleton requesting another, and -yet another song. Only the clock chiming four roused -him to the fact that he must go. He was living at his -country place at Menlo Park and had to catch a train.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span> -He left them with assurances of his delight in the -performance. To Mariposa, as he pressed her hand in -farewell, he said:</p> - -<p>“I’ll see you again. You’ve a wonderful voice, -there’s no mistake about that. It’s a gift, a great gift, -and it must have its chance.”</p> - -<p>The girl, carried away with the triumph of the afternoon, -said gaily:</p> - -<p>“I’ll sing for you whenever you like. Could you -never come up to our cottage on Pine Street and meet -my mother? I know she would like to see you.”</p> - -<p>The slightest possible look of surprise passed over -his face, gone almost as soon as it had come. Mariposa -saw it, however, and felt embarrassed. She evidently -had been too forward, and looked down, blushing -and uncomfortable. He recovered himself immediately, -and said:</p> - -<p>“Not now, much as I should like to, Miss Moreau. -I am living at Menlo Park, and all my spare time -when business is over is spent in catching trains. But -give your mother my compliments on the possession of -such a daughter.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa and Essex stayed chatting with Mrs. Willers -for some time after Shackleton’s departure. The -clock had chimed more than once, when finally they -left, and their hostess, exhausted, but exultant, threw -herself back in a chair and watched Edna gather up -the remains of the lunch.</p> - -<p>“Put the cakes in the tin, dearie. They’ll do for to-morrow, -and be sure and cork the bottle tight. There’s -enough for another time.”</p> - -<p>“Several other times,” said Edna, holding the bottle<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span> -of port wine up to the light and squinting at it with -her head on one side. “It was a cheap party—they -hardly drank anything.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa and her companion walked up Sutter -Street with the lagging step of people who find each -other excellent company.</p> - -<p>It was the end of a warm afternoon in September, -one of those still, deeply flushed evenings when the -air is tepid and smells of distant fires, and the winged -ants come out of the rotting sidewalks by the thousand. -The west was a clear, thin red smudged with -brown smoke. The houses grew dark and ever darker, -and seemed to loom more solidly black every moment. -They looked dreamlike and mysterious against the fiery -background.</p> - -<p>“How did you like it?” said Mariposa, as they -loitered on, “my singing, I mean?”</p> - -<p>“It was excellent, of course. You’ve got a voice. -But the room was too small—and such a room to sing -in, all crowded with ridiculous things.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa felt hurt. She thought Essex was the -finest, the most elegant and finished person she had -ever met. He seemed to her to breathe the atmosphere -of those great sophisticated cities she had never seen. -In his talks with her he now and then chilled her by -his suggestion of belonging to another and a wiser -world, to which she was a provincial outsider.</p> - -<p>This quality was in his manner now, and she began -to feel how raw her poor performance must have -seemed to the man who had heard the great prima -donnas of London and Paris.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>“It was a small room, of course,” she assented, “but -I had to sing somewhere, and I couldn’t hire a place.”</p> - -<p>“Shackleton wanted to hear you, as I understand it. -Mrs. Willers said something about his knowing your -father.”</p> - -<p>There was no question about the coldness of his voice -now. Had Mariposa known more about men she -would have seen he was irritated.</p> - -<p>She repeated the fable of her father’s early acquaintance -with Jake Shackleton, and of the latter’s -desire expressed to Mrs. Willers, of hearing her sing.</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Willers is such an ass!” he said suddenly -and vindictively.</p> - -<p>Mariposa was this time hurt for her friend and -spoke up:</p> - -<p>“I don’t see why you say that. I don’t think a -woman’s an ass who can support herself and a child -as she does,”—she thought of her sixteen dollars and -added: “It’s very hard for a woman to make money.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, she’s not an ass that way,” he answered. “She’s -an ass to try and work Shackleton up to the point of -becoming a patron of the arts—as represented by you.”</p> - -<p>He turned on her with a slight smile, that brought -no suggestion of amusement to his somewhat saturnine -face.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t that her idea?” he asked.</p> - -<p>Mariposa felt her hopes as to the training of her -voice becoming mean and vulgar.</p> - -<p>“He said he wanted to hear me,” she said stumblingly, -“and she said it would be a good thing. And -I have no money to educate my voice, and it’s all I -have. Why do you seem to disapprove of it?”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>“I?—disapprove? That would hardly do. Why -even if I wanted to, I have not the right to, have I?”</p> - -<p>Mariposa’s face flushed. She felt now, that she had -presupposed an intimacy between them which he -wanted politely to suggest did not exist. This was not -by any means the first time Essex had baffled and embarrassed -her. It amused him to do it, but to-day he -was in a bad temper and did it from spleen.</p> - -<p>“Somehow Jake Shackleton doesn’t suggest himself -to me as a patron of the arts,” he said. “I don’t think -he knows Yankee Doodle from God Save the Queen.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa thought of the brilliant article on the -Italian opera, from Bellini to Verdi, that the man beside -her had contributed to last Sunday’s <i>Trumpet</i>, -and Jake Shackleton’s enthusiastic admiration of her -singing immediately seemed the worthless praise of -sodden ignorance.</p> - -<p>“Then,” she said desperately, “you wouldn’t attach -any importance, if you were I, to his liking my singing? -It was just the way some people like a street -organ simply because it plays tunes.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I wouldn’t think that. There’s no reason why -he shouldn’t know a good voice when he hears it.”</p> - -<p>“Do <i>you</i> think I’ve got a good voice?” said Mariposa, -stopping in the street and staring morosely at -him.</p> - -<p>“Of course I do, dear lady.”</p> - -<p>“Do you, really?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, really.”</p> - -<p>She smiled, and tried to hide it by looking down.</p> - -<p>It was hardly in man to continue bad-humored before<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span> -this naïve display of pleasure at his commending -word.</p> - -<p>“You really think I might some day become a singer, -a professional singer?”</p> - -<p>“I really do.”</p> - -<p>The smile broadened and lit her face.</p> - -<p>“You always make me feel so stupid—and—and—as -if I didn’t amount to anything,” she murmured.</p> - -<p>It was so sweet, so childishly candid, that it melted -the last remnant of his bad temper.</p> - -<p>“You little goose,” he said softly, “don’t you know -I think more of you than I do of any one in San Francisco? -It’s getting dark; take my arm till we get to -the car.”</p> - -<p>She did so and they moved forward.</p> - -<p>“Or anywhere else,” he murmured.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER III<br /> - - -<small>RETROSPECT</small></h3> -</div> - - - -<p class="quote">“Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall -dream dreams.”—<span class="smcap">The Acts.</span></p> - - -<p>After he had put Mariposa on her car, Essex went -down town to the paper with some copy. He was -making a fair living on <i>The Trumpet</i>, and the work he -was doing suited him. He thought it might last the -winter and he had no objections to passing the winter -in San Francisco. Like many of his kind, he felt the -lazy Bohemian charm of the diverse, many-colored, -cosmopolitan city sprawled on its sand dunes. The restaurants -alone made life more worth while than anywhere -else in the country except New York.</p> - -<p>To-night he went to one, for dinner, that stood in -Clay Street, a short distance below Kearney. He had -a word to say to the white-clothed chef, who cooked -the dinner in plain sight, on a small oven and grill, beneath -which the charcoal gleamed redly. He stopped -for a moment’s badinage with the buxom, fresh-faced -French woman who sat at the desk. She was the -chef’s wife, Madame Bertrand, and liked “Monsieur -Esseex,” who spoke her natal tongue as well as she -did. There was evidently truth in one piece of Essex’s -autobiography. Only a childhood spent in France could<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span> -teach the kind of French he spoke with Madame Bertrand.</p> - -<p>He sat long over his dinner, smoking and reading -the evening papers. It was so late when he left that -Bertrand himself came out of his cooking corner and -talked with him about Paris. “Monsieur Esseex” knew -Paris as well as Bertrand, some parts of it better. He -had been educated there at one of the large <i>lycées</i>, and -had gone back many times, living now on one side of -the river, now on the other. Bertrand, in his white cap -and apron, conversing with his guest, retained a curious -manner of deference unusual in California.</p> - -<p>“Monsieur is a gentleman of some kind or other,” he -told madame.</p> - -<p>“There are many different kinds of gentlemen in -California,” returned that lady, oracularly.</p> - -<p>It was nearly nine when Essex left the restaurant, -and passing down Kearney Street for a few blocks, -turned to his right and began to mount the ascending -sidewalk that led to his lodgings. These were in an -humble and unfashionable neighborhood in Bush -Street. The house was of a kind whence gentility -has departed. It stood back on the top of two small -terraces, up which mounted two wooden flights of -stairs, one with a list to starboard so pronounced that -Essex had, once or twice, while ascending, thought the -city in the throes of an earthquake.</p> - -<p>The darkness of night wrapped it now. As it was -early a light within shone out dimly through two narrow -panes of glass flanking the hall door. He let himself -in and mounted a dirtily carpeted stairway. The -place smelled evilly of old cooking and the smoke of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span> -many and various cigarettes, cigars and pipes. It was a -man’s rooming-house, and the men evidently smoked -where and what they listed. Essex had no idea who -they were and had seen only one of them: a man on -the same floor with him who, he surmised, by the occasional -boisterousness of his entrances, frequently -came home drunk.</p> - -<p>His room was one of the best in the house, on the -front, and with a large bay window commanding the -street. It was fairly comfortable and well furnished, -and the draft of soft, chill air that crossed it from the -opened window kept it fresh. Essex, after lighting -the gases in the pendent chandelier, bent and kindled -the fire laid in the grate. Like many foreigners he -found San Francisco cold, and after the manner of his -bringing up would no more have denied himself a fire -when he was chilly, than a glass of wine when he was -thirsty. Different nations have their different extravagances, -and Essex’s French boyhood had stamped -him with respect for the little comforts of that intelligent -race.</p> - -<p>He pulled up an easy-chair and sat down in front of -the small blaze, with his hands out. Its warmth was -pleasant, and he stayed thus, thinking. Presently he -smiled slightly, his ear having caught the sounds of -his fellow lodger’s stumbling ascent of the stairs. The -man was evidently drunk again, and he wondered -vaguely how he ever managed to mount the terrace -steps with the list to starboard.</p> - -<p>The lodger’s door opened, shut, and there was silence. -Essex—an earnest reader—was soon deep in -his book. From this he was interrupted by a step in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span> -the passage and a light knock on the door. In response -to his “Come in,” the door opened hesitantly, and -the man from across the hall thrust in his head. It was -a head of wild gray hair, with an old yellow face, -seamed and shriveled beneath it. The eyes, which were -beadily dark and set close to the nose, were bloodshot, -the lips slack and uncertain. A very dirty hand was -curled round the edge of the door.</p> - -<p>“Well, what is it?” said Essex.</p> - -<p>“I’ve lost my matches agin,” said the man, in a whiningly -apologetic tone.</p> - -<p>“There are some,” said Essex, designating his box -on the mantelpiece. “Take what you want.”</p> - -<p>The stranger shambled in, and after scratching about -the box with a tremulous hand, secured a bunch. Essex -looked at him with cynical interest. He was miserably -dressed, dirty and ragged. He walked with an apologetic -slouch, as if continually expecting a kick in the -rear. He was evidently very drunk, and the odor of the -liquids he had imbibed compassed him in an ambulating -reek.</p> - -<p>“Thanks to you, Doc,” he said, as he went out. “So -long.”</p> - -<p>A few minutes later Essex heard a crash from his -neighbor’s room, and then exclamations of anger and -dole. These continuing with an increased volume, Essex -rose and went to the source of sound. The room -was pitch dark, and from it, as from the entrance to -the cave of the damned, imprecations and lamentations -were issuing in a strenuous flood. With the match he -had brought he lit the gas, and turning, saw his late -visitor holding by the foot-board of the bed, having<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span> -overturned a small stand, which had evidently been -surmounted by a nickel clock.</p> - -<p>“What the devil do you mean by making such a -noise?” he said angrily.</p> - -<p>“Pardon, pardon!” said the other humbly, “but I -couldn’t find the gas this time, Doc. This is a small -room, but things do get away somehow.”</p> - -<p>He looked stupidly about with his bleared eyes. -The room was small and miserably dirty and uninviting.</p> - -<p>“There’s a room,” he said suddenly in a loud, dramatic -tone and with a sweep of his arm, “for a man -who might er been a bonanza king!”</p> - -<p>Essex turned to go.</p> - -<p>“If you make any more of this row to-night I’ll see -that you’re turned out to-morrow,” he said haughtily.</p> - -<p>He wheeled about on the drunkard as he spoke. -The man’s sodden face was lit with a flash of malevolent -intelligence, to be superseded immediately by a -wheedling smile.</p> - -<p>“I seen you before to-day,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Well, you’ll see me again to-night if you don’t -keep quiet, and this time you won’t like it.”</p> - -<p>“You was with a lady, a fine-looking lady.”</p> - -<p>“Here—no more of that talk,” said Essex threateningly.</p> - -<p>The man stopped, looking furtively at him as if half -expecting to be struck. Essex turned toward the -door and passed out. As he did so he heard him mutter: -“And I’d seen her before, too.”</p> - -<p>Back in his room the young man took up his book -again, but the thread of his interest was broken. His<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span> -mind refused to return to the prescribed channels before -it, but began to drift here and there on the wayward -currents of memory.</p> - -<p>The house was now perfectly quiet. The little fire -had fallen together into a pleasant core of warmth -that genially diffused its heat through the room. Essex, -sprawling in his chair, his long arms following -its arms, his finely-formed, loose-jointed hands depending -over the rounded ends, let his dreaming gaze -rest on this red heart of living coal, while his pipe -smoke lay between it and his face in delicate layers.</p> - -<p>His thoughts slipped back over childish memories -to his first ones, when he had lived a French boy’s life -with his mother in Paris.</p> - -<p>He remembered her far back in the days when he -sat on her knee and was read to out of fairy books. -She had been very pretty then and very happy, and -had always talked English with him while every one -else spoke French. She had been an Englishwoman, -an actress of beauty and promise, who in the zenith -of her popularity had made what the world called a -fine marriage with a rich Venezuelan, who lived in -Paris. The stories of Essex’s doubtful paternity were -false. Rose Barry—Rose Essex, on the stage—had -been the lawful wife of Antonio Perez, and for ten -years was the happy wife as well.</p> - -<p>They were very prosperous in those days. Barry -had gone to the <i>lycée</i> all week and come back every -Friday to the beautiful apartment in the Rue de Ponthieu. -There were lovely spring Sundays when they -drove in the Bois and sometimes got out of the carriage -and walked down the sun-flecked <i>allées</i> under<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span> -the budding trees. And there were even lovelier winter -Sundays when they loitered along the boulevards -in the crisp, clear cold, with the sky showing leaden -gray through the barring of black boughs, and when -they came home to a parlor lit with fire and lamplight -and had oranges and hard green grapes after dinner.</p> - -<p>He had loved his pretty mother devotedly in those -happy days, but for his saturnine, dark-visaged father -he had only a sentiment of uneasy fear. He was -twelve, when at his mother’s request he was sent to -England to school. He could remember, looking back -afterward, that his mother had not been so pretty or -so happy then.</p> - -<p>When he came home from school for vacations she -was living at Versailles in a little house that presented -a secret, non-committal front to the stony street, but -that in the back had a delightful garden full of miniature -fountains and summer-houses and grottoes. -From the wall he could see the mossy trees and -stretches of sun-bathed sward of the Trianon. His -father was not always there when he came. One -Easter vacation he was not there at all, and when he -had asked his mother why, she had burst into sudden, -terrible tears that frightened him.</p> - -<p>During the long summer holidays after that Antonio -Perez was only there once over a Sunday. Then he -did not come again, and Barry was glad, for he had -never cared for his father. He passed delightful -days in the Trianon Park with his mother, who was -very silent and had gray hair on her temples. She -walked beside him with a slow step, dragging her rich -lace skirts and with her parasol hanging indolently<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span> -over her shoulder. It pleased him to see that many -people looked at her, but she took no notice of them.</p> - -<p>When Barry went back to England to school that -year he began to feel that he knew what was coming. -It came the next vacation. His mother had not dared -to tell him by letter. Her husband had deserted her -and disappeared, leaving her with a few thousand -francs in the bank, and not a friend.</p> - -<p>After that there were three miserable years when -they lived in a little apartment on the Rue de Sèvres, -up four flights of stairs with a <i>bonne à tout faire</i>. -His mother had had to conquer the extravagant habits -of a lifetime, and she did it ill. During the last year -of her life the sale of her jewels kept them. Barry -was eighteen when she died, and those long last days -when she lay on the sofa in the remnants of the rich -and splendid clothes she found it so hard to do without -were burned into his memory forever.</p> - -<p>Their furniture—some of which was rare and handsome—brought -them in a few hundred francs, and on -this he lived for another year, eking out his substance -with his first tentative attempts at journalism. When -he was twenty-one he received a legal notice that his -father had died in Venezuela, leaving him all he possessed, -which, debts paid and the estate settled, -amounted to about ten thousand dollars.</p> - -<p>This might have been a fortune to the youth, but -the bitter bread he had eaten had soured the best in -him. He took his legacy and resolved to taste of the -joy of life. For several years he lived on the crest -of the wave, now and then diverting himself with journalism, -the only profession that attracted him and one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span> -in which his talents were readily recognized. He saw -much of the world and its ways, living in many cities -and among many peoples. He tried to cut himself -off from the past, adopting, after his mother’s death, -her old stage name of Essex.</p> - -<p>Then, his money spent, there had been a dark interval -of bad luck and despondency, when Barry Essex, -the brilliant amateur journalist, had fallen out of -the ranks of people that are seen and talked about. -Without means, he sank to the level of a battered and -out-at-elbows Bohemian. There was a year or two -when he swung between London and Paris, making -money as he could and not always frequenting creditable -company. Then the tide of change struck him -and he went to New York, worked there successfully -till once again the <i>Wanderlust</i> carried him farther -afield.</p> - -<p>He had now arrived at the crucial point of his career. -In his vagabond past there were many episodes best -left in darkness, but nothing that stamped him as an -outcast by individual selection. Shady things were -behind him in that dark, morose year when he found -disreputable company to his taste. But he had never -stepped quite outside the pale. There had always been -a margin.</p> - -<p>Now he stood on that margin. He was thirty years -old with shame and bitterness behind him, and before -him the dead monotony of a lifetime of work. He -hated it all. No memory sustained him. The past -was as sore to dwell on as the future was sterile. It -was the parting of the ways. And where they parted -he saw Mariposa standing drawing him by the hand<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span> -one way, while he gently but persistently drew her the -other.</p> - -<p>In his softly lit library in his great house at Menlo -Park another man was at that time also thinking of -Mariposa. He had been thinking of her off and on -ever since he had bidden her good by that afternoon at -Mrs. Willers’.</p> - -<p>As the train had whirled him over the parched, -thirsty country, burnt to a leathern dryness by the -summer’s drouth, he had no thought for anything but -his newly discovered daughter. His glance dwelt unseeing -on the tanned fields with their belts of olive -eucalyptus woods, and the turquoise blue of the bay -beyond the painted marsh. Men descending at way -stations raised their hats to him as they mounted into -the handsome carriages drawn up by the platform. -His return to their salutes was a preoccupied nod. -His mind was full of his child—his splendid daughter.</p> - -<p>Jake Shackleton had not forgotten his first wife and -child, as Dan Moreau and Lucy had always hoped. -He was a man of many and secret interests, pulling -many wires, following many trails. He knew their -movements and fortunes from the period of their marriage -in Hangtown. At first this secret espionage was -due to fear of their betraying him. He had begun to -prosper shortly after his entrance into the state, and -with prosperity and the slackening of the strain of the -trip across the desert came a realization of what he -had done. He saw quickly how the selling of his -wife would appeal to the California mind in those -days fantastically chivalrous to women. He would be -undone.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>With stealthy persistence he followed the steps of -the peaceful couple who had it in their power to ruin -him. Serenity began to come to him as he heard that -the union was singularly happy; that Moreau, confident -no one would molest them, had gone through a -ceremony of marriage with Lucy, and that the child -was being brought up as their own.</p> - -<p>As wealth came to Shackleton he thought of them -with a sort of jealous triumph. With his remarkable -insight into men he knew that Dan Moreau would -never make money; that he was one of the world’s -predestined poor men. Then as riches grew and grew, -and the emigrant of the fifties became the bonanza -king of the seventies, he wondered if the time might -not come when they would turn to him.</p> - -<p>He would have liked it, for under the cold indifference -of his manner the transaction at the cabin in the -Sierra forever haunted him with its savage shamelessness. -It was the one debasing blot on a career which, -hard, selfish, often unprincipled, had yet never, before -or after, sunk to the level of that base action.</p> - -<p>When Moreau died at Santa Barbara Shackleton -heard it with a sense of relief. He was secretly becoming -very anxious to see his child. Bessie had -borne him two children, a boy and a girl, and it was -partly the disappointment in these that made him desirous -of seeing Mariposa. He knew and Bessie knew -that she was his only legitimate child. Though he had -virtually entered California with but one wife, and the -blot of Mormonism had been wiped from his record -before he had been two days in the state, the rumor -that he had once been a Mormon still carelessly passed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span> -from mouth to mouth. Should it ever become known -that there had been a former wife, Bessie and her children -would have no lawful claim on him, though the -children, as acknowledged and brought up by him, -would inherit part of his estate.</p> - -<p>With his great wealth the pride that was one of the -dominant characteristics of his hard and driving nature -grew apace. He had money by millions, but no -one to do it credit. It would have been the crowning -delight of his tumultuous career to have a beautiful -daughter or talented son to grace the luxury that -surrounded him. But Bessie’s children were neither -of these things. They were dull and commonplace. -Maud was fat and heavy both in mind and body, while -Winslow was, to his father, a slow-witted, characterless -youth, without the will, energy or initiative of -either of his parents. Affection not grounded on admiration -was impossible to Shackleton, who sometimes -in his exasperation,—for the successful man bore disappointment -ill,—would say to himself:</p> - -<p>“But they are not my real children; I have only one -child—Dan Moreau’s daughter.”</p> - -<p>After the death of Moreau he learned that Lucy and -Mariposa were in San Francisco. There he lost trace -of them and was forced to consult a private detective -who had done work for him before. It was an easy -matter to find them, and only a few letters passed between -him and the detective. In these the man gave -the address and financial condition of the ladies and -added that the daughter was said to be “a beautiful, -estimable and accomplished young woman.” This -fired still further the father’s desire to see her. He<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span> -learned, too, of their crippled means and it pleased him -to think that now they might be dependent on him. -But he shrank with an unspeakable repugnance from -the thought of seeing Lucy again, and he was for -weeks trying to find some way of meeting Mariposa -and not meeting her mother. It was at this stage -that, purely by accident, he learned that Mrs. Willers’ -daughter was one of Mariposa’s pupils. A day or two -after he summoned Mrs. Willers to the interview that -finally brought about the meeting.</p> - -<p>Satisfied pride was still seething in him when he -alighted from the train and entered the waiting carriage. -This magnificent girl was worthy of him, -worthy of the millions that were really hers. She had -everything the others lacked—beauty, charm, talents. -Her whole air, that regalness of aspect which sometimes -curiously distinguishes the simple women of the -West, appealed passionately to his ambition and love -of success. She was born to conquer, to be a queen of -men. The image of Maud rose beside her, and seemed -clumsier and commoner than ever. The father felt a -slight movement of distaste and irritation against his -second daughter, who had supplanted in his home and -in the world’s regard his elder and fairer child.</p> - -<p>The carriage turned in through a lofty gate and -rolled at a slackened pace up a long winding drive. -Jacob Shackleton’s Menlo Park estate was one of the -showy ones of that gathering place of rich men’s mansions.</p> - -<p>The road wound for some half mile through a -stretch of uncultivated land, dotted with the forms of -huge live-oaks. The grass beneath them was burnt<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span> -gray and was brittle and slippery. The massive trees, -some round and compact and so densely leaved that -they were as impervious to rain as an umbrella, others -throwing out long, gnarled arms as if spellbound in -some giant throe of pain, cast vast slanting shadows -upon the parched ground. Some seemed, like trees -in Doré’s drawings, to be endowed with a grotesque, -weird humanness of aspect, as though an imprisoned -dryad or gnome were struggling to escape, causing the -mighty trunk to bow and writhe, and sending tremors -of life along each convulsed limb. A mellow hoariness -marked them all, due to their own richly subdued coloring -and the long garlands of silvery moss that hung -from their boughs like an eldrich growth of hair.</p> - -<p>A sudden greenness in the sward and brilliant -glimpses of flower-beds pieced in between dark tree-trunks, -told of the proximity of the house. It was a -massive structure, architecturally ugly, but gaining a -sort of majesty from its own ponderous bulk and from -the splendor of lawns and trees about it. The last -level rays of the sun were now flooding grass and -garden, piercing bosky thickets where greens melted -into greens, and sleeping on stretches of close-cropped -emerald turf. From among the smaller trees the lordly -blue pines—that with the oaks were once the only -denizens of the long rich valley—soared up, lonely and -somber. Their crests, stirred by passing airs, emitted -eolian murmurings, infinitely mournful, as if repining -for the days when they had ruled alone.</p> - -<p>At the bend in the drive where the road turned off -to the stables Shackleton alighted and walked over the -grass toward the house. The curious silence that is so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span> -marked a characteristic of the California landscape -wrapped the place and made it seem like an enchanted -palace held in a spell of sleep. Not a leaf nor pendent -flower-bell stirred. In this hour of warmth and stillness -evanescent breaths of fragrance rose from the -carpets of violets that were beginning to bloom about -the roots of the live-oaks.</p> - -<p>As he reached the house Maud and a young man -came round the corner and approached him. The girl -was dressed in a delicate and elaborate gown of pale -pink frilled with much lace, and with the glint of falling -ribbons gleaming here and there. She carried a -pink parasol over her shoulder, and against the background -of variegated greens her figure looked modish -as a fashion-plate. It was a very becoming and elegant -costume, and one in which most young girls -would have looked their best.</p> - -<p>Maud, who was not pretty, was the type of woman -who looks least well in handsome habiliments. Her -irremediable commonness seemed thrown into higher -prominence by adornment. The softly-tinted dress -robbed her pale skin of all glow and made her lifeless -brown hair look duller. She had a round, expressionless -face, prominent pale-blue eyes, and a chin that receded -slightly. She was not so plain as she was without -vivacity, interest, or sparkle of youth. With her -matter-of-fact manner, heavy figure, and large, unanimated -face she might have been forty instead of -twenty-one.</p> - -<p>She was somewhat laboriously coquetting with her -companion, a tall, handsome young Southerner, some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span> -six or seven years her senior, whom her father recognized -as one of his superior clerks and shrewdly suspected -of matrimonial designs. At sight of her parent -a slight change passed over her face. She smiled, but -not so spontaneously; her speech faltered, and she -said, coming awkwardly forward:</p> - -<p>“Oh, Popper! you’re late to-day; were you delayed?”</p> - -<p>“Evidently, considering I’m an hour later than usual. -Howdy, Latimer; glad to see you down.”</p> - -<p>He stopped and looked at them with the slightest -inquiring smile. Though he said nothing to indicate -it, both, knowing him in different aspects, felt he was -not pleased. His whole personality seemed to radiate -a cold antagonism.</p> - -<p>“It’s good you got down anyhow,” said Maud constrainedly; -“this is much nicer than town, isn’t it, Mr. -Latimer?”</p> - -<p>All the joy had been taken out of Latimer by his -chief’s obvious and somewhat terrifying displeasure. -Had he been alone with Maud, he would have known -well how to respond to her remark with Southern fervency -of phrase. But now he only said with stiff politeness:</p> - -<p>“Oh, this is quite ideal!” and lapsed into uncomfortable -silence.</p> - -<p>“Was it some one interesting that made you late?” -queried Maud, as her father made no attempt to continue -the conversation.</p> - -<p>“Very,” he responded; “handsome and interesting.”</p> - -<p>“Won’t you tell us about them?” the girl asked, feeling<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span> -that the word “handsome” contained a covert allusion -to her own lack of beauty of which she was extremely -sensitive.</p> - -<p>“Not now, and I don’t think it would interest you -much, anyway. Is your mother indoors?”</p> - -<p>The girl nodded and he turned away and disappeared -round the corner of the house. She and Latimer -sauntered on.</p> - -<p>“The handsome and interesting person doesn’t seem -to have made your paternal any fuller than usual of -the milk of human kindness,” said the young man, -whose suit had progressed further than people guessed.</p> - -<p>“Popper’s often like that,” said Maud slowly,—and -in a prettier and more attractive girl the tone and -manner of the remark would have been charmingly -plaintive,—“I don’t know what makes him so.”</p> - -<p>“He can be more like a patent congealing ice-box -when he wants to be than anybody I ever saw. But I -don’t see why he should be so to you.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t, either, but he is often. He never says anything -exactly disagreeable, but he makes me feel sort -of—of—mean. Sometimes I think he doesn’t like me -at all.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, bosh!” said Latimer gallantly; “if that’s the -case he’s ripe for a commission of lunacy.”</p> - -<p>Shackleton meantime had entered the house and -ascended to his dressing-room. He was in there making -the small change which marked his dinner from -his business toilet when his wife entered.</p> - -<p>The years had turned Bessie into a buxom, fine-looking -matron, fashionably dressed, but inclined to be very -stout. Her eye and its glance were sharp and keen-edged,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span> -still alight with vigor and alertness. It was -easy to see why Jake Shackleton, the reader of character, -had set aside his feeble first wife for this dominating -and forceful partner. He had been faithful to her; -after a fashion had loved her, and certainly admired -her, for she had the characteristics he most respected.</p> - -<p>In his success she had been the same assistance that -she had been in his poverty. She had climbed the social -heights and conquered the impregnable position -they now occupied. Her rich dress, her handsome appearance, -her agreeably modulated voice, all were in -keeping with the position and great wealth that were -theirs. The house of which she was the mistress was -admirably ordered and sumptuously furnished. She -had only disappointed him in one way—her children.</p> - -<p>“What made you late?” she, too, asked; “several -people came down this afternoon.”</p> - -<p>“I was detained—a girl Mrs. Willers wanted me to -see; who’s here?”</p> - -<p>“Latimer, and Count de Lamolle, and George Herron -and the Thurston girls; and the Delanceys are -coming over to dinner.”</p> - -<p>He nodded at the names—Bessie knew well how to -arrange her parties. The Thurstons were two impoverished -sisters of great beauty and that proud -Southern stock of which early California thought so -highly and rewarded in most cases with poverty. -Count de Lamolle was a distinguished foreigner that -she was considering for Maud. The other two young -men filled in nicely. The Delanceys were a brother -and sister, claimants of the great Delancey Grant, -which was now in litigation. It had come into their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span> -possession by the marriage of their grandmother, -the Senorita Concepcion de Briones, in ’36, to the -Yankee skipper, Jeremiah Delancey.</p> - -<p>“Who was the girl Mrs. Willers wanted you to see?” -Bessie asked.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’ll tell you about her to-morrow. It’s a long -story, and I don’t want to be hurried over it.”</p> - -<p>He had made up his mind that he would tell Bessie -he had seen and intended to assist his eldest child. He -had always been frank with her and he was not going -to dissemble now. He knew that with all her faults -she was a generous woman.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER IV<br /> - - -<small>A GALA NIGHT</small></h3> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="first">“He looked at her as a lover can;</div> -<div class="verse">She looked at him as one who awakes.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Browning.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>From his first meeting with her, Barry Essex had -conceived a deep interest in Mariposa. He had known -women of many and divers sorts, and loved a few -after the manner of his kind, which was to foster indolently -a selfish caprice. Marriage was out of the -question for him unless with money, and some instinct, -perhaps inherited from his romantic and deeply-loving -mother, made this singularly repugnant to his nature, -which was neither sensitive nor scrupulous. The mystery -and hazard of life appealed passionately to him, -and to exchange this for the dull monotony of a rich -marriage was an unbearably irksome thought to his -unrestrained and adventurous spirit.</p> - -<p>Mariposa’s charm had struck him deep. He had -never before met that combination of extreme simplicity -of character with the unconscious majesty of -appearance which marked the child of the far West. -He saw her in that Europe, which was his home, as -a conquering queen; and he thought proudly of -himself as the owner of such a woman. Moreover<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span> -he was certain that her voice, properly trained and directed, -would be a source of wealth. She seemed to -him the real vocal artist, stupid in all but one great -gift; in that, preëminent.</p> - -<p>Mariposa was trembling on the verge of a first love. -She had never seen any one like Essex and regarded -him as the most distinguished and brilliant of beings. -His attentions flattered her as she had never been flattered -before, and she found herself constantly wondering -what he saw in a girl who must appear to him so -raw.</p> - -<p>Her experience of men was small. Once in Sacramento, -when she was eighteen, she had received an -offer from a young lawyer, and two years ago, in Santa -Barbara, she had been the recipient of a second, from -a prosperous rancher. Both had been refused without -hesitation, and had left no mark on imagination or -heart. Then, at a critical period of her life—lonely, -poor, a stranger in a strange city—she had fallen in -with Essex, and for the first time felt the thrill at the -sound of a footstep, the quickening pulse and flushing -cheek at the touch of a hand, that she had read of in -novels. She thought that nobody had seen this; but -the eyes of the dangerous man under whose spell she -had fallen were watching her with wary yet ardent -interest.</p> - -<p>He had known her now for three months and had -seen her frequently. His visits at the Pine Street cottage -were augmented by occasional meetings at Mrs. -Willers’, when that lady was at home and receiving -company, and by walks together. Of late, too, he had -asked her to go to the theater with him. Lucy was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span> -always included in these invitations, but was unable -to go. The theater was an untarnished delight to -Mariposa, and to refuse her the joy of an evening -spent there was not in the mother’s heart. Moreover, -Lucy, in her agony at the thought of leaving the girl -alone in the world, watched Essex with a desperate -anxiety trying to fathom his feelings. It seemed to -the unworldly woman, that this attractive gentleman -might have been sent by fate to be the husband who -was to love and guard the child when the mother was -gone.</p> - -<p>A few days after the party at Mrs. Willers’ rooms -Essex had invited Mariposa to go with him to a performance -of “Il Trovatore,” to be given at Wade’s -opera-house. The company, managed by a Frenchman -called Lepine, was one of those small foreign -ones that in those days toured the West to their own -profit and the pleasure of their audiences. The star -was advertised as a French diva of European renown. -Essex had heard her on the continent, and pronounced -her well worth hearing, if rather too fat to be satisfying -to the esthetic demands of the part of Leonora. -Grand opera was still something of a rarity in San -Francisco and it promised to be an occasion. The papers -printed the names of those who had bought boxes. -Mariposa had read that evening that Jacob Shackleton -would occupy the left-hand proscenium box with his -wife and family.</p> - -<p>“His daughter,” said Mariposa, standing in front -of the glass as she put on finishing touches, “is ugly, -Mrs. Willers says. I think that’s the way it ought to -be. It wouldn’t be fair to be an heiress and handsome.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>“It wouldn’t be fair for you to be an heiress, certainly,” -commented the mother from her armchair.</p> - -<p>“You don’t think I abuse the privilege a penniless -girl has of being good-looking?” said Mariposa, turning -from the glass with a twinkling eye.</p> - -<p>She looked her best and knew it. Relics of better -days lingered in the bureau drawers and jewel boxes -of these ladies as they did in the small parlor. That -night they had been mustered in their might for Mariposa’s -decking. She was proud in the consciousness -that the dress of fine black lace she wore, through the -meshes of which her statuesque arms and neck gleamed -like ivory, was made from a shawl that in its day had -been a costly possession. Her throat was bare, the -lace leaving it free and closing below it. Where the -black edges came together over the white skin a small -brooch of diamonds was fastened. Below the rim of -her hat, her hair glowed like copper, and the coloring -of her lips and cheeks was deepened by excitement into -varying shades of coral.</p> - -<p>As they entered the theater, Essex was aware that -many heads were turned in their direction. But Mariposa -was too imbued with the joyous unusualness of -the moment to notice it. She had forgotten herself -entirely, and sitting a little forward, her lips parted, -surveyed the rustling and fast-filling house.</p> - -<p>The glow of the days of Comstock glory was still -in the air. San Francisco was still the city of gold -and silver. The bonanza kings had not left it, but -were trying to accommodate themselves to the palaces -they were rearing with their loose millions. Society -yet retained its cosmopolitan tone, careless, brilliant,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span> -and unconventional. There were figures in it that -had made it famous—men who began life with a pick -and shovel and ended it in an orgy of luxury; -women, whose habits of early poverty dropped from -them like a garment, and who, carried away by their -power, displayed the barbaric caprices of Roman empresses.</p> - -<p>The sudden possession of vast wealth had intoxicated -this people, lifting them from the level of the -commonplace into a saturnalia of extravagance. Poverty, -the only restraint many of them had ever felt, -was gone. Money had made them lawless, whimsical, -bizarre. It had developed all-conquering personalities, -potent individualities. They were still playing -with it, wondering at it, throwing it about.</p> - -<p>Essex let his glance roam over the audience, that -filled the parquet, and the three horseshoes above -it. It struck him as being more Latin than American. -That foreignness which has always clung to California -was curiously pronounced in this gathering of -varied classes. He saw many faces with the ebon hair -and olive skins of the Spanish Californians, lovely -women, languid and fawn-eyed, badly dressed—for -they were almost all poor now, who once were lords -of the soil.</p> - -<p>The great Southern element which, in its day, set -the tone of the city and contributed much to its traditions -of birth and breeding, was already falling into -the background. Many of its women had only their -beauty left, and this they had adorned, as Mariposa -had hers, with such remnants of the days when -Plancus was consul, as remained—bits of jewelry, old<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span> -and unmodish but cumbrously handsome, edgings of -lace, a pale-colored feather in an old hat, a crape shawl -worn with an air, a string of beads carried bravely, -though beads were no longer in the mode.</p> - -<p>An arrogant air of triumph marked the Irish Californians. -With the opening up of the Comstock they -had stuck their flag on the summit of the heights. -They had always found California kindly, but by the -discovery of that mountain of silver they had become -kings where they were once content to serve. The -Irish face, sometimes in its primeval, monkey-like ugliness, -sometimes showing the fresh colored, blowsy -prettiness of the colleens by their native bogs, repeated -itself on every side. Now and then one of them shone -out like a painting by Titian—the Hibernian of the -red-gold hair and milk-white skin, refined by luxury -and delicate surroundings into a sumptuous and arresting -beauty. Many showed the metal that had carried -their fathers on to victory. Others were only -sleek, smooth-skinned animals, lazy, sensuous, and sly. -And these women, whose mothers had run barefoot, -were dressed with the careless splendor of those to -whom a diamond is a detail.</p> - -<p>Essex raised his glass from the perusal of the sea -of faces, to the box which the Shackleton party had -just entered. There was no question about the Americanism -of this group, the young man thought, as he -stared at Jake Shackleton. Square-set and unadorned, -in the evening dress which Bessie made him wear, he -sat back from the velvet railing, an uncompromising -figure of dynamic force, unbeautiful, shrewd, the most -puissant presence in that brilliant assemblage.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span>The two ladies in the front of the box were Mrs. -and Miss Shackleton. The former was floridly handsome, -almost aristocratic, the gazer thought, looking -at her firmly-modeled, composed face under its roll -of gray hair. The daughter was very like her father, -but ugly. Even in the costly French costume she wore, -with the gleam of diamonds in her hair, about her neck, -in the lace on her bosom, she was ugly. Essex, with -that thought of marrying money in the background -of his mind, scrutinized her. To rectify his fortune in -such a way became more repugnant than ever. If -Mariposa had only been Jake Shackleton’s daughter -instead!</p> - -<p>He turned and looked at her. She met his glance -with eyes darkened by excitement.</p> - -<p>“There’s Mr. Shackleton in the box,” she said eagerly, -in a half-whisper. “Did you see?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I’ve been looking, and that’s his daughter, -Maud Shackleton, in the white with diamonds.”</p> - -<p>“Is it? Oh, what a beautiful dress! and quantities -of diamonds. Almost too many; they twinkle like -water, as if some one had squeezed a sponge over her.”</p> - -<p>“What can you do when you’re a bonanza king’s -daughter and as ugly as that? You’ve got to keep up -your end of the line some way. She evidently thinks -diamonds are the best way.”</p> - -<p>Essex took the glass and looked at the bedecked -heiress again. After some moments he put it down -and turned to Mariposa with a quizzical smile.</p> - -<p>“Do you know I’m going to say something very -funny, but look at her well. Does she look like anybody -you know?”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span>The girl looked and shook her head:</p> - -<p>“Like her father a little,” she said, “but no one else -I can think of.”</p> - -<p>“No, not her father. Some one you know intimately -and see often—very often, if you’re as vain as -you ought to be.”</p> - -<p>“Who?” she demanded, frowning and looking puzzled; -“I can’t think whom you mean.”</p> - -<p>“Yourself; she looks like you.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa gave a quick look at the girl and then at -Essex. For the moment she thought he was mocking -her, but with her second look at the box, the likeness -suddenly struck her.</p> - -<p>“She is,” she said slowly, reaching for the glass; -“yes,” putting it down, “I see it—she is. How funny! -and fancy your telling me on top of the statement that -she was so ugly! I don’t see how I can smile again -this evening.”</p> - -<p>She smiled with the words on her lips, the charming -smile of a woman who knows her silliest phrases are -delightful to one man at least.</p> - -<p>“I’m not entirely like her?” she asked, with a somewhat -anxious air; “I haven’t got those pale-gray, prominent -eyes, have I?”</p> - -<p>“No, you’ve got mysterious dark eyes, as deep as -wells, and when I look into them, down, down, I sometimes -wonder if I can see your heart at the bottom. -Can I? Let me see.”</p> - -<p>He leaned forward as if to look straight into her -eyes. Mariposa suddenly flushing and feeling uncomfortable, -dropped them. The sensation she so often -experienced with Essex, of being awkward and raw,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span> -was intensified now by the annoyed embarrassment -provoked by the florid gallantry of his words. But -she was too inexperienced a little fly to deal with this -cunning spider, and tangled herself worse in the web -by saying nervously:</p> - -<p>“And my nose! I haven’t got that kind of nose? -Oh, surely not,” putting up a gloved hand to feel of -its unsatisfactoriness.</p> - -<p>“You have the dearest little nose in the world, -straight as a Greek statue’s. It’s a little bit haughty, -but I like it that way. And your mouth,” he dropped -his voice slightly, “your mouth—”</p> - -<p>Mariposa made a sudden movement of annoyance. -She threw up her head and looked at the curtain with -frowning brows.</p> - -<p>“Don’t,” she said sharply, “I don’t like you to talk -about me like that.”</p> - -<p>Essex was silent, regarding her profile with a deliberating -eye and a slight, amused smile. How crude -she was and how handsome! After a moment’s silence, -he leaned toward her and said in a voice full of good-humored -banter:</p> - -<p>“Butterfly! Butterfly! Why did they call you Butterfly?”</p> - -<p>The change in his tone and manner put her back at -once on the old footing of gay bonhomie.</p> - -<p>“In English, that way, it sounds dreadful, doesn’t -it? Fancy me being called Butterfly! I was called -after the flower. My whole name is Mariposa Lily.”</p> - -<p>“Mariposa Lily!” he repeated in amused amazement; -“what an absurd name!”</p> - -<p>“Absurd!” said Mariposa indignantly. “I don’t see<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span> -anything absurd about it. I think it very pretty. My -mother called me after the flower, the first time she -saw it. They couldn’t find a suitable name for me for -a long time, and then when she saw the flower she -decided at once to call me after it. It’s the most beautiful -wild flower in California.”</p> - -<p>“It’s fortunate you were not called Eschscholtzia,” -said Essex, who thought the name extremely ridiculous, -and who found a somewhat mean amusement in -teasing the girl; “you might just as well have been -called Eschscholtzia Poppy.”</p> - -<p>The spirited reply which was on Mariposa’s lips was -stopped by the rising of the curtain. The crowded, -rustling house settled itself into silence, the orchestra’s -subdued notes rolled out with the voices swelling -above them into the listening auditorium.</p> - -<p>The rest of the evening was an enchanted dream to -her. She had never seen an opera, and for the first -time realized what it might mean to possess a voice. -She heard the house thunder its applause to Leonora, -and thought of herself as singing thus, standing alone -on that dim stage, looking out over the sea of faces, -all listening, all staring, all spellbound, hanging on -the notes that fell, sweet and rich, thrilling and passionate, -from her lips. Could there ever be such a -life for her? Did they tell the truth when they spoke -so admiringly of her voice? Could she ever sing like -this? A surge of exultant conviction rose in her, and -sent its whisper of hope and ambition to her throbbing -brain.</p> - -<p>As the opera progressed she grew pale and motionless. -The wild thought was gaining possession of her,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span> -that she, Mariposa Moreau, with her four pupils and -her sixteen dollars a month, could sing as well as this -woman of European renown, for whom Essex, the -critical, the vastly experienced, had words of praise. -Once or twice it seemed to her as if the notes were -swelling in her own throat, were pressing to burst out -and soar up, higher, fuller, richer than the woman’s -on the stage. Oh, the rapture of being able to pour -out one’s voice, to give wild, melodious expression to -love or despair, while a thousand people hung this -way on one’s lips!</p> - -<p>As the curtain fell for the third time she turned -to Essex, pale and large-eyed, and said breathlessly:</p> - -<p>“I could sing as well as that woman if I had more -lessons; I know I could! I know it!”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER V<br /> - - -<small>TRIAL FLIGHTS</small></h3> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent5">“The music of the moon</div> -<div class="verse">Sleeps in the plain eggs of the nightingale.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Tennyson.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>A week had not passed since the night at the opera -when Mariposa received a hasty letter from Mrs. Willers. -It was only a few lines scrawled on a piece of -the yellow paper affected by the staff of <i>The -Trumpet</i>, and advising the recipient of the fact that -Mr. Shackleton requested her presence at his office at -three the following afternoon, yet a suggestion of -triumph breathed from its every word. Mrs. Willers -was clearly elated at the moment of its production. -She hinted, in a closing sentence, that Mariposa’s star -was rising rapidly. She, herself, would conduct the -girl to the presence of the great man, and suggested -that Mariposa meet her in her rooms a half-hour before -the time set for the interview.</p> - -<p>Mariposa was glad to do this, and in the few moments’ -walk across town toward Third Street, to hear -what Mrs. Willers thought was the object of the interview. -The girl’s cheeks were dyed with excited -color as they drew near <i>The Trumpet</i> office. Mrs. -Willers was certain it was to do with her singing. -Shackleton had almost told her as much. He had been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span> -immensely impressed by her voice, and now, with the -Lepine Opera Company in the city, Mrs. Willers fancied -he was going to have Lepine, who was a well-known -impresario in a small but respectable way, pass -judgment on it. Mariposa’s foot lagged when she -heard this. It was such a portentous step from the -seclusion of a rose-draped cottage in Santa Barbara, -even to this talk of singing before a real impresario. -She looked down the vista of Third Street where the -façade of <i>The Trumpet</i> office loomed large from humbler -neighbors, and Mrs. Willers saw hesitation and -fright in her eyes. Like a sensible guardian she -slipped her hand through the young girl’s arm and -walked her briskly forward, talking of the rare chances -life offers to a handicapped humanity.</p> - -<p><i>The Trumpet</i> office, as all old San Franciscans know, -stood on Third Street, and was, in its day, considered -a fine building. Jake Shackleton had not been its -owner six months yet, and all his reforms were not -inaugurated. From the yawning arch of its doorway -flights of stairs led up and upward, from stories -where the presses rattled all night, to the editorial -story where the sentiments of <i>The Trumpet</i> staff were -confided to paper. This latter and most important department -was four flights up the dark stairway, which -was lit at its turnings with large kerosene lamps, -backed by tin reflectors. There was little of the luxury -of the modern newspaper office about the barren, -business-like building, echoing like an empty shell to -the shouts of men and the pounding of machinery.</p> - -<p>At the top of the fourth flight the ladies paused. -The landing broadened out into a sort of anteroom,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span> -bare and windowless, two dejected-looking gas-jets -dispensing a tarnished yellow light into the surrounding -gloom. A boy, with a sleek, oiled head, sat at a -table reading that morning’s issue of <i>The Trumpet</i>. -He put it down as Mrs. Willers rose before his vision -and nodded familiarly to her. She gave him a quick -word of greeting and swept Mariposa forward -through a doorway, down a long passage, from which -doors opened into tiny rooms with desks and droplights. -The girl now and then had glimpses of men -seated at the desks, the radiance of the droplights hard -on their faces that had been lifted expectantly as their -ears caught the interesting rustle of skirts in the corridor.</p> - -<p>Suddenly, at the end of the passage, Mrs. Willers -struck with her knuckles on a closed portal. The next -moment Mariposa, with the light of a large window -shining full on her face, was shaking hands with -Shackleton. Then, in response to his motioning hand, -she took the chair beside the desk, where she sat, facing -the white glare of the window, conscious of his -keen eyes critically regarding her. Mrs. Willers took -a chair in the background. For a moment she had -fears that the nervousness she had noticed in her protégée’s -countenance on the way down would make her -commit some <i>bêtise</i> that would antagonize the interest -Shackleton so evidently took in her. Mrs. Willers had -seen her chief’s brusk impatience roused by follies -more excusable than those that rise from a young -girl’s nervous shyness and that would be incomprehensible -to his hardy, self-confident nature.</p> - -<p>But Mariposa seemed encouragingly composed.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span> -She again felt the curious sense of ease, of being at -home with him, that this unknown man had given -her before. She had that inspiring sensation that she -was approved; that this old-time friend of her father’s -had a singular unspoken sympathy with her. “As if -he might have been an old friend,” she told her mother -after the first meeting, “or some kind of relation—one -of those uncles that come back from India in the -English novels.”</p> - -<p>Now only her fluctuating color told of the inward -tumult that possessed her as he told her concisely, but -kindly, that he had arranged for her to sing before -Lepine, the manager of the opera, at two o’clock on -the following day. Several people of experience had -told him Lepine was an excellent judge. They would -then hear an expert’s opinion on her voice.</p> - -<p>“I think it’s the finest kind of voice,” he said, smiling, -“but you know my opinion’s worth more on ores -than on voices. So we won’t soar too high till we hear -what the fellow whose business it is, has to say. Then, -if he’s satisfied”—he gave a little shrug—“we’ll see.”</p> - -<p>The interview was brought to an end in a few moments. -It seemed to Mariposa that the scenes which -Mrs. Willers assured her were so big with promise -were incredibly short for moments so fraught with -destiny. She seemed hardly to have caught her -breath yet from the ascent of the four flights of stairs, -when they were once again walking down the corridor, -with the writing men looking up with pricked ears -at the returning rustle of skirts. It was Mrs. Willers -who had wafted her away so quickly.</p> - -<p>“Never beat about the bush where you deal with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span> -Jake Shackleton,” she said, slipping her hand in Mariposa’s -arm as they passed down the corridor. “He’s -got no use for people who gambol round the subject. -Say your say and then go. That’s the way to get on -with him.”</p> - -<p>In the anteroom the boy was still sitting, his chair -tilted back on its hind legs, <i>The Trumpet</i> in his hands. -Nevertheless, he had made an incursion into the inner -regions to find out whom Mrs. Willers was piloting -into the sanctum, for he had the curiosity of those who -hang on the fringes of the newspaper world.</p> - -<p>As the ladies passed him, going toward the stair-head, -a young man rose above it, almost colliding with -them. Then in the gloom of the dejected gas-jets he -stood aside, against the wall, letting them pass out. -He wore a long ulster with a turned-up collar. Between -the edge of this and the brim of his derby hat, -there was the gleam of a pair of eye-glasses and a -suggestion of a fair mustache. He raised his hat, -holding it above his head during the interval of their -transit, disclosing a small pate clothed with smooth -blond hair.</p> - -<p>“Who was that lady with Mrs. Willers?” he said to -the boy, as he walked toward the door into the corridor.</p> - -<p>“She’s some singing lady,” answered that youth -drawlingly, tilting his chair still farther back, “what’s -come to see Mr. Shackleton about singing at the opera-house. -Her name’s Moreau.”</p> - -<p>The young man, without further comment, passed -into the inner hall, leaving the boy smiling with pride -that his carelessly-acquired information should have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span> -been so soon of use. For the questioner was Winslow -Shackleton, the millionaire’s only son.</p> - -<p>The next morning was one of feverish excitement -in the cottage on Pine Street. Mariposa could not settle -herself to anything, at one moment trying her voice -at the piano, at the next standing in front of her glass -and putting on all her own and her mother’s hats in -an effort to see in which she presented the most attractive -appearance. She thrilled with hope for a -space, then sank into a dead apathy of dejection. Lucy -was quietly encouraging, but the day was one of hidden -anguish to her. The daughter, ignorant of the -knowledge and the memories that were wringing the -mother’s heart, wondered why Lucy was so confident -of her winning Shackleton’s approval. As the hour -came for her to go she wondered, too, at the marble -pallor of her mother’s face, at the coldness of the -hand that clung to hers in a lingering farewell. Lucy -was giving back her child to the father who had deserted -it and her.</p> - -<p>The excitement of the morning reached its climax -when a carriage appeared at the curb with Mrs. Willers’ -face at the window. The hour of fate had struck, -and Mariposa, with a last kiss to her mother, ran down -the steps feeling like one about to embark on a journey -upon perilous seas in which lie enchanted islands.</p> - -<p>During the drive Mrs. Willers talked on outside -matters. She was business-like and quiet to-day. -Even her clothes seemed to partake of her practical -mood and were inconspicuous and subdued. As the -carriage turned down Mission Street she herself began<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span> -to experience qualms. What if they had all been -mistaken and the girl’s voice was nothing out of the -ordinary? What a cruel disappointment, and with that -sick, helpless mother! What she said was:</p> - -<p>“Now, here we are! Remember that you’ve got -the finest voice Lepine’s ever likely to hear, and you’re -going to sing your best.”</p> - -<p>They alighted, and as they turned into the flagged -entrance that led to the foyer, Shackleton came forward -to meet them. He looked older in the crude afternoon -light, his face showing the lines that his -fiercely-lived life had plowed in it. But he smiled -reassuringly at Mariposa and pressed her hand.</p> - -<p>“Everything’s all ready,” he said; “Lepine’s put back -a rehearsal for us, so we mustn’t keep him waiting. -And are you all ready to surprise us?” he asked, as -they walked together toward where the three steps led -to the foyer.</p> - -<p>“I’m ready to do my best,” she answered; “a person -can’t do more than that.”</p> - -<p>The answer pleased him, as everything she said did. -He saw she was nervous, but that she was going to -conquer herself.</p> - -<p>“Lots of grit,” he said to himself as he gave ear to -a remark of Mrs. Willers’. “She won’t quit at the first -obstacle.”</p> - -<p>They passed through the opening in the brass rail -that led to the foyer. This space, the gathering place -of the radiant beings of Mariposa’s first night at the -opera, was now a dimly-lit and deserted hall, its flagged -flooring looking dirty in the raw light. From somewhere, -in what seemed a far, dreamy distance, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span> -sound of a piano came, as if muffled by numerous -doors. As they crossed the foyer toward the entrance -into the auditorium, the door swung open and two -men appeared.</p> - -<p>One was a short and stout Frenchman, with a -turned-over collar, upon which a double chin rested. -He had a bald forehead and eyes that gleamed sharply -from behind a <i>pince-nez</i>. At sight of the trio, he gave -an exclamation and came forward.</p> - -<p>“Our young lady?” he said to Mariposa, giving her -a quick look of scrutiny that seemed to take her in -from foot to forehead. Then he greeted Shackleton -with slightly exaggerated foreign effusion. He spoke -English perfectly, but with the inevitable accent. This -was Lepine, the impresario, and the other man, an -Italian who spoke little English, was presented as Signor -Tojetti, the conductor.</p> - -<p>They moved forward talking, and then, pushing the -door open, Lepine motioned Mariposa to enter. She -did so and for a moment stood amazed, staring into -a vast, shadowy space, where, in what seemed a vague, -undefined distance, a tiny spot or two of light cut into -the darkness. The air was chill and smelt of a stable. -From somewhere she heard the sound of voices rising -and falling, and then again the notes of a piano, now -near and unobscured, carelessly touched and resembling, -in the echoing hollow spaciousness of the great -building, the thin, tinkling sounds emitted by smitten -glass.</p> - -<p>Lepine brushed past her and led the way down the -aisle. As she followed him her eyes became accustomed -to the dimness, and she began to make out the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span> -arch of the stage with blackness beyond, into which -cut the circles of light of a few gas-jets. The lines -of seats stretched before her spectral in linen covers. -Now and then a figure crossed the stage, and as they -drew nearer, she saw on one side of it a man sitting -on a high stool reading a paper book by the light of a -shaded lamp. The notes of the piano sounded sharper -and closer, and by their proximity more than by her -sight, she located it in a dark corner of the orchestra. -As they approached, the sound of two voices came -from this corner, then suddenly a man’s smothered -laugh.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Martinez,” said Lepine, directing his voice -toward the darkness whence the laugh had risen, “the -lady is here to sing, if you are ready.”</p> - -<p>Instantly a faintly luminous spark, Mariposa had -noticed, bloomed into the full-blown radiance of a gas-jet -turned full cock under a sheltering shade. It projected, -what seemed in the dimness, a torrent of light -on the keyboard of the piano, illuminating a pair of -long masculine hands that had been moving over the -keys in the darkness. Behind them the girl saw a -shadowy shape, and then a spectacled face under a -mane of drooping black hair was advanced into the -light.</p> - -<p>“Has the lady her music?” said the face, in English, -but with another variety of accent.</p> - -<p>She handed him the two songs she had brought, -“Knowest thou the Land,” from Mignon, and “Farewell, -Lochaber.” In the short period of her tuition -her teacher had told her that she had sung “Lochaber”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span> -admirably. The man opened them, glanced at -the names, and placing the “Mignon” aria on the rack, -ran his hands lightly and carelessly over the keys in the -opening bars of the accompaniment.</p> - -<p>“Whenever the lady is ready,” he said, with an air -of patience, as though he had endured this form of -persecution until all spirit of revolt was crushed.</p> - -<p>Mariposa drew back from him, wondering if she -were to sing there and then. Lepine was behind her, -and behind him she saw, with a sense of nostalgic -loneliness, that the Italian conductor was shepherding -Mrs. Willers and Shackleton into two seats on the -aisle. They looked small and far away.</p> - -<p>“We will mount to the stage this way, Mademoiselle,” -said Lepine, and he indicated a small flight -of steps that rose from the corner of the orchestra to -the lip of the stage above.</p> - -<p>He ascended first, she close at his heels, and in a -moment found herself on the dark, deserted stage. It -seemed enormous to her, stretching back into unseen -regions where the half-defined shapes of trees and -castles, walls and benches were huddled in dim confusion. -Down the aisles between side-scenes she -caught glimpses of vistas lit by wavering gleams of -light. People moved here and there, across these -vistas, their footsteps sounding singularly distinct. As -she stood uneasily, looking to the right and left, a sudden -sound of hammering arose from somewhere behind, -loud and vibrant. Lepine, who was about to -descend the stairs, turned and shouted a furious sentence -in Italian down the opening. The hammering<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span> -instantly ceased, and a man in white overalls came and -stared at the stage. The impresario, charily—being -short and fat—descended the stairs.</p> - -<p>“Now, Mademoiselle,” he said, speaking from the -orchestra, “if you are ready, come forward a little, -nearer the footlights there.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa moved forward. Her heart was beating -in her throat, and she felt a sick terror at the thought -of what her voice would be like in that huge void -space. She was aware that the man who had been -reading the paper book had closed it and was leaning -his elbow on the lamp-stand, watching her. She was -also aware that a woman and a man had suddenly appeared -in the lower proscenium box close beside her. -She saw the woman dimly, a fat, short figure in a -light-colored ulster. Whispering to the man, she drew -one of the linen-covered chairs close to the railing and -seated herself.</p> - -<p>“Is the lady ready?” said the pianist, from his dark -corner.</p> - -<p>“Quite ready,” replied Mariposa, hearing her voice -like a tremulous thread of sound in the stillness.</p> - -<p>The first bars of the accompaniment sounded thinly. -Mariposa stepped forward. She could see in the -shadowy emptiness of the auditorium Lepine’s bald -head where he sat alone, half-way up the house, and the -two pale faces of Shackleton and Mrs. Willers. The -Italian conductor had left them and was sitting by -himself at one side of the parquet. In the stillness, -the notes of the piano were curiously tinkling and -feeble.</p> - -<p>Mariposa raised her chest with a deep inspiration.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span> -A sudden excited expectation seized her at the thought -of letting her voice swell out into the hushed void before -her. The listening people seemed so small and -insignificant in it, they suddenly lost their terror. She -began to sing.</p> - -<p>It seemed to her that her first notes were hardly -audible. They seemed as ineffectual as the piano. -Then her confidence grew, and delight with it. She -never before had felt as if she had enough room. -Her voice rolled itself out like a breaking wave, lapping -the walls of the building.</p> - -<p>The first verse came to an end. The accompaniment -ceased. Lepine moved in his distant seat.</p> - -<p>“Continue, Mademoiselle,” he said sharply; “the -second verse, if you please. Again, Mr. Martinez.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa saw the woman in the box look at the man -beside her, raise her eyebrows, and nod.</p> - -<p>She began the second verse and sang it through. -As its last notes died out there was silence for a moment. -In the silence the Italian conductor rose and -came forward to where Lepine sat. Mariposa, standing -on the stage, saw them conferring for a space. The -Italian talked in a low voice, with much gesticulation. -Shackleton and Mrs. Willers were motionless and -dumb. The woman in the box began to whisper with -the man.</p> - -<p>“And now the second piece, if Mademoiselle has no -objection,” came the voice of the impresario across the -parquet. “One can not judge well from one song.”</p> - -<p>The second song, “Lochaber,” had been chosen by -Mariposa’s teacher to show off her lower register—those -curious, disturbing notes that were so deep and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span> -full of vague melancholy. She had gained such control -as she had over her voice and sang with an almost -joyous exultation. She had never realized what it -was to sing before people who knew and who listened -in this way in a place that was large enough.</p> - -<p>When the last notes died away, the tinkling of the -piano sounding like the frail specters of music gafte -the tones of the rich, vibrant voice, there was a sudden -noise of clapping hands. It came from the box on the -right, where the woman in the ulster was leaning over -the rail, clapping with her bare hands held far out.</p> - -<p>“<i>Brava!</i>” she cried in a loud, full voice. “<i>Brava! -La belle voix! Et quel volume! Brava!</i>”</p> - -<p>She bounced round on her chair to look at the man -beside her, and, leaning forward, clapped again, crying -her gay “brava.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa walked toward the box, feeling suddenly -shy. As she drew nearer she saw the woman’s face -more distinctly. It was a dark French face, with a -brunette skin warming to brick-dust red on the cheeks, -set in a frame of wiry black hair, and with a big mouth -that, laughing, showed strong white teeth, well separated. -As Mariposa saw it fairly in the light of an -adjacent lamp she recognized it as that of the Leonora -of “Il Trovatore.” It was the prima donna.</p> - -<p>She started forward with flushing cheek and held out -a hesitating hand. The fat, ungloved palms of the -singer closed on it with Gælic effusion. Mariposa was -aware of something delightfully wholesome and kind -in the broad, ruddy visage, with its big, smiling mouth -and the firm teeth like the halves of cleanly-broken -hazelnuts. The singer, leaning over the rail, poured<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span> -a rumbling volume of French into the girl’s blushing, -upturned face. Mariposa understood it and was trying -to answer in her halting schoolgirl phrases, when -the voice of Mrs. Willers, at the bottom of the steps, -summoned her.</p> - -<p>“Come down, quick! They think it’s fine. Oh, -dearie,” stretching up a helping hand as Mariposa -swept her skirts over the line of the footlights, “you -did fine. It was great. You’ve just outdone yourself. -And you looked stunning, too. I only wished -the place had been full. Heavens! but I thought I’d -die at first. While you were standing there waiting -to begin I felt seasick. It was an awful moment. And -you looked just as cool! Mr. Shackleton don’t say -much, but I know he’s tickled to death.”</p> - -<p>They walked up the aisle as she talked to where -Shackleton and the two men were standing in earnest -conversation. As they approached Lepine turned toward -her and gave a slight smile.</p> - -<p>“We were saying, Mademoiselle,” he said, “that you -have unquestionably a voice. The lower register is -remarkably fine. Of course, it is very untrained; absolutely -in the rough. But Signor Tojetti, here, finds -that a strong point in your favor.”</p> - -<p>“Signor Tojetti,” said Shackleton, “seems to think -that two years of study would be ample to fit you for -the operatic stage.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa looked from one to the other with beaming -eyes, hardly able to believe it all.</p> - -<p>“You really did like it, then?” she said to Lepine -with her most ingenuous air.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span>He shrugged his shoulders, with a queer French -expression of quizzical amusement.</p> - -<p>“It was a truly interesting performance, and after a -period of study with a good master it should be a truly -delightful one.”</p> - -<p>The Italian, to whom these sentences were only half -intelligible, now broke in with a quick series of sonorous -phrases, directed to Lepine, but now and then -turned upon Shackleton. Mariposa’s eyes went from -one to the other in an effort to understand. The impresario, -listening with frowning intentness, responded -with a nod and a word of brusk acquiescence. -Turning to Shackleton, he said:</p> - -<p>“Tojetti also thinks that the appearance of Mademoiselle -is much in her favor. She has an admirable -stage presence”—he looked at Mariposa as if she were -a piece of furniture he was appraising. “Her height -alone is of inestimable value. She would have at -least five feet eight or nine inches.”</p> - -<p>At this moment the lady in the box, who had risen -to her feet, and was leaning against the railing, called -suddenly:</p> - -<p>“<i>Lepine, vraiment une belle voix, et aussi une belle -fille! Vous avez fait une trouvaille.</i>”</p> - -<p>Lepine wheeled round to his star, who in the -shadowy light stood, a pale-colored, burly figure, buttoning -her ulster over her redundant chest.</p> - -<p>“A moment,” he said, apologetically to the others, -and, running to the box, stood with his head back, -talking to her, while the prima donna leaned over and -a rapid interchange of French sentences passed between -them.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span>Signor Tojetti turned to Mariposa, and, with solemn -effort, produced an English phrase:</p> - -<p>“Eet ees time to went.” Then he waved his hand -toward the stage. The sound of feet echoed therefrom, -and as Mariposa looked, an irruption of vague, -spectral shapes rose from some unseen cavernous entrance -and peopled the orchestra.</p> - -<p>“It’s the rehearsal,” she said. “We must be going.”</p> - -<p>They moved forward toward the entrance, the auditorium -behind them beginning to resound with the -noise of the incoming performers. A scraping of -strings came from the darkened orchestra, and mingled -with the tentative chords struck from the piano. At -the door Lepine joined them, falling into step beside -Shackleton and conversing with him in low tones. -Signor Tojetti escorted them to the brass rail and there -withdrew with low bows. The ladies made out that -the rehearsal demanded his presence.</p> - -<p>Once again in the gray light of the afternoon they -stood for a moment at the curb waiting for the carriage.</p> - -<p>Lepine offered his farewells to Mariposa and his -wishes to see her again.</p> - -<p>“In Paris,” he said, giving his little quizzical smile—“that -is the place in which I should like to see Mademoiselle.”</p> - -<p>“We’ll talk about that again,” said Shackleton; “I’m -going to see Mr. Lepine before he goes and have another -talk about you. You see, you’re becoming a -very important young lady.”</p> - -<p>The carriage rolled up and Mariposa was assisted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span> -in, several street boys watching her with wide-eyed interest -as evidently a personage of distinction.</p> - -<p>Her face at the window smiled a radiant farewell -at the group on the sidewalk; then she sank back -breathless. What an afternoon! Would the carriage -ever get her home, that she might pour it all out to her -mother! What a thrilling, wonderful, unheard-of -afternoon!</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER VI<br /> - - -<small>THE VISION AND THE DREAM</small></h3> -</div> - - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“For a dream cometh through the multitude of business.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Ecclesiastes.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>As the carriage turned the corner into Third Street, -Shackleton and Mrs. Willers, bidding their adieux to -Lepine, started toward <i>The Trumpet</i> office. The -building was not ten minutes’ walk away, and both the -proprietor and the woman reporter had work there -that called them.</p> - -<p>In their different ways each was exceedingly elated. -The man, with his hard, bearded face, the upper half -shaded by the brim of his soft felt hat, gave no evidence -in appearance or manner of the exultation that possessed -him. But the woman, with her more febrile -and less self-contained nature, showed her excited -gratification in her reddened cheeks and the sparkling -animation of her tired eyes. Her state of joyous -triumph was witnessed even in her walk, in the way -she swished her skirts over the pavements, in the something -youthful and buoyant that had crept into the -tones of her voice.</p> - -<p>“Well,” she said, “that <i>was</i> an experience worth -having! I never heard her sing so before. She just -outdid herself.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span>“She certainly seemed to me to sing well. I was -doubtful at the beginning, not knowing any more about -singing than I do about Sanskrit, as to whether she -really had as fine a voice as we thought. But there -don’t seem to me to be any doubt about it now.”</p> - -<p>“Lepine is quite certain, is he?” queried Mrs. Willers, -who had tried to listen to the conversation between -her chief and the impresario on the way out, but -had been foiled by Mariposa’s excited chatter.</p> - -<p>“He says that she has an unusually fine voice, which, -with proper training, would, as far as they can say -now, be perfectly suitable for grand opera. It’s what -they call a dramatic mezzo-soprano, with something -particularly good about the lower notes. Lepine is to -see me again before he goes.”</p> - -<p>“Did he suggest what she ought to do?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; he spoke of Paris as the best place to send -her. He knows some famous teacher there that he -says is the proper person for her to study with. He -seemed to think that two years of study would be -sufficient for her. She’d be ready to make her appearance -in grand opera after that time.”</p> - -<p>“Good heavens!” breathed Mrs. Willers in a transport -of pious triumph, “just think of it! And now up -in that cottage on Pine Street getting fifty cents a lesson, -and with only four pupils.”</p> - -<p>“In two years,” said Shackleton, who was speaking -more to himself than to her, “she’ll be twenty-seven -years old—just in her prime.”</p> - -<p>“She’ll be twenty-six,” corrected Mrs. Willers; -“she’s only twenty-four now.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>He raised his brows with a little air of amused -apology.</p> - -<p>“Twenty-four, is it?” he said. “Well, that’s all the -better. Twenty-six is one year better than twenty-seven.”</p> - -<p>“It’ll be like the ‘Innocents Abroad’ to see her and -her mother in Paris,” said Mrs. Willers. “They’re just -two of the most unsophisticated females that ever -strayed out of the golden age.”</p> - -<p>The man vouchsafed no answer to this remark for a -moment; then he said:</p> - -<p>“The mother’s health is very delicate? She’s quite -an invalid, you say?”</p> - -<p>“Quite. But she’s one of the sweetest, most uncomplaining -women you ever laid eyes on. You’d -understand the daughter better if you knew the mother. -She’s so gentle and girlish. And then they’ve lived -round in such a sort of quiet, secluded way. It’s -funny to me because they had plenty of money when -Mr. Moreau was alive. But they never seemed to go -into society, or know many people; they just seemed -enough for each other, especially when the father was -with them. They simply adored him, and he must -have been a fine man. They—”</p> - -<p>“Is Mrs. Moreau’s state of health too bad to allow -her to travel?” said Shackleton, interrupting suddenly -and rudely.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Willers colored slightly. She knew her chief -well enough to realize that his tone indicated annoyance. -Why did he so dislike to hear anything about -the late Dan Moreau?</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span>“As to that I don’t know,” she said. “She’s so much -of an invalid that she rarely goes out. But with good -care she might be able to take a journey and benefit by -it. A sea trip sometimes cures people.”</p> - -<p>“Miss Moreau couldn’t, and, I have no doubt, -wouldn’t leave her. It’ll therefore be necessary for -the mother to go to Paris with the girl, and if she is so -complete and helpless an invalid she’ll certainly be of -no assistance to her daughter—only a care.”</p> - -<p>“She’d undoubtedly be a care. But a person -couldn’t separate those two. They’re wrapped up in -each other. It’s a pity you don’t know Mrs. Moreau, -Mr. Shackleton.”</p> - -<p>For the second time that afternoon Mrs. Willers -was conscious that words she had intended to be gently -ingratiating had given mysterious offense to her employer. -Now he said, with more than an edge of -sharpness to his words:</p> - -<p>“I’ve no doubt it’s a pity, Mrs. Willers. But there -are so many things and people it’s a pity I don’t know, -that if I came to think it over I’d probably fall into a -state of melancholia. Also, let me assure you, that I -haven’t the least intention of trying to separate Mrs. -Moreau and her daughter. What I’m just now -bothered about is the fact that this lady is hardly of -sufficient worldly experience, and certainly has not -sufficient strength to take care of the girl in a strange -country.”</p> - -<p>“Well, no,” said Mrs. Willers with slow reluctance, -“it would be the other way round, the girl would be -taking care of her.”</p> - -<p>“That’s exactly what I thought. The only way out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span> -of it will be to send some one with them. A woman -who could take care of them both, chaperone the -daughter and look after the mother.”</p> - -<p>There was a silence. Mrs. Willers began to understand -why Mr. Shackleton had walked down to <i>The -Trumpet</i> office with her. The walk was over, for they -were at the office door, and the conversation had -reached the point to which he had evidently intended -to bring it before they parted.</p> - -<p>As they turned into the arched doorway and began -the ascent of the stairs, Mrs. Willers replied:</p> - -<p>“I think that would be a very good idea, Mr. Shackleton. -That is, if you can find the right woman.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’ve got her now,” he answered, giving her a -quick, side-long glance. “I think it would be a good -arrangement for all parties. <i>The Trumpet</i> wants a -Paris correspondent.”</p> - -<p>The door leading into the press-rooms opened off -the landing they had reached, and he turned into this -with a word of farewell, and a hand lifted to his hat -brim. Mrs. Willers continued the ascent alone. As -she mounted upward she said to herself:</p> - -<p>“The best thing for me to do is to get a French -phrase book on the way home this evening, and begin -studying: ‘Have you the green pantaloons of the miller’s -mother?’”</p> - -<p>The elation of his mood was still with Shackleton -when, two hours later, he alighted from the carriage -at the steps of his country house. He went upstairs -to his own rooms with a buoyant tread. In his library, -with the windows thrown open to the soft, scented air, -he sat smoking and thinking. The October dusk was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span> -closing in, when he heard the wheels of a carriage on -the drive and the sound of voices. His women-folk -with the second of the Thurston girls—the one guest -the house now contained—were returning from the -afternoon round of visits that was the main diversion -of their life during the summer months, and swept the -country houses from Redwood City to Menlo Park.</p> - -<p>It was a small dinner table that evening. Winslow -had stayed in town over night, and Shackleton sat at -the head of a shrunken board, with Bessie opposite -him, his daughter to the left, and Pussy Thurston on -his right. Pussy was Maud’s best friend and was one -of the beauties of San Francisco. To-night she looked -especially pretty in a pale green crape dress, with green -leaves in her fair hair. Her skin was of a shell-like -purity of pink and white, her face was small, with -regular features and a sweet, childish smile.</p> - -<p>She and her sister were the only children of the -famous Judge Beauregard Thurston, in his day one -of those brilliant lawyers who brought glory to the -California bar. He had made a fortune, lived on it -recklessly and magnificently, and died leaving his -daughters almost penniless. He had been in the heyday -of his splendor when Jake Shackleton, just struggling -into the public eye, had come to San Francisco, -and the proud Southerner had not scrupled to treat -the raw mining man with careless scorn. Shackleton -evened the score before Thurston’s death, and he still -soothed his wounded pride with the thought that the -two daughters of the man who had once despised him -were largely dependent on his wife’s charity. Bessie -took them to balls and parties, dressed them, almost fed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span> -them. The very green crape gown in which Pussy -looked so pretty to-night had been included in Maud’s -bill at a fashionable dressmaker’s.</p> - -<p>Personally he liked Pussy, whose beauty and winning -manners lent a luster to his house. Once or twice -to-night she caught him looking at her with a cold, -debating glance in which there was little of the admiration -she was accustomed to receiving since the days of -her first long dress.</p> - -<p>He was in truth regarding her critically for the first -time, for the Bonanza King was a man on whom the -beauty of women cast no spell. He was comparing -her with another and a more regally handsome girl. -Pussy Thurston would look insipid and insignificant -before the stately splendor of his own daughter.</p> - -<p>He smiled as he realized Mariposa’s superiority. -The young girl saw the smile, and said with the privileged -coquetry of a maid who all her life has known -herself favored above her fellows:</p> - -<p>“Why are you smiling all to yourself, Mr. Shackleton? -Can’t we know if it is something pleasant?”</p> - -<p>“I was looking at something pretty,” he answered, -his eyes full of amusement as they rested on her charming -face. “That generally makes people smile.”</p> - -<p>She was so used to such remarks that her rose-leaf -color did not vary the fraction of a shade. Maud, to -whom no one ever paid compliments, looked at her -with wistful admiration.</p> - -<p>“Is that all?” she said with an air of disappointment. -“I hoped it was something that would make us -all smile.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I have an idea that may make you all smile”—he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span> -turned to his wife—“how would you like to go -to Europe next spring, Bessie?”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Shackleton looked surprised and not greatly -elated. On their last trip to Europe, two years before, -her husband had been so bored by the joys of foreign -travel that she had made up her mind she would never -ask him to go again. Now she said:</p> - -<p>“But you don’t want to go to Europe. You said -last time you hated it.”</p> - -<p>“Did I? Yes, I guess I did. Well, I’m prepared -to like it this time. We could take a spin over in the -spring to London and Paris. We’d make quite a stay -in Paris, and you women could buy clothes. You’d -come, too, Pussy, wouldn’t you?” he said, turning to -the girl.</p> - -<p>Her color rose now and her eyes sparkled. She had -never been even to New York.</p> - -<p>“Wouldn’t I?” she said. “That <i>does</i> make me -smile.”</p> - -<p>“I thought so,” he answered good-humoredly—“and -Maud, you’d like it, of course?”</p> - -<p>Maud did not like the thought of going at all. In -this little party of four, two were moved in their actions -by secret predilections of which the others were -ignorant. Maud thought of leaving her love affair at -the critical point it had reached, and, with anguish at -her heart, looked heavily indifferent.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” she said, crumbling her bread, “I -don’t think it’s such fun in Europe. You just travel -round in little stuffy trains, and have to live in hotels -without baths.”</p> - -<p>“Well, you and I, Pussy,” said Shackleton, “seem to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span> -be the only two who’ve got any enthusiasm. You’ll -have to try and put some into Maud, and if the worst -comes to the worst we can kidnap the old lady.”</p> - -<p>He was in an unusually good temper, and the dinner -was animated and merry. Only Maud, after the European -suggestion, grew more stolidly quiet than ever. -But she cheered herself by the thought that the spring -was six months off yet, and who could tell what might -happen in six months?</p> - -<p>After dinner the ladies repaired to the music room, -and Shackleton, following a custom of his, passed -through one of the long windows into the garden, there -to pace up and down while he smoked his cigar.</p> - -<p>The night was warm and odorous with the scent of -hidden blossoms. Now and then his foot crunched the -gravel of a path, as his walk took him back and forth -over the long stretch of lawn broken by flower-beds -and narrow walks. The great bulk of the house, its -black mass illumined by congeries of lit windows, -showed an inky, irregular outline against the star-strewn -sky.</p> - -<p>Presently the sound of a piano floated out from the -music room. The man stopped his pacing, listened for -an instant, and then passed round to the side of the -house. The French windows of the music room were -opened, throwing elongated squares of light over the -balcony and the grass beyond. He paused in the darkness -and looked through one of them. There, like a -painting framed by the window casing, was Pussy -Thurston seated at the piano singing, while Maud sat -near by listening. One of Miss Thurston’s most admired -social graces was the gift of song. She had a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span> -small agreeable voice, and had been well taught; but -the light, frail tones sounded thin in the wide silence -of the night. It was the feebly pretty performance of -the “accomplished young lady.”</p> - -<p>Shackleton listened with a slight smile that increased -as the song drew to a close. As it ceased he moved -away, the red light of his cigar coming and going in -the darkness.</p> - -<p>“Singing!” he said to himself, “they call that singing! -Wait till they hear my daughter!”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER VII<br /> - - -<small>THE REVELATION</small></h3> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent3">“Praised be the fathomless universe</div> -<div class="indent2">For life and for joy and for objects and knowledge curious,</div> -<div class="indent">And for love, sweet love—but praise, praise, praise,</div> -<div class="verse">For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death,</div> -<div class="indent2">The night in silence under many a star,</div> -<div class="indent">The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I hear,</div> -<div class="verse">And the soul turning to thee, O vast and well-veiled Death,</div> -<div class="indent2">And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Whitman.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>From the day when Mrs. Willers had appeared with -the news of Shackleton’s interest in her daughter, -Lucy’s health had steadily waned. The process of decay -was so quiet, albeit so sure and swift, that Mariposa, -accustomed to the ups and downs of her mother’s -invalid condition, was unaware that the elder woman’s -sands were almost run. The pale intensity, the coldness -of the hand gripped round hers, that had greeted -her account of the recital at the Opera-House, seemed -to the girl only the reflection of her own eager exultation. -She was blind, not only from ignorance, but -from the egotistic preoccupations of her youth. It<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span> -seemed impossible to think of her mother’s failing in -her loving response, now that the sun was rising on -their dark horizon.</p> - -<p>But Lucy knew that she was dying. Her feeble body -had received its <i>coup de grâce</i> on the day that Mrs. -Willers brought the news of Shackleton’s wish to see -his child. Since then she had spent long hours in -thought. When her mind was clear enough she had -pondered on the situation trying to see what was best -to do for Mariposa’s welfare. The problem that faced -her terrified her. The dying woman was having the -last struggle with herself.</p> - -<p>One week after the recital at the Opera-House she -had grown so much worse that Mariposa had called -in the doctor they had had in attendance, off and on, -since their arrival. He was grave and there was a consultation. -When she saw their faces the cold dread -that had been slowly growing in the girl’s heart seemed -suddenly to expand and chill her whole being. Mrs. -Moreau was undoubtedly very ill, though there was -still hope. Yet their looks were sober and pitying as -they listened to the daughter’s reiterated asseverations -that her mother had often been worse and made a successful -rally.</p> - -<p>An atmosphere of illness settled down like a fog on -the little cottage. A nurse appeared; the doctors -seemed to be in the house many times a day. Mrs. -Willers, as soon as she heard, came up, no longer over-dressed -and foolish, but grave and helpful. After a -half-hour spent at Lucy’s bedside, wherein the sick -woman had spoken little, and then only about her -daughter, Mrs. Willers had gone to the office of <i>The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span> -Trumpet</i>, frowning in her sympathetic pain. It was -Saturday, and Shackleton had already left for Menlo -Park when she reached the office. But she determined -to see him early on Monday and tell him of the straits -of his old friend’s widow and child. Mrs. Willers -knew the signs of the scarcity of money, and knew also -the overwhelming expenses of sickness. What she did -not know was that on Friday morning Mariposa had -wept over her check-book, and then gone out and sold -the diamond brooch.</p> - -<p>The long Sunday—the interminable day of strained -anxiety—passed, shrouded in rain. When her mother -fell into the light sleep that now marked her condition, -Mariposa mechanically went to the window of the bedroom -and looked out. It was one of those blinding -rains that usher in the San Francisco winter, the water -falling in straight lances that show against the light like -thin tubes of glass, and strike the pavement with a -vicious impact, which splinters them into spray. It -drummed on the tin roof above the bedroom with an -incessant hollow sound, and ran in a torn ribbon of -water from the gutter on the eaves.</p> - -<p>The prospect that the window commanded seemed -in dreariness to match the girl’s thoughts. That part of -Pine Street was still in the unfinished condition described -by the words “far out.” Vacant lots yawned -between the houses; the badly paved roadbed was an -expanse of deeply rutted mud, with yellow ponds of -rain at the sewer mouths. The broken wooden sidewalk -gleamed with moisture and was evenly striped -with lines of vivid green where the grass sprouted between -the boards. Now and then a wayfarer hurried<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span> -by, crouched under the dome of an umbrella spouting -water from every rib.</p> - -<p>The gray twilight settled early, and Mariposa, dropping -the curtain, turned to the room behind her. The -light of a small fire and a shaded lamp sent a softened -glow over the apartment, which, despite its poverty, bespoke -the taste of gentlewomen in the simple prettiness -of its furnishings. The nurse, a middle-aged woman -of a kindly and capable aspect, sat by the fire in a -wicker rocking-chair, reading a paper. Beside her, on -a table, stood the sick-room paraphernalia of glasses -and bottles. The regular creak of the rocking-chair, -and an occasional snap from the fire, were the only -sounds that punctuated the steady drumming of the -rain on the tin roof.</p> - -<p>A Japanese screen was half-way about the bed, shutting -it from the drafts of the door, and in its shelter -Lucy lay sleeping her light, breathless sleep. In this -shaded light, in the relaxed attitude of unconsciousness, -she presented the appearance of a young girl -hardly older than her daughter. Yet the hand of death -was plainly on her, as even Mariposa could now see.</p> - -<p>Without sound the girl passed from the room to her -own beyond. Her grief had seized her, and the truth, -fought against with the desperate inexperience of -youth, forced itself on her. She threw herself on her -bed and lay there battling with the sickness of despair -that such knowledge brings. Twilight faded and darkness -came. In answer to the servant’s tap on the door, -and announcement of dinner, she called back that she -desired none. The room was as dark about her as her -own thoughts. From the door that led into the sick<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span> -chamber, only partly closed, a shaft of light cut the -blackness, and on this light she fastened her eyes, -swollen with tears, feeling herself stupefied with sorrow.</p> - -<p>As she lay thus on the bed, she heard the creaking of -the wicker-chair as the nurse arose, then came the clink -of the spoon and the glass, and the woman’s low voice, -and then her mother’s, stronger and clearer than it had -been for some days. There was an interchange of remarks -between nurse and patient, the sound of careful -steps, and the crack of light suddenly expanded as the -door was opened. Against this background, clear and -smoothly yellow as gold leaf, the nurse’s figure was -revealed in sharp silhouette.</p> - -<p>“Are you there, Miss Moreau?” she said in a low -voice. Mariposa started with a hurried reply.</p> - -<p>“Well, your mother wants to see you and you’d better -come. Her mind seems much clearer and it may -not be so again.”</p> - -<p>The girl rose from the bed trying to compose her -face. In the light of the open door the woman saw its -distress and looked at her pityingly.</p> - -<p>“Don’t tire her,” she said, “but I advise you to say -all you have to say. She may not be this way again.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa crossed the room to the bed. Her mother -was lying on her side, pinched, pale and with darkly -circled eyes.</p> - -<p>“Have you just waked up, darling?” said the girl, -tenderly.</p> - -<p>“No,” she answered, with a curious lack of response -in manner and tone; “I have been awake some time. I -was thinking.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span>“Why didn’t you send Mrs. Brown for me? I was -in my room passing the time till you woke up.”</p> - -<p>“I was thinking and I wanted to finish. I have been -thinking a long time, days and weeks.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa thought her mind was wandering, and sitting -down on a chair by the bedside, took her hand and -pressed it gently without speaking. Her mother lay -in the same attitude, her profile toward her, her eyes -looking vacantly at the screen. Suddenly she said:</p> - -<p>“You know my old desk, the little rose-wood one -Dan gave me? Take my keys and open it, and in the -bottom you’ll see two envelopes, with no writing. One -looks dirty and old. Bring them to me here.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa rose wondering, and looking anxiously at -her mother. The elder woman saw the look, and said -weakly and almost peevishly:</p> - -<p>“Go; be quick. I am not strong enough to talk long. -The keys are in the work-box.”</p> - -<p>The girl obeyed as quickly as possible. The desk -was a small one resting on the center-table. It had -been a present of her father’s to her mother, and she -remembered it from her earliest childhood in a prominent -position in her mother’s room. She opened it, -and in a few moments, under old letters, memoranda -and souvenirs, found the two envelopes. Carrying -them to the bed she gave them to her mother.</p> - -<p>Lucy took them with an unsteady hand, and for a -moment lay staring at her daughter and not moving. -Then she said:</p> - -<p>“Put the pillows under my head. It’s easier to -breathe when I’m higher,” and as Mariposa arranged<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span> -them, she added, in a lower voice: “And tell Mrs. -Brown to go; I want to be alone with you.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa looked out beyond the screen, and seeing -the nurse still reading the paper, told her to go to the -kitchen and get her dinner. The woman rose with -alacrity, and asking Mariposa to call her if the invalid -showed signs of fatigue, or any change, left the room.</p> - -<p>The girl turned back to the bedside and took the -chair. Lucy had taken from the dirty envelope a worn -and faded paper, which she slowly unfolded. As she -did so, she looked at her daughter with sunken eyes -and said:</p> - -<p>“These are my marriage certificates.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa, again thinking that her mind was wandering, -tried to smile, and answered gently:</p> - -<p>“Your marriage certificate, dear. You were only -married once.”</p> - -<p>“I was married twice,” said Lucy, and handed the -girl the two papers.</p> - -<p>Still supposing her mother slightly delirious, the -daughter took the papers and looked at them. The one -her eye first fell on was that of the original marriage. -She read the names without at first realizing whose -they were. Then the significance of the “Lucy Fraser” -came upon her. Her glance leaped to the second paper, -and at the first sweep of her eyes over it she saw it was -the marriage certificate of her father and mother, -Daniel Moreau and Lucy Fraser, dated at Placerville -twenty-five years before. She turned back to the other -paper, now more than bewildered. She held it near her -face, as though it were difficult to read, and in the dead<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span> -silence of the room it began to rustle with the trembling -of her hand. A fear of something hideous and overwhelming -seized her. With pale lips she read the -names, and the date, antedating by five years the other -certificate.</p> - -<p>“Mother!” she cried, in a wild voice of inquiry, dropping -the paper on the bed.</p> - -<p>Lucy, raised on her pillows, was looking at her with -a haggard intentness. All the vitality left in her expiring -body seemed concentrated in her eyes.</p> - -<p>“I was married twice,” she said slowly.</p> - -<p>“But how? When? What does it mean? Mother, -what does it mean?”</p> - -<p>“I was married twice,” she repeated. “In St. Louis -to Jake Shackleton, and in Placerville, five years after, -to Dan Moreau. And I was never divorced from Jake. -It was not according to the law. I was never Dan’s -lawful wife.”</p> - -<p>The girl sat staring, the meaning of the words slowly -penetrating her brain. She was too stunned to speak. -Her face was as white as her mother’s. For a tragic -moment these two white faces looked at each other. -The mother’s, with death waiting to claim her, was -void of all stress or emotion. The daughter’s, waking -to life, was rigid with horrified amaze.</p> - -<p>Propped by her pillows, Lucy spoke again; her sentences -were short and with pauses between:</p> - -<p>“Jake Shackleton married me in St. Louis when I -was fifteen. He was soon tired of me. We went to -Salt Lake City. He became a Mormon there, and took -a second wife. She was a waitress in a hotel. She’s -his wife now. He brought us both to California twenty-five<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span> -years ago. On the way across, on the plains of -Utah, you were born. He is your father, Mariposa.”</p> - -<p>She made an effort and sat up. Her breathing was -becoming difficult, but her purpose gave her strength. -This was the information that for weeks she had been -nerving herself to impart.</p> - -<p>“He is your father,” she repeated. “That’s what I -wanted to tell you.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa made no answer, and again she repeated:</p> - -<p>“He is your father. Do you understand? Answer -me.”</p> - -<p>“Yes—I don’t know. Oh, mother, it’s so strange -and horrible. And you sitting there and looking at me -like that, and telling it to me! Oh,—mother!”</p> - -<p>She put her hands over her face for an instant, and -then dropping them, leaned over on the bed and -grasped her mother’s wrists.</p> - -<p>“You’re wandering in your mind. It’s just some hideous -dream you’ve had in your fever. Dearest, tell me -it’s not true. It can’t be true. Why, think of you and -me and father always together and with no dreadful -secret behind us like that. Oh—it can’t be true!”</p> - -<p>Lucy looked at the papers lying brown and torn on -the white quilt. Mariposa’s eyes followed the same -direction, and with a groan her head sank on her arms -extended along the bed. Her mother’s hand, cold and -light, was laid on one of hers, but the dying woman’s -face was held in its quiet, unstirred apathy, as she -spoke again:</p> - -<p>“Jake was hard to me on the trip. He was a hard -man and he never loved me. After Bessie came he got -to dislike me. I was always a drag, he said. I couldn’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span> -seem to get well after you were born. Coming over the -Sierras we stopped at a cabin. Dan was there with -another man, a miner, called Fletcher. That was the -first time I ever saw Dan.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa lifted her head and her eyes fastened on -her mother’s face. The indifference that had held it -seemed breaking. A faint smile was on her lips, a light -of reminiscence lit its gray pallor.</p> - -<p>“He was always good to anything that was sick or -weak. He was sorry for me. He tried to make Jake -stop longer, so I could get rested. But Jake wouldn’t. -He said I had to go on. I couldn’t, but knew I must, -if he said it. We were going to start when Jake said -he’d exchange me for the pair of horses the two miners -had in the shed. So he left me and took the horses.”</p> - -<p>“Exchanged you for the horses? Left you there sick -and alone?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Jake and Bessie went on with the horses. I -stayed. I was too sick to care.”</p> - -<p>She made a slight pause, either from weakness, or in -an effort to arrange the next part of her story.</p> - -<p>“I lived there with them for a month. I was sick -and they took care of me. Then one day Fletcher -stole all the money and the only horse and never came -back. We were alone there then, Dan and I. I got -better. I came to love him more each day. We were -snowed in all winter, and we lived as man and wife. In -the spring we rode into Hangtown and were married.”</p> - -<p>She stopped, a look of ineffable sweetness passed -over her face, and she said in a low voice, as if speaking -to herself:</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span>“Oh, that beautiful winter! There is a God, to be so -good to women who have suffered as I had.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa sat dumbly regarding her. It was like a -frightful nightmare. Everything was strange, the sick-room, -the bed with the screen around it, her mother’s -face with its hollow eyes and pinched nose. Only the -two old dirty papers on the white counterpane seemed -to say that this was real.</p> - -<p>Lucy’s eyes, which had been looking back into that -glorified past of love and youth, returned to her daughter’s -face.</p> - -<p>“But Jake is your father,” she said. “That’s what I -had to tell you. He’ll be good to you. That was why -he wanted to find you and help you.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Mariposa, dully, “I understand that -now; that was why he wanted to help me.”</p> - -<p>“He’ll be good to you,” went on the low, weak voice, -interrupted by quick breaths. “I know Jake. He’ll be -proud of you. You’re handsome and talented, not -weak and poor spirited, as I was. You’re his only legitimate -child; the others are not; they were born in California. -They’re Bessie’s children, and I was his only -real wife. You’ll let him take care of you? Oh, Mariposa, -my darling, I’ve told you all this that you might -understand and let him take care of you.”</p> - -<p>She made a last call on her strength and leaned forward. -Her dying body was re-vivified; all her mother’s -agony of love appeared on her face. In determining -to destroy the illusions of her child to secure her -future, she had made the one heroic effort of her life. -It was done, and for a last moment of relief and triumph -she was thrillingly alive.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>Mariposa, in a spasm of despair, threw herself forward -on the bed.</p> - -<p>“Oh, why did you tell me? Why did you tell me?” -she cried. “Why didn’t you let me think it was the way -it used to be? Why did you tell me?”</p> - -<p>Lucy laid her hand on the bowed head.</p> - -<p>“Because I wanted you to understand and let him be -your father.”</p> - -<p>“My father! That man! Oh, no, no!”</p> - -<p>“You must promise me. Oh, my beloved child, I -couldn’t leave you alone. It seemed as if God had said -to me, ‘Die in peace. Her father will care for her.’ I -couldn’t go and leave you this way, without a friend. -Now I can rest in peace. Promise to let him take care -of you. Promise.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, mother, don’t ask me. What have you just told -me? That he sold you to a stranger for a pair of -horses, left you to die in a cabin in the mountains! -That’s not my father. My father was Dan Moreau. I -can do nothing but hate that other man now.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t blame him, dear, the past is over. Forgive -him. Forgive me. If I sinned there were excuses for -me. I had suffered too much. I loved too well.”</p> - -<p>Her voice suddenly hesitated and broke. A gray -pallor ran over her face and a look of terror transfixed -her eyes. She straightened her arms out toward her -daughter.</p> - -<p>“Promise,” she gasped, “promise.”</p> - -<p>With a spring Mariposa snatched the drooping body -in her arms and cried into the face, settling into cold -rigidity:</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span>“Yes—yes—I promise! All—anything. Oh, mother, -darling, look at me. I promise.”</p> - -<p>She gently shook the limp form, but it was nerveless, -only the head oscillated slightly from side to side.</p> - -<p>“Mother, look at me,” she cried frantically. “Look -at me, not past me. Come back to me. Speak to me, I -promise everything.”</p> - -<p>But there was no response. Lucy lay, limp and -white-lipped, her head lolling back from the support of -her daughter’s arm. Her strength was exhausted to -the last drop. She was unconscious.</p> - -<p>The wild figure of Mariposa at the kitchen door summoned -Mrs. Brown. Lucy was not dead, but dying. -A few moments later Mariposa found herself rushing -hatless through the rain for the doctor, and then again, -in what seemed a few more minutes, standing, soaked -and breathless, by her mother’s side. She sat there -throughout the night, holding the limp hand and -watching for a glimmer of consciousness in the half-shut -eyes.</p> - -<p>It never came. There was no rally from the collapse -which followed the mother’s confession. She had lived -till this was done. Then, having accomplished the -great action of her life, she had loosed her hold and let -go. Once, Mrs. Brown being absent, Mariposa had -leaned down on the pillow and passionately reiterated -the assurance that she would give the promise Lucy -had asked. There was a slight quiver of animation in -the dying woman’s face and she opened her eyes as if -startled, but made no other sign of having heard or understood. -But Mariposa knew that she had promised.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span>On the evening of the day after her confession Lucy -died, slipping away quietly as if in sleep. The death -of the simple and unknown lady made no ripple on the -surface of the city’s life. Mrs. Willers and a neighbor -or two were Mariposa’s sole visitors, and the only -flowers contributed to Lucy’s coffin were those sent by -the newspaper woman and Barry Essex. The afternoon -of the day on which her mother’s death was announced, -Mariposa received a package from Jake -Shackleton. With it came a short note of condolence, -and the offer, kindly and simply worded, of the small -sum of money contained in the package, which, it was -hoped, Miss Moreau, for the sake of the writer’s early -acquaintance with her parents and interest in herself, -would accept. The packet contained five hundred dollars -in coin.</p> - -<p>Mariposa’s face flamed. The money fell through her -fingers and rolled about on the floor. She would have -liked to take it, piece by piece, and throw it through -the window, into the mud of the street. She felt that -her horror of Shackleton augmented with every passing -moment, gripped her deeper with every memory of -her mother’s words, and every moment’s perusal of the -calm, dead face in its surrounding flowers.</p> - -<p>But her promise had been given. She picked up the -money and put it away. Her promise had been given. -Already she was beginning dimly to realize that it -would bind and cramp her for the rest of her life. She -was too benumbed now fully to grasp its meaning, but -she felt feebly that she would be its slave as long as he -or she lived. But she had given it.</p> - -<p>The money lay untouched throughout the next few<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span> -days, Lucy’s simple funeral ceremonies being paid for -with the proceeds of the sale of the diamond brooch, -which Moreau had given her in the early days of their -happiness.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER VIII<br /> - - -<small>ITS EFFECT</small></h3> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent6">“Flower o’ the peach,</div> -<div class="verse">Death for us all, and his own life for each.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Browning.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>Jake Shackleton did not come up from San Mateo on -Monday, as Mrs. Willers expected, and the first intimation -he had of Lucy’s death was the short notice in -the paper.</p> - -<p>He had come down the stairs early on Tuesday -morning into the wide hall, with its doors thrown open -to the fragrant air. With the paper in his hand, he -stood on the balcony looking about and inhaling the -freshness of the morning. The rain had washed the -country clean of every fleck of dust, burnished every -leaf, and had called into being blossoms that had been -awaiting its summons.</p> - -<p>From beneath the shade made by the long, gnarled -limbs of the live-oaks, the perfume of the violets rose -delicately, their crowding clusters of leaves a clear -green against the base of the hoary trunks. The air -that drifted in from the idle, yellow fields beyond was -impregnated with the breath of the tar-weed—one of -the most pungent and impassioned odors Nature has -manufactured in her vast laboratory, characteristic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span> -scent to rise from the dry, yet fecund grass-lands of -California. In the perfect, crystalline stillness these -mingled perfumes rose like incense to the new day.</p> - -<p>Shackleton looked about him, the paper in his hand. -He had little love for Nature, but the tranquil-scented -freshness of the hour wrung its tribute of admiration -from him. What an irony that the one child he had, -worth having gained all this for, should be denied it. -Mariposa, thus framed, would have added the last -touch to the triumphs of his life.</p> - -<p>With an exclamation of impatience he sat down on -the top step, and opening the paper, ran his glance -down its columns. He had been looking over it for -several minutes before the death notice of Lucy struck -his eye. It took away his breath. He read it again, at -first not crediting it. He was entirely unprepared, -having merely thought of Lucy as “delicate.” Now she -was dead.</p> - -<p>He dropped the paper on his knee and sat staring out -into the garden. The news was more of a shock than -he could have imagined it would be. Was it the lately -roused pride in his child that had reawakened some -old tenderness for the mother? Or was it that the -thought of Lucy, dead, called back memories of that -shameful past?</p> - -<p>He sat, staring, till a step on the balcony roused him, -and turning, he saw his son. Win, though only twenty-three, -was of the order of beings who do not look -well in the morning. He was slightly built and thin -and had a rasped, pink appearance, as though he felt -cold. Stories were abroad that Win was dissipated, -stories, by the way, that were largely manufactured by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span> -himself. He was at that age when a reputation for -deviltry has its attractions. In fact, he was amiable, -gentle and far too lacking in spirit to be the desperate -rake he liked to represent himself. He had a wholesome -fear of his father, whose impatience against him -was not concealed by surface politeness as in Maud’s -case.</p> - -<p>Standing with his hands in his trousers’ pockets, his -chest hollowed, his red-rimmed eyes half shut behind -the <i>pince-nez</i> he always wore, and his slight mustache -not sufficient to hide a smile, the foolishness of which -rose from embarrassment, he was not a son to fill a -father’s heart with pride.</p> - -<p>“Howdy, Governor,” he said, trying to be easy; then, -seeing the paper in his father’s hand, folded back at the -death notices, “anybody new born, dead, or married -this morning?”</p> - -<p>His voice rasped unbearably on his father’s mood. -The older man gave him a look over his shoulder, with -a face that made the boy quail.</p> - -<p>“Get away,” he said, savagely; “get in the house and -leave me alone.”</p> - -<p>Win turned and entered the house. The foolish smile -was still on his lips. Pride kept it there, but at heart -he was bitterly wounded.</p> - -<p>At the foot of the stairway he met his mother.</p> - -<p>“You’d better not go out there,” he said, with a -movement of his head in the direction of his father; -“it’s as much as your life’s worth. The old man’ll bite -your nose off if you do.”</p> - -<p>“Is your father cross?” asked Bessie.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span>“Cross? He oughtn’t to be let loose when he’s like -that.”</p> - -<p>“Something in the paper must have upset him,” said -Bessie. “He was all right this morning before he came -down. Something on the stock market’s bothered -him.”</p> - -<p>“Maybe so,” said his son, with a certain feeling. -“But that’s no reason why he should speak to me like a -dog. He goes too far when he speaks to me that way. -There isn’t a servant in the house would stand it.”</p> - -<p>He balanced back and forth on his toes and heels, -looking down, his face flushed. It would have been -hard to say—such was the characterless insignificance -of his appearance—whether he was really hurt, as a -man would be in his heart and his pride, or only momentarily -stung by a scornful word.</p> - -<p>Bessie passed him and went out on the balcony. Her -husband was still sitting on the steps, the paper in his -hand.</p> - -<p>“What is it, Jake?” she said. “Win says you’re -cross. Something gone wrong?”</p> - -<p>“Lucy’s dead,” he answered, rising to his feet and -handing her the paper.</p> - -<p>She paled a little as she read the notice. Then, raising -her eyes, they met his. In this look was their -knowledge of the secret that both had struggled to -keep, and that now, at last, was theirs.</p> - -<p>For the second time in a half-year, Death had -stepped in and claimed one of the four whose lives -had touched so briefly and so momentously twenty-five -years before.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>“Poor Lucy!” said Bessie, in a low voice. “But they -say she was very happy with Moreau. You can do -something for your—for the girl now.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he said; “I’ll think it over. I won’t be down -to breakfast. Send up some coffee.”</p> - -<p>He went upstairs and locked himself in his library. -He could not understand why the news had affected -him so deeply. It seemed to make him feel sick. He -did not tell Bessie that he had gone upstairs because -he felt too ill and shaken to see any one.</p> - -<p>All morning he sat in the library, with frowning -brows, thinking. At noon he took the train for the -city and, soon after its arrival, despatched to Mariposa -the five hundred dollars. He had no doubt of her -accepting it, as it never crossed his mind that Lucy, at -the last moment, might have told.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The days that followed her mother’s funeral passed -to Mariposa like a series of gray dreams, dreadful, -with an unfamiliar sense of wretchedness. The preoccupation -of her mother’s illness was gone. There were -idle hours, when she sat in her rooms and tried to realize -the full meaning of Lucy’s last words. She would -sit motionless, staring before her, her heart feeling -shriveled in her breast. Her life seemed broken to -pieces. She shrank from the future, with the impossibilities -she had pledged herself to. And the strength -and inspiration of the beautiful past were gone. All -the memories of that happy childhood and young -maidenhood were blasted. It was natural that the -shock and the subsequent brooding should make her -view of the subject morbid. The father that she had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span> -grown up to regard with reverential tenderness, had -not been hers. The mother, who had been a cherished -idol, had hidden a dark secret. And she, herself, was -an outsider from the home she had so deeply loved—child -of a brutal and tyrannical father—originally -adopted and cared for out of pity.</p> - -<p>It was a crucial period in her life. Old ideals were -gone, and new ones not yet formed. There seemed -only ruins about her, and amid these she sought for -something to cling to, and believe in. With secret passion -she nursed the thought of Essex—all she had left -that had not been swept away in the deluge of this -past week.</p> - -<p>Fortunately for her, the business calls of the life of -a woman left penniless shook her from her state of -brooding idleness. The cottage was hers for a month -longer, and despite the impoverished condition of the -widow, there was a fair amount of furniture still left -in it that was sufficiently valuable to be a bait to the -larger dealers. Mariposa found her days varied by -contentions with men, who came to stare at the great -red lacquer cabinet and investigate the interior condition -of the marquetry sideboard. When the month -was up she was to move to a small boarding-house, -kept by Spaniards called Garcia, that Mrs. Willers, in -her varying course, included among her habitats. The -Garcias would not object to her piano and practising, -and it was amazingly cheap. Mrs. Willers herself had -lived there in one of her periods of eclipse, and knew -them to be respectable denizens of a somewhat battered -Bohemia.</p> - -<p>“But you’re going to be a Bohemian yourself, being<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span> -a musical genius,” she said cheerfully. “So you won’t -mind that.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa did not think she would mind. In the -chaotic dimness of the dismantled front parlor she -looked like a listless goddess who would not mind -anything.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Willers thought her state of dreary apathy -curious and spoke of it to Shackleton, whom she now -recognized as the girl’s acknowledged guardian. He -had listened to her account of Mariposa’s broken condition -with expressionless attention.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it natural, all things considered, that a girl -should be broken-hearted over the death of a devoted -mother? And, as I understand it, Miss Moreau is -absolutely alone. She has no relatives anywhere. It’s -a pretty bleak outlook.”</p> - -<p>“That’s true. I never saw a girl left so without -connections. But she worries me. She’s so silent, and -dull, and unlike herself. Of course, it’s been a terrible -blow. I’d have thought she’d been more prepared.”</p> - -<p>He shrugged his shoulders, stroking his short beard -with his lean, heavily-veined hand. It amused him to -see the way Mrs. Willers was quietly pushing him into -the position of the girl’s sponsor. And at the same -time it heightened his opinion of her as a woman of -capacity and heart. She would be an ideal chaperone -and companion for his unprotected daughter.</p> - -<p>“When she feels better,” he said, “I wish you’d -bring her down here again. Don’t bother her until -she feels equal to it. But I want to talk to her about -Lepine’s ideas for her. I saw him again and he gave -me a lot of information about Paris and teachers and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span> -all the rest of it. Before we make any definite arrangements -I’ll have to see her and talk it all over.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Willers went back triumphant to Mariposa to -report this conversation. It really seemed to clinch -matters. The Bonanza King had instituted himself -her guardian and backer. It meant fortune for Mariposa -Moreau, the penniless orphan.</p> - -<p>To her intense surprise, Mariposa listened to her -with a flushed and frowning face of indignation.</p> - -<p>“I won’t go,” she said, with sudden violence.</p> - -<p>“But, my dear!” expostulated Mrs. Willers, “your -whole future depends on it. With such an influence -to back you as that, your fortune’s made. And listen -to me, honey, for I know,—it’s not an easy job for a -woman to get on who’s alone and as good-looking as -you are.”</p> - -<p>“I won’t go,” repeated Mariposa, angry and obstinate.</p> - -<p>“But why not, for goodness’ sake?”—in blank amaze. -“What’s come over you? Is it your mourning? You -know your mother’s the last person who’d want you to -sit indoors, moping like a snail in a shell, when your -future was waiting for you outside the door.”</p> - -<p>Her promise rose up before Mariposa’s mental vision -and checked the angry reiteration that was on her lips. -She turned away, suddenly, tremulous and pale.</p> - -<p>“Don’t talk about it any more,” she answered, “but -I <i>can’t</i> go now. Perhaps later on, but not now—I can’t -go now.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Willers shrugged her shoulders, and was wisely -silent. Mariposa’s grief was making her unreasonable, -that was all. To Shackleton she merely said that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span> -the girl was too ill and overwrought to see any one -just yet. As soon as she was herself again Mrs. Willers -would bring her to <i>The Trumpet</i> office for the interview -that was to be the opening of the new era.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER IX<br /> - - -<small>HOW COULD HE</small></h3> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent">“Man is the hunter; woman is his game,</div> -<div class="verse">The sleek and shining creatures of the chase.</div> -<div class="verse">We hunt them for the beauty of their skins;</div> -<div class="indent">They love us for it, and we ride them down.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Tennyson.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>The month of Mariposa’s tenantry of the cottage -was up. It was the last evening there, and she sat -crouched over a handful of fire that burned in the -front parlor grate. The room was half empty, all the -superfluous furniture having been taken that morning -by a Jewish second-hand dealer. In one corner stood -huddled such relics as she had chosen to keep, and -which would be borne away on the morrow to the -Garcias’ boarding-house. The marquetry sideboard -was gone. It had been sold to a Sutter Street dealer -for twenty-five dollars. The red lacquer cabinet, though -no longer hers, still remained. It, too, would be carried -away to-morrow morning by its new owners. She -looked at it with melancholy glances as the firelight -found and lost its golden traceries and sent sudden -quivering gleams along its scarlet doors. The fire was -less a luxury than an economy, to burn the last pieces -of coal in the bin.</p> - -<p>Bending over the dancing flames, Mariposa held her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span> -hands open to the blaze, absently looking at their backs. -They were fine, capable hands, large and white, with -strong wrists and a forearm so round that its swell -began half-way between elbow and wrist-bone. Pleased -by the warmth that soothed the chill always induced -by a sojourn in the front parlor, she pulled up her -sleeves and watched the gleam of the fire turn the -white skin red. She was sitting thus, when a ring at -the bell made her start and hurriedly push her sleeves -down. Her visitors were so few that she was almost -certain of the identity of this one. For all the griefs -of the last month she was yet a woman. She sprang -to her feet, and as the steps of the servant sounded in -the hall, ran to the large mirror in the corner and -patted and pulled her hair to the style she thought most -becoming.</p> - -<p>She had turned from this and was standing by the -fire when Essex entered. He had seen her once since -her mother’s death, but she had then been so preoccupied -with grief that, with a selfish man’s hatred -of all unpleasant things, he had left her as soon as -possible. To-night he saw that she was recovering, -that, physically at least, she was herself again. But -he was struck, almost as soon as his eye fell on her, by -a change in her. Some influence had been at work to -effect a subtile and curious development in her. The -simplicity, the something childish and winning that -had always seemed so inconsistent with her stately appearance, -was gone. Mariposa was coming to herself. -His heart quickened its beats as he realized she was -handsomer, richer by some inward growth, more a -woman than she had been a month ago.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span>He took a seat at the other side of the fire, and the -tentative conversation of commonplaces occupied them -for a few moments. The silence that had held her in -a spell of dead dejection on his former visit was -broken. She seemed more than usually talkative. In -fact, Mariposa was beginning to feel the reaction from -the life of grief and seclusion of the last month. She -was violently ashamed of the sense of elation that had -surged up in her at the sound of Essex’s voice. She -struggled to hide it, but it lit a light in her eyes, called -a color to her cheeks that she could not conceal. The -presence of her lover affected her with a sort of embarrassed -exultation that she had never experienced -before. To hide it she talked rapidly, looking into the -fire, to which she still held out her hands.</p> - -<p>Essex, from the other side of the hearth, watched -her. He saw his arrival had made her nervous, and -it only augmented the sentiment that had been growing -in him for months.</p> - -<p>She began to tell him of her move.</p> - -<p>“I’m going to-morrow, in the afternoon. It’s a -queer place, an old house on Hyde Street, with a big -pepper-tree, the biggest in the city, they say, growing -in the front garden. It was once quite a fine house, -long ago in the early days, and was built by these -people, the Garcias, when they still had money. Then -they lost it all, and now the old lady and her son’s -wife take a few people, as the house is too big for them -and they are so poor. Young Mrs. Garcia is a widow. -Her husband was killed in the mines by a blast.”</p> - -<p>“It sounds picturesque. Do they speak English?”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>“The señora, that’s the old lady, doesn’t. She has -lived here since before the Gringo came, but she can’t -speak any English at all. The daughter-in-law is an -American, a Southerner. She looked very untidy the -day I went there. I’m afraid I’ll be homesick. You’ll -come to see me sometimes, won’t you?”</p> - -<p>There was no coquetry in the remark. Her dread of -loneliness was all that spoke.</p> - -<p>Essex met her eyes, dark and wistful, and nodded -without speaking.</p> - -<p>She looked back at the fire and again spread her -hands to it, palms out.</p> - -<p>“It’s—it’s—rather a dilapidated sort of place,” she -continued after a moment’s pause, “but perhaps I’ll -get used to it.”</p> - -<p>There was distinct pleading for confirmation in this. -Her voice was slightly husky. Essex, however, with -that perversity which marked all his treatment of her, -said:</p> - -<p>“Do you think you will? It’s difficult for a woman -to accommodate herself to such changed conditions—I -mean a woman of refinement, like you.”</p> - -<p>She continued feebly to make her stand.</p> - -<p>“But my conditions have changed so much in the last -two or three years. I ought to be used to it; it’s not -as if it was the first time. Before my father got sick -we were so comfortable. We were rich and had quantities -of beautiful things like that cabinet. And as they -have gone, one by one, so we have come down bit by -bit, till I am left like this.”</p> - -<p>She made a gesture to include the empty room and -turned back to the fire.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>“But you won’t stay like this,” he said, throwing a -glance over the bare walls.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you think so?” she said, looking into the -fire with dejected eyes. “You’re kind to try to cheer -me up.”</p> - -<p>“You can be happy, protected and cared for, with -your life full of sunshine and joy—”</p> - -<p>He stopped. Every step he took was of moment, -and he was not the type of man to forgive himself a -mistake. Mariposa was looking at him, frowning -slightly.</p> - -<p>“How do you mean?” she said. “With my voice?”</p> - -<p>“No,” he answered, in a tone that suddenly thrilled -with meaning, “with me.”</p> - -<p>That quivering pause which falls between a man and -woman when the words that will link or sever them for -life are to be spoken, held the room. Mariposa felt -the terrified desire to arrest the coming words that is -the maiden’s last instinctive stand for her liberty. But -her brain was confused, and her heart beat like a hammer.</p> - -<p>“With me,” Essex repeated, as the pause grew unbearable. -“Is there no happiness for you in that -thought?”</p> - -<p>She made no answer, and suddenly he moved his -chair close to her side. She felt his eyes fastened on -her and kept hers on the fire. Her other offers of marriage -had not been accomplished with this stifling -sense of discomfort.</p> - -<p>“I’ve thought,” his deep voice went on, “that you -cared for me—a little. I’ve watched, I’ve desponded.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span> -But lately—lately—” he leaned toward her and lowered -his voice—“I’ve hoped.”</p> - -<p>She still made no answer. It seemed to her none -was necessary or possible.</p> - -<p>“Do you care?” he said softly.</p> - -<p>She breathed a “yes” that only the ear of love could -have heard.</p> - -<p>“Mariposa, dearest, do you mean it?” He leaned -over her and laid his hand on hers. His voice was -husky and his hand trembling. To the extent that -was in him he loved this woman.</p> - -<p>“Do you love me?” he whispered.</p> - -<p>The “yes” was even fainter this time. He raised the -hand he held to his breast and tried to draw her into -his arms.</p> - -<p>She resisted, and turned on him a pale face, where -emotions, never stirred before, were quivering. She -was moved to the bottom of her soul. Something in -her face made him shrink a little. With her hand -against his breast she gave him the beautiful look of -a woman’s first sense of her surrender. He stifled the -sudden twinge of his conscience and again tried to -draw her close to him. But she held him off with the -hand on his breast and said—as thousands of girls say -every year:</p> - -<p>“Do you really love me?”</p> - -<p>“More than the whole world,” he answered glibly, -but with the roughened voice of real feeling.</p> - -<p>“Why?” she said with a tremulous smile, “why -should you?”</p> - -<p>“Because you are you.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span>“But I’m just a small insignificant person here, -without any relations, and poor, so poor.”</p> - -<p>“Those things don’t matter when a man loves a -woman. It’s you I want, not anything you might have -or might be.”</p> - -<p>“But you’re so clever and have lived everywhere -and seen everything, and I’m so—so countrified and -stupid.”</p> - -<p>“You’re Mariposa. That’s enough for me.”</p> - -<p>“All I can bring you for my portion is my heart.”</p> - -<p>“And that’s all I want.”</p> - -<p>“You love me enough to marry me?”</p> - -<p>His eyes that had been looking ardently into her face, -shifted.</p> - -<p>“I love you enough to be a fool about you. Does -that please you?”</p> - -<p>Her murmured answer was lost in the first kiss of -love that had ever been pressed on her lips. She drew -back from it, pale and thrilled, not abashed, but looking -at her lover with eyes before which his drooped. -It was a sacred moment to her.</p> - -<p>“How wonderful,” she whispered, “that you should -care for me.”</p> - -<p>“It would have been more wonderful if I hadn’t.”</p> - -<p>“And that you came now, when everything was so -dark and lonely. You don’t know how horribly lonely -I felt this evening, thinking of leaving here to-morrow -and going among strangers.”</p> - -<p>“But that’s all over now. You need never be lonely -again. I’ll always be there to take care of you. We’ll -always be together.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span>“Don’t you think things often change when they get -to their very worst? It seemed to me to-night that I -was just about to open a door that led into the world, -where nobody cared for me, or knew me, or wanted -me.”</p> - -<p>“One person wanted you, desperately.”</p> - -<p>“And then, all in a moment, my whole life is changed. -It’s not an hour ago that I was sitting here looking -into the fire thinking how miserable I was, and now—”</p> - -<p>“You are in my arms!” he interrupted, and drew -her against him for his kiss. She turned her face -away and pressed it into his shoulder, as he held her -close, and said:</p> - -<p>“We’ll go to Europe, to Italy—that’s the country for -you, not this raw Western town where you’re like some -exotic blossom growing in the sand. You’ve never seen -anything like it, with the gray olive trees like smoke -on the hillsides, and the white walls of the villas -shining among the cypresses. We’ll have a villa, and -we can walk on the terrace in the evening and look -down on the valley of the Arno. It’s the place for -lovers, and we’re going to be lovers, Mariposa.”</p> - -<p>Still she did not understand, and said happily:</p> - -<p>“Yes, true lovers for always.”</p> - -<p>“And then we’ll go to France, and we’ll see Paris—all -the great squares with the lights twinkling, and -the Rue de Rivoli with gas lamps strung along it like -diamonds on a thread. And the river—it’s black at -night with the bridges arching over it, and the lamps -stabbing down into the water with long golden zigzags. -We’ll go to the theaters and to the opera, and you’ll -be the handsomest woman there. And we’ll drive<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span> -home in an open carriage under the starlight, not saying -much, because we’ll be so happy.”</p> - -<p>“And shall I study singing?”</p> - -<p>“Of course, with the best masters. You’ll be a great -prima donna some day.”</p> - -<p>“And I shan’t have to be sent by Mr. Shackleton? -Oh, I shall be so glad to tell him I’m going with you.”</p> - -<p>Essex started—looked at her frowning.</p> - -<p>“But you mustn’t do that,” he said with a sudden, -authoritative change of key.</p> - -<p>“Why not?” she answered. “You know he was to -send me. I promised my mother I would let him take -care of me. But now that I’m going to be married, -my—my—husband will take care of me.”</p> - -<p>She looked at him with a girl’s charming embarrassment -at the first fitting of this word to any breathing -man, and blushed deeply and beautifully. Essex felt -he must disillusion her. He looked into the fire.</p> - -<p>“Married,” he said slowly. “Well, of course, if we -were married—”</p> - -<p>He stopped, gave her a lightning side glance. She -was smiling.</p> - -<p>“Well, of course we’ll be married,” she said. “How -could we go to Europe unless we were?”</p> - -<p>Still avoiding her eyes, which he knew were fixed -on him in smiling inquiry, he said in a lowered voice:</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, we could.”</p> - -<p>“How—I don’t understand?”</p> - -<p>For the first time there was a faint note of uneasiness -in her voice. Though his glance was still bent on the -fire, he knew that she was no longer smiling.</p> - -<p>“We could go easily, without making any talk or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span> -fuss. Of course we could not leave here together. -I’d meet you in Chicago or New York.”</p> - -<p>He heard her dress rustle as she instinctively drew -away from him.</p> - -<p>“Meet me in New York or Chicago?” she repeated. -“But why meet me there? I don’t understand. Why -not be married here?”</p> - -<p>He turned toward her and threw up his head as a -person does who is going to speak emphatically and at -length. Only in raising his head his eyes remained on -the ground.</p> - -<p>“My dear girl,” he said in a suave tone, “you’ve -lived all your life in these small, half-civilized California -towns, and there are many things about life -in larger and more advanced communities you don’t -understand. I’ve just told you I loved you, and you -know that your welfare is of more moment to me than -anything in the world. I would give my heart’s blood -to make you happy. But I am just now hardly in a -position to marry. You must understand that.”</p> - -<p>It was said. Mariposa gave a low exclamation and -rose to her feet. He rose, too, feeling angry with -her that she had forced him to this banal explanation. -There were times when her stupidity could be exasperating.</p> - -<p>She was very pale, her eyes dark, her nostrils expanded. -On her face was an expression of pitiful bewilderment -and distress.</p> - -<p>“Then—then—you didn’t want to <i>marry</i> me?” she -stammered with trembling lips.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I want to,” he said with a propitiatory shrug.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span> -“Of course I <i>want</i> to. But one can’t always do what -one wants. Under the circumstances, as I tell you, -marriage is impossible.”</p> - -<p>She could say nothing for a moment, the first -stunned moment of comprehension. Then she said in -a low voice, still with her senses scattered, “And I -thought you meant it all.”</p> - -<p>“Meant what? that I love you? Don’t you trust me? -Don’t you believe me? You must acknowledge I understand -life better than you do.”</p> - -<p>She looked at him straight in the eyes. The pain -and bewilderment had left her face, leaving it white -and tense. He realized that she was not going to -weep and make moan—the wound had gone deeper. -He had stabbed her to the heart.</p> - -<p>“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t understand about -life as you do. I didn’t understand that a man could -talk to a woman as you have done to me and then -strike her such a blow. It’s too new to me to learn -quickly. I—I—can’t—understand yet. I can’t say -anything to you, only that I don’t ever want to see -you, or hear you, or think of you again.”</p> - -<p>“My dearest girl,” he said, going a step toward her, -“don’t be so severe. You’re like a tragedy queen. -Now, what have I done?”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t think that a man could have the heart -to wound any woman so—any living creature, and one -who cared as I did—” she stopped, unable to continue.</p> - -<p>“But I wouldn’t wound you for the world. Haven’t -I just told you I loved you?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, go,” she said, backing away from him. “Go! -go away. Never come near me again. You’ve debased<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span> -and humiliated me forever, and I’ve kissed you -and told you I loved you. Why can’t I creep into -some corner and die?”</p> - -<p>“Mariposa, my darling,” he said, raising his eyebrows -with a theatrical air of incomprehension, “what -is it? I’m quite at sea. You speak to me as if I’d -done you a wrong, and all I’ve done is to offer you my -deepest devotion. Does that offend you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, horribly—horribly!” she cried furiously. “Go—go -out of my sight. If you’ve got any manliness or -decency left, go—I can’t bear any more.”</p> - -<p>She pressed her hands on her face and turned from -him.</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t do that,” he said tenderly, approaching -her. “Does my love make you unhappy? A half-hour -ago it was not like this.”</p> - -<p>He suddenly, but gently, attempted to take her in -his arms. Though she did not see she felt his touch, -and with a cry of horror tore herself away, rushed -past him into the adjoining room, and from that into -her bedroom beyond. The bang of the closing door -fell coldly upon Essex’s ear.</p> - -<p>He stood for a moment listening and considering. -He had a fancy that she might come back. The house -was absolutely silent. Then, no sound breaking its -stillness, no creak of an opening door echoing through -its bare emptiness, he walked out into the hall, put -on his hat and overcoat and let himself out. He was -angry and disgusted. In his thoughts he inveighed -against Mariposa’s stupidity. The unfortunately downright -explanation had aroused her wrath, and he did -not know how deep that might be. Only as he recalled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span> -her ordering him from the room he realized that it was -not the fictitious rage he had seen before and understood.</p> - -<p>Mariposa stood on the inside of her room door, holding -the knob and trying to suppress her breathing that -she might hear clearly. She heard his steps, echoing -on the bare floor with curious distinctness. They were -slow at first; then there was decision in them; then the -hall door banged. She leaned against the panel, her -teeth pressed on her underlip, her head bowed on her -breast.</p> - -<p>“Oh, how could he? how could he?” she whispered.</p> - -<p>A tempest of anguish shook her. She crept to the -bed and lay there, her face buried in the pillow, motionless -and dry-eyed, till dawn.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER X<br /> - - -<small>THE PALE HORSE</small></h3> -</div> - - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Nicanor lay dead in his harness.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Maccabees.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>The day broke overcast and damp, one of those depressing -days of still, soft grayness that usher in the -early rains, when the air has a heavy closeness and the -skies seem to sag with the weight of moisture that is -slow to fall.</p> - -<p>There was much to do yet in the rifled cottage. -Mariposa rose to it wan and heavy-eyed. The whirl -of her own thoughts during the long, sleepless night -had not soothed her shame and distress. She found -herself working doggedly, with her heart like lead in -her breast, and her mouth feeling dry as the scene of -the evening before pressed forward to her attention. -She tried to keep it in the background, but it would not -down. Words, looks, sentences kept welling up to the -surface of her mind, coloring her cheeks with a miserable -crimson, filling her being with a sickness of despair. -The memory of the kisses followed her from -room to room, and task to task. She felt them on her -lips as she moved about, the lips that had never known -the kiss of a lover, and now seemed soiled and smirched -forever.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span>After luncheon the red lacquer cabinet went away. -She watched it off as the last remnant of the old life. -She felt strangely indifferent to what yesterday she -thought would be so many unbearable wrenches. -Finally nothing was left but her own few possessions, -gathered together in a corner of the front room—two -trunks, a screen, a table, a long, old-fashioned mirror -and some pictures. Yesterday morning she had bargained -with a cheap carter, picked up on the street -corner, to take them for a dollar, and now she sat waiting -for him, while the day grew duller outside, and -the fog began to sift itself into fine rain.</p> - -<p>The servant, who was to close and lock the cottage, -begged her to go, promising to see to the shipping of -the last load. Mariposa needed no special urging. She -felt that an afternoon spent in that dim little parlor, -looking out through the bay window at the fine slant -of the rain would drive her mad. There was no promise -of cheer at the Garcia boarding-house, but it was, -at least, not haunted with memories.</p> - -<p>A half-hour later, with the precious desk, containing -the marriage certificates and Shackleton’s gift of -money, under her arm, she was climbing the hills from -Sutter Street to that part of Hyde Street in which the -Garcia house stood. She eyed it with deepening gloom -as it revealed itself through the thin rain. It was a -house which even then was getting old, standing back -from the street on top of a bank, which was held in -place by a wooden bulk-head, surmounted by a low -balustrade. A gate gave access through this, and a -flight of rotting wooden steps led by zigzags to the -house. The lower story was skirted in front by a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span> -balcony, which, after the fashion of early San Francisco -architecture, was encased in glass. Its roof -above slanted up to the two long windows of the front -bedroom. The pepper-tree, of which Mariposa had -spoken to Essex, was sufficient to tell of the age of the -property and to give beauty and picturesqueness to the -ramshackle old place. It had reached an unusual -growth and threw a fountain of drooping foliage over -the balustrade and one long limb upon the balcony roof.</p> - -<p>To-day it dripped with the rest of the world. As -Mariposa let the gate bang the impact shook a shower -from the tree, which fell on her as she passed beneath. -It seemed to her a bad omen and added to the almost -terrifying sensation of gloom that was invading her.</p> - -<p>Her ring at the bell brought the whole Garcia family -to the door and the hall. A child of ten—the elder of -the young Mrs. Garcia’s boys—opened it. He was -in the condition of moisture and mud consequent on -a game of baseball on the way home from school. Behind -him crowded a smaller boy—of a cherubic beauty—arrayed -in a very dirty sailor blouse, with a still -dirtier wide white collar, upon which hung locks of -wispy yellow hair. Mrs. Garcia, the younger, came -drearily forward. She was a thin, pretty, slatternly, -young woman, very baggy about the waist, and with -the same wispy yellow hair as her son, which she wore -in the popular bang. It had been smartly curled in -the morning, but the damp had shown it no respect, -and it hung down limply nearly into her eyes. Back -of her, in the dim reaches of the hall, Mariposa saw the -grandmother, the strange old Spanish woman, who -spoke no English. She looked very old, and small,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span> -and was wrinkled like a walnut. But as she encountered -the girl’s miserable gaze she gave her a gentle -reassuring smile, full of that curious, patient sweetness -which comes in the faces of the old who have lived -kindly.</p> - -<p>The younger members of the family escorted the new -arrival upstairs. She had seen her room before, had -already placed therein her piano and many of her -smaller ornaments, but its bleakness struck her anew. -She stopped on the threshold, looking at its chill, half-furnished -extent with a sudden throttling sense of -homesickness. It was a large room, evidently once the -state bedroom of the house, signs of its past glory lingering -in the elaborate gilt chandelier, the white wall-paper, -strewed with golden wheat-ears, and the marble -mantelpiece, with carvings of fruit at the sides. Now -she saw with renewed clearness of vision the threadbare -carpet, with a large ink-stain by the table, the -rocking-chair with one arm gone, the place on the -wall behind the sofa where the heads of previous -boarders had left their mark.</p> - -<p>“Your clock don’t go,” said the cherubic boy in a -loud voice. “I’ve tried to make it, but it only ticks -a minute and then stops.”</p> - -<p>“There!” said Mrs. Garcia, with a gesture of collapsed -hopelessness, “he’s been at your clock! I knew -he would. Have you broken her clock?” fiercely to the -boy.</p> - -<p>“No, I ain’t,” he returned, not in the least overawed -by the maternal onslaught. “It were broke when it -came.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span>“He did break it,” said the other boy suddenly. “He -opened the back door of it and stuck a hairpin in.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Garcia made a rush at her son with the evident -intention of administering corporal punishment on the -spot. But with a loud, derisive shout, he eluded her -and dashed through the doorway. Safe on the stairs, -he cried defiantly:</p> - -<p>“I ain’t done it, and no one can prove it.”</p> - -<p>“That’s the way they always act,” said Mrs. Garcia -despondently, pushing up her bang so that she could -the better see her new guest. “It’s no picnic having -no husband and having to slave for everybody.”</p> - -<p>“Grandma slaves, too,” said the rebel on the stairway; -“she slaves more’n you do, and Uncle Gam slaves -the most.”</p> - -<p>Further revelations were stopped by another ring at -the bell. Visitors were evidently rare, for everybody -but Mariposa flew to the hall and precipitated themselves -down the stairs. In the general interest the recent -battle was forgotten, the rebel earning his pardon -by getting to the door before any one else. The new-comer -was Mariposa’s expressman. She had already -seen through her window the uncovered cart with her -few belongings glistening with rain.</p> - -<p>The driver, a grimy youth in a steaming blouse, was -standing in the doorway with the wet receipt flapping -in his hand.</p> - -<p>“It’s your things,” yelled the boys.</p> - -<p>“Tell him to bring them up,” said Mariposa, who -was now at the stair-head herself.</p> - -<p>The man stepped into the hall and looked up at her. -He had a singularly red and impudent face.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>“Not till I get my two dollars and a half,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Two dollars and a half!” echoed Mariposa in -alarm, for a dollar was beginning to look larger to -her than it ever had done before. “It was only a dollar.”</p> - -<p>“A dollar!” he shouted. “A dollar for that load!”—pointing -to the street—“say, you’ve got a gall!”</p> - -<p>Mariposa flushed. She had never been spoken to -this way before in her life. She leaned over the balustrade -and said haughtily:</p> - -<p>“Bring in my things, and when they’re up here I -will give you the dollar you agreed upon.”</p> - -<p>The man gave a loud, derisive laugh.</p> - -<p>“That beats anything!” he said, and then roared -through the door to his pard: “Say, she wants to give -us a dollar for that load. Ain’t that rich?”</p> - -<p>There was a moment’s silence in the hall. A vulgar -wrangle was almost impossible to the girl at the juncture -to which the depressing and hideous events of the -last few weeks had brought her. Yet she had still a -glimmer of spirit left, and her gorge rose at the impudent -swindle.</p> - -<p>“I won’t pay you two dollars and a half, and I will -have my things,” she said. “Bring them up at once.”</p> - -<p>The man laughed again, this time with an uglier -note.</p> - -<p>“I guess not, young woman,” he said, lounging -against the balustrade. “I guess you’ll have to fork -out the two fifty or whistle for your things.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa made no answer. Her hand shaking with -rage, she began to fumble in her pocket for her purse. -The whole Garcia family, assembled in the hallway beneath,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span> -breathed audibly in the tense excitement of the -moment, and kept moving their eyes from her to the -expressman and back again. The Chinaman from the -kitchen had joined them, listening with the charmed -smile which the menials of that race always wear on -occasions of domestic strife.</p> - -<p>“Say,” said the man, coming a step up the stairs and -assuming a suddenly threatening air, “I can’t stay -fooling round here all day. I want my money, and I -want it quick. D’ye hear?”</p> - -<p>Mariposa’s hand closed on the purse. She would -have now paid anything to escape from this hateful -scene. At the same moment she heard a door open -behind her, a quick step in the hall, and a man suddenly -stood beside her at the stair-head. He was in his shirt-sleeves -and he had a pen in his hand.</p> - -<p>The expressman, who had mounted two or three -steps, saw him and recoiled, looking startled.</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter with you?” said the new-comer -shortly.</p> - -<p>“I want my money,” said the man doggedly, but retreating.</p> - -<p>“Who owes you money? And what do you mean -by making a row like this in this house?”</p> - -<p>“I owe him money,” said Mariposa. “I agreed to -pay him a dollar for carrying my things here, and now -he wants two and a half and won’t give me my -things unless I pay it. But I’ll pay what he wants -rather than fight this way.”</p> - -<p>She was conscious of a slight, amused smile in the -very keen and clear gray eyes the man beside her -fastened for one listening moment on her face.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span>“Get your dollar,” he said, “and don’t bother any -more.” Then in a loud voice down the stairway: -“Here, step out and get the trunks and don’t let’s have -any more talk about it. Ching,” to the Chinaman, “go -out and help that man with this lady’s things.”</p> - -<p>The Chinaman came forward, still grinning. The -expressman for a moment hesitated.</p> - -<p>“Look here,” said the man in the shirt-sleeves, “I -don’t want to have to come downstairs, I’m busy.”</p> - -<p>The expressman, with Ching behind him, hurried -out.</p> - -<p>Mariposa’s deliverer stood at the stair-head watching -them and slightly smiling. Then he turned to her. -She was again conscious of how gray and clear his eyes -looked in his sunburned face.</p> - -<p>“I was writing a letter in my room, and I heard the -sound of strife long before I realized what was happening. -Why didn’t you call me?”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t know there was any one there,” she answered.</p> - -<p>“Well, the boys ought to have known. Why didn’t -one of you little beggars come for me?” he said to the -two boys, who were clambering slowly up the outside -of the balustrade staring from the deliverer to the expressman, -now advancing up the steps with Mariposa’s -belongings.</p> - -<p>“I liked to see ’em fight,” said the smaller. “I -liked it.”</p> - -<p>“You little scamp,” said the man, and, leaning over -the stair-rail, caught the ascending cherub by the slack -of his knickerbockers and drew him upward, shrieking<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span> -delightedly. On the landing he gave him a slight -shake, and said:</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to hear any more of that kind of talk. -Next time there’s a fight, call me.”</p> - -<p>The expressman and Ching had now entered laden -with the luggage. They came staggering up the stairs, -scraping the walls with the corners of the trunks and -softly swearing. Mariposa started for her room, followed -by the strange man and the two boys.</p> - -<p>Her deliverer was evidently a person to whom the -usages of society were matters of indifference. He -entered the room without permission or apology and -stood looking inquiringly about him, his glance passing -from the bed to the wide, old-fashioned bureau, the -rocking-chair with its arm off and the ink-stain on the -carpet. As the men entered with their burdens, he -said:</p> - -<p>“You look as if you’d be short of chairs here. I’ll -see that you get another rocker to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa wondered if Mrs. Garcia was about to -end her widowhood and this was the happy man.</p> - -<p>He stood about as the men set down the luggage, -and watched the transfer of the dollar from Mariposa’s -white hand to the dingy one of her late enemy. The -boys also eyed this transaction with speechless attention, -evidently anticipating a second outbreak of hostilities. -But peace had been restored and would evidently -rule as long as the sunburned man in the shirt-sleeves -remained.</p> - -<p>This he appeared to intend doing. He suggested a -change in the places of one or two of Mariposa’s pieces -of furniture, and showed her how she could use her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span> -screen to hide the bed. He looked annoyed over a -torn strip of loose wall-paper that hung dejected, revealing -a long seam of plaster like a seared scar. Then -he went to the window and pushed back the curtains of -faded rep.</p> - -<p>“There’s a nice view from here on sunny days down -into the garden.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa felt she must show interest, and went to -the window, too. The pane was not clean, and the -view commanded nothing but the splendid fountain-like -foliage of the pepper-tree and below a sodden strip -of garden in which limp chrysanthemums hung their -heads, while a ragged nasturtium vine tried to protest -its vigor by flaunting a few blossoms from the top of -the fence. It seemed to her the acme of forlornness. -The crescendo of the afternoon’s unutterable despondency -had reached its climax. Her sense of desolation -welled suddenly up into overwhelming life. It -caught her by the throat. She made a supreme effort, -and said in a shaken voice:</p> - -<p>“It looks rather damp now.”</p> - -<p>Her companion turned from the window.</p> - -<p>“Here, boys, scoot,” he said to the two boys who -were attempting to open the trunks with the clock -key. “You’ve got no business hanging round here. -Go down and study your lessons.”</p> - -<p>They obediently left the room. Mariposa heard their -jubilantly clamorous descent of the stairs. She made -no attempt to leave the window, or to speak to the man, -who still remained moving about as if looking for -something. The light was growing dim in the dark -wintry day, but the girl still stood with her face to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span> -pane. She knew that if the tears against which she -fought should come there would be a deluge of them. -Biting her lips and clenching her hands, she stood peering -out, speechless, overwhelmed by her wretchedness.</p> - -<p>Presently the man said, as if speaking to himself:</p> - -<p>“Where the devil are the matches? Elsie’s too careless -for anything.”</p> - -<p>She heard him feeling about on shelves and tables, -and after a moment he said:</p> - -<p>“Did you see where the matches were? I want to -light the gas.”</p> - -<p>“There aren’t any,” she answered without turning.</p> - -<p>He gave a suppressed exclamation, and, opening -the door, left the room.</p> - -<p>With the withdrawal of his restraining presence the -tension snapped. Mariposa sank down in the chair -near the window and the tears poured from her eyes, -tears in torrential volume, such as her mother had shed -twenty-five years before in front of Dan Moreau’s -cabin.</p> - -<p>Her grief seized her and swept her away. She shook -with it. Why could she not die and escape from this -hideous world? It bowed her like a reed before a -wind, and she bent her face on the chair arm and trembled -and throbbed.</p> - -<p>She did not hear the door open, nor know that her -solitude was again invaded, till she heard the man’s -step beside her. Then she started up, strangled with -sobs and indignation.</p> - -<p>“Is it you again?” she cried. “Can’t you see how -miserable I am?”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span>“I saw it the moment I came out of my room this -afternoon,” he answered quietly. “I’m sorry I disturb -you. I only wanted to light the gas and get the place -a little more cheerful and warm. It’s too cold in here. -You go on crying. Don’t bother about me; I’m going -to light the fire.”</p> - -<p>She obeyed him, too abject in her misery to care. -He lit all the gases in the gilt chandelier, and then -knelt before the fireplace. Soon the snapping of the -wood contested the silence with the small, pathetic -noises of the woman’s weeping. She felt—at first without -consciousness—the grateful warmth of the blaze. -Presently she removed the wad of saturated handkerchief -from her face. The room was inundated by a -flood of light, the leaping gleam of the flames licking -the glaze of the few old-fashioned ornaments and -evoking uncertain gleams from the long mirror standing -on the floor in the corner. The man was sitting -before the fire. He had his coat on now, and Mariposa -could see that he was tall and powerful, a bronzed and -muscular man of about thirty-five years of age, with a -face tanned to mahogany color, thick-brown hair and -a brown mustache. His hand, as it rested on his knee, -caught her eye; it was well formed, but worn as a -laborer’s.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you want to come and sit near the fire?” he -said, without moving his head.</p> - -<p>She murmured a negative.</p> - -<p>“I see that your clock is all off,” he continued. -“There’s something the matter with it. I’ll fix it for -you this evening.”</p> - -<p>He rose and lifted the clock from the mantelpiece.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span> -It was a small timepiece of French gilt, one of the -many presents her father had given her mother in their -days of affluence.</p> - -<p>As he lifted it Mariposa suddenly experienced a return -of misery at the thought that he was going. At -the idea of being again left to herself her wretchedness -rushed back upon her with redoubled force. She felt -that the flood of tears would begin again.</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t go,” she said, with the imploring urgency -of old friendship. “I’m so terribly depressed. Don’t -go.”</p> - -<p>Her lips trembled, her swollen eyes were without -light or beauty. She was as distinctly unlovely as a -handsome woman can be. The man, however, did not -look at her. He had opened the door of the clock -and was studying its internal machinery. He answered -quietly:</p> - -<p>“I’ll have to go now for a while. I must finish my -letter. It’s got to go out to-night, but I was going to -ask you if you wouldn’t like to have your supper up -here? It’s now a little after five; at six o’clock I’ll -bring it, and if you don’t mind, I’ll bring mine up, -too. I just take tea and some bread and butter and -jam or stuff—whatever Elsie happens to have round. -If you’d like it, you fix up the table and get things into -some sort of shape.”</p> - -<p>He walked toward the door. With the handle in -his hand he said:</p> - -<p>“You don’t mind my taking mine up here, too, do -you? If you do, just say so.”</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t mind,” said Mariposa, in the stifled voice -of the weeper.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span>When he had gone she listlessly tried to create some -kind of order in the chaotic room. She felt exhausted -and indifferent. Once she found herself looking at -her watch with a sort of heavy desire to have the time -pass quickly. She dreaded her loneliness. She caught -a glimpse of herself in the chimney-piece glass and felt -neither shame nor disgust at her unsightly appearance.</p> - -<p>At six o’clock she heard the quick, decisive step in -the hall that earlier in the afternoon had broken in on -her wrangle with the expressman. A knock came on -the door that sounded exceedingly like a kick bestowed -under difficulties. She opened it, and her new friend -entered bearing a large tray set forth with the paraphernalia -of a cold supper and with the evening paper -laid on top. He put it on the cleared table, and together -they lifted off its contents and set them forth. -There was cold meat, jam, bread and butter, a brown -pottery teapot with the sprout broken and two very -beautiful cups, delicate and richly decorated. Then -they sat down, one at each side of the table, and the -meal began.</p> - -<p>Mariposa did not care to eat. Sitting under the -blaze of the gilt chandelier, with the firelight gilding -one side of her flushed and disfigured face, she poured -out the tea, while her companion attacked the cold meat -with good appetite. The broken spout leaked, and she -found herself guiltily regarding the man opposite, as -she surreptitiously tried to sop up with a napkin the -streams of tea it sent over the table-cloth.</p> - -<p>He appeared to have the capacity for seeing anything -that occurred in his vicinity.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span>“Never mind the teapot,” he said, with his mouth -full; “it always does that. It’s no good getting a new -one. I think the boys break them. Elsie says they -play boats with them in the bath-tub.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa made no reply, and the meal progressed -in silence. Presently her <i>vis-à-vis</i> held out his cup -for a second filling.</p> - -<p>“What beautiful cups,” she said. “It would be a -pity to break them.”</p> - -<p>“They’re grandma’s. They’re the only two left. -Grandma had some stunning things, brought round -The Horn by her husband in the early days, before the -Gringo came. He was a great man in his day, Don -Manuel Garcia.”</p> - -<p>“Is she your grandmother, too?” Mariposa asked. -It seemed natural to put pointblank questions to this -man, who so completely swept aside the smaller conventions.</p> - -<p>“Mine? Oh, Lord, no. My poor old granny died -crossing the plains in ’49. I was there, but I don’t -remember it. I call old lady Garcia grandma, because -I’m here so much, and because I look upon them as my -family.”</p> - -<p>“Do you live here always?” asked Mariposa, looking -with extinguished eyes over the piece of bread she was -nibbling.</p> - -<p>“No, I live at the mines. I’m a miner. My stamping-ground’s -the whole Sierra from Siskiyou to Tuolumne.”</p> - -<p>He looked at her with a queer, whimsical smile. -His strong white teeth gleamed for a moment from between -his bearded lips.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span>“I’m up at the Sierra a lot of the time,” he continued, -“and then I’m down here a lot more of the time. I -come here to find my victims. I locate a good prospect -in the Sierra, and I come down here to sell it. -That’s my business.”</p> - -<p>“What’s your name?” asked Mariposa suddenly, -hearing herself ask this last and most pertinent question -with the dry glibness of an interviewer.</p> - -<p>“My name? Great Scott, you don’t know it!” he -threw back his head and a jolly, sonorous laugh filled -the room. “That’s great, you and I sitting here together -over supper as if we’d grown up together in -the same nursery, and you don’t know what my name -is. It’s Gamaliel Barron. Do you like it?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Mariposa, gravely, “it’s a very nice -name.”</p> - -<p>“I’m glad you think so. I can’t say I’m much attached -to the front end of it. It’s a Bible name. I -haven’t the least idea who the gentleman was, or what -he did, but he’s in the Bible somewhere.”</p> - -<p>“Saul sat at his feet,” said Mariposa; “he was a great -teacher.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m afraid his namesake isn’t much like him. -I never taught anybody anything, and certainly no -one ever sat at my feet, and I’d hate it if they did.”</p> - -<p>There was another pause, while Barron continued -his supper with unabated gusto. He had finished the -cold meat and was now spreading jam on bread and -butter and eating it, with alternate mouthfuls of tea. -Though he ate rapidly, as one accustomed to take his -meals alone, he ate like a gentleman. She found herself<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span> -regarding him with a listless curiosity, faintly -wondering what manner of man he was.</p> - -<p>Looking up he met her eyes and said:</p> - -<p>“You’ll be very comfortable here. Don’t let the first -glimpse discourage you. Elsie’s careless, and the boys -are pretty wild, but they’re all right when you come -to know them better, and grandma’s fine. There’s -not many women in San Francisco to match old Señora -Garcia. She’s the true kind.”</p> - -<p>“What a pity her son died!” said Mariposa.</p> - -<p>He raised his head instantly and an expression of -pain passed over his face.</p> - -<p>“You’re right, there,” he said in a low voice. “That -was one of the hardest things that ever happened. If -there’s a God I’d like to know why he let it happen. -Juan Garcia was the salt of the earth—a great man. -He was the best son, the best husband and the best -friend I ever knew. And he was killed offhand, for -no reason, by an unnecessary accident, leaving these -poor, helpless creatures this way.”</p> - -<p>He made a gesture with his head toward the door.</p> - -<p>“You knew him well?” said Mariposa.</p> - -<p>The gray eyes looked into hers very gravely.</p> - -<p>“He was my best friend,” he answered; “the best -friend any man ever had in the world.”</p> - -<p>The girl saw he was moved.</p> - -<p>“The people we love, and depend on, and live for -always die,” she said gloomily.</p> - -<p>“But others come up. They don’t quite take their -places, but they fill up the holes in the ranks. We’re -not expected always to love comfortably and be happy. -We’re expected to work; that’s what we’re here for,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span> -and there’s plenty of it to do. Haven’t I got my work -cut out for me,” suddenly laughing, “in those two -boys?”</p> - -<p>Mariposa’s pale lips showed the ripple of an assenting -smile.</p> - -<p>“They’re certainly a serious proposition,” he continued, -“and poor Elsie can’t any more manage ’em than -she could ride a bucking bronco. But they’ll pull out -all right. Don’t you worry. Those boys are all right.”</p> - -<p>He was about to return to the remnants of the supper -when his eyes fell on the folded paper, which had -been pushed to one side of the table.</p> - -<p>“Oh, look!” he said; “we forgot the paper. You’ve -finished; wouldn’t you like to see it?”</p> - -<p>She shook her head. The paper had not much interest -for her at the best of times.</p> - -<p>“Well, then, if you don’t mind, I’ll run my eye over -it, while you make me another cup of tea. Three cups -are my limit—one lump and milk.”</p> - -<p>He handed her the cup, already shaking the paper -out of its folds. She was struggling with the leakage -of the broken spout, when he gave a loud ejaculation:</p> - -<p>“Great Scott! here’s news!”</p> - -<p>“What is it?” she queried, the broken teapot suspended -over the cup.</p> - -<p>“Jake Shackleton’s dead!”</p> - -<p>The teapot fell with a crash on the table. Her -mouth opened, her face turned an amazing pallor, and -she sat staring at the astonished man with horror-stricken -eyes.</p> - -<p>“Dead!” she gasped; “why everybody’s dead!”</p> - -<p>Barron dropped the paper on the floor.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span>“I’m so awfully sorry; I didn’t know you knew him -well. I didn’t know he was a friend.”</p> - -<p>“Friend!” she echoed, almost with a shriek. -“Friend! Why, he was my father.”</p> - -<p>The voice ended in a wild peal of laughter, horrible, -almost maniacal.</p> - -<p>The man, paying no attention to her words, realized -that the strain of the day and her overwhelming depression -of spirits had completely unbalanced her. -Her wild laughter suddenly gave way to wilder tears. -In a moment he ran to the door to summon the señora, -but in the next, remembered that Elsie and the boys -would undoubtedly accompany her, and that the -woman before him was in no state to be exposed to -their uncomprehending stares.</p> - -<p>Hysterics were new to him, but he had a vague idea -that water administered suddenly from a pitcher was -the only authorized cure. He seized the pitcher from -the wash-stand, began to sprinkle her somewhat timidly -with his fingers, and finally ended by pouring a -fair amount on her head.</p> - -<p>It had the desired effect. Gasping, saturated, but -dragged back to some sort of control, by the chill current -running from her head in rillets over her body, -Mariposa sat up. The man was standing before her, -anxiously regarding her, the pitcher held ready for -another application. She pushed it away with an icy -hand.</p> - -<p>“I’m all right now,” she gasped. “You’d better go. -And—and—if I said anything silly, you understand, I -didn’t know what I was saying. I meant—that Mr. -Shackleton was a <i>friend</i> of my father’s. He’s been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span> -very good to me. It gave me an awful shock. Please -go.”</p> - -<p>Barron set down the pitcher and went. He was -overcome with pity for the broken creature, and furious -with himself for the shock he had given her. The -words she had uttered had made little impression on -him at first. It was afterward, while he was in the -silence of his own room, that they recurred to him with -more significance. For a space he thought of the remark -and her explanation of it with some wonder. -But before he settled to sleep, he had pushed the matter -from his mind, setting it down as the meaningless -utterance of an hysterical woman.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XI<br /> - - -<small>BREAKS IN THE RAIN</small></h3> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="first">“I had no time to hate because</div> -<div class="verse">The grave would hinder me,</div> -<div class="verse">And life was not so simple I</div> -<div class="indent">Could finish enmity.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Dickinson.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>For two days after her hysterical outburst Mariposa -kept her room, sick in body and mind. The quick -succession of nerve-shattering events, ending with the -death of Shackleton, seemed to stun her. She lay -on the sofa, white and motionless, irresponsive even to -the summons of the boys, who drummed cheerfully on -her door as soon as they came home from school.</p> - -<p>Fortunately for her, solitude was as difficult to find -in that slipshod <i>ménage</i> as method or order. When -the boys were at school, young Mrs. Garcia, in the -disarray that attended the accomplishment of her -household tasks, mounted to her first-floor boarder -and regaled her with mingled accounts of past splendors -and present miseries. Mrs. Garcia spoke freely -of her husband and the affluence with which he had -surrounded her. The listener, looking at the faded, -blond prettiness of her foolish face, wondered how -the Juan Garcia that Gamaliel Barron had described -could have loved her. Mariposa had yet to learn that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span> -Nature mates the strong men of the world to the feeble -women, in an effort to maintain an equilibrium.</p> - -<p>Once or twice the old señora came upstairs, carrying -some dainty in a covered dish. She had been born -at Monterey and had come to San Francisco as a bride -in the late fifties, but had never learned English, speaking -the sonorous Spanish of her girlhood to every one -she met, whether it was understood or not. Even in -the complete wreck of fortune and position, in which -Mariposa saw her, she was a fine example of the highest -class of Spanish Californian, that once brilliant and -picturesque race, careless, simple, lazy, happy, lords -of a kingdom whose value they never guessed, possessors -of limitless acres on which their cattle grazed.</p> - -<p>The day after Shackleton’s death Mrs. Willers appeared, -still aghast at the suddenness of the catastrophe. -Mariposa did not know that a few days previously, -Shackleton had acquainted the newspaper -woman with his intention of sending her to Paris with -Miss Moreau, the post of correspondent to <i>The Trumpet</i> -being assigned to her. It had been the culminating -point of Mrs. Willers’ life of struggle. Now all that -lay shattered. Be it said to her credit her disappointment -was more for the girl than for herself. She -knew that Shackleton had made no definite arrangements -for the starting of Mariposa on her way. All -had been <i>in statu quo</i>, attending on the daughter’s recovery -from her mother’s loss. Now death had stepped -in and forever closed the door upon these hopes.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Willers found Mariposa strangely apathetic. -She had tried to cheer her and then had seen, to her -amazement, that the girl showed little disappointment.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span> -That the sudden blow had upset her was obvious. She -undoubtedly looked ill. But the wrenching from her -hand of liberty, independence, possibilities of fame, -seemed to affect her little. She listened in silence -to Mrs. Willers’ account of the Bonanza King’s -death. As an “inside writer” on <i>The Trumpet</i> the -newspaper woman had heard every detail of the tragic -event discussed threadbare in the perturbed office. -Shackleton had been found, as the paper stated, sitting -at his desk in the library at Menlo Park. He had been -writing letters when death called him. His wife had -come in late at night and found him thus, leaning on -the desk as if tired. It was an aneurism, the doctors -said. The heart had been diseased for years. No one, -however, had had any idea of it. Poor Mrs. Shackleton -was completely prostrated. It was not newspaper -talk that she was in a state of collapse.</p> - -<p>“And it was enough to collapse any woman,” said -Mrs. Willers, with a sympathetic wag of the head, “to -come in and find your husband sitting up at his desk -stone dead. And a good husband, too. It would -have given me a shock to have found Willers that -way, and even an obituary notice in the paper of which -he was proprietor could hardly have called Willers a -good husband.”</p> - -<p>Two days’ rest restored Mariposa to some sort of -balance. She still felt weak and stunned in heart and -brain. The lack of interest she had shown to Mrs. -Willers had been the outward sign of this internal benumbed -condition. But as she slowly dressed on the -morning of the third day, she felt a slight ripple of -returning life, a thawing of these congealed faculties.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span> -She heard the quick, decisive step of Barron in the -hallway outside, and then its stoppage at her door, -and his call through the crack, “How are you this -morning? Better?”</p> - -<p>“Much,” she answered; “I’m getting up.”</p> - -<p>“First-rate. Couldn’t do better. Get a move on and -go out. It’s a day that would put life into a mummy. -I’d take you out myself, but I’ve got to go down town -and lasso one of my victims.”</p> - -<p>Then he clattered down the stairs. Mariposa had -not seen him since their supper together. Every morning -he had stopped and called a greeting of some sort -through the door. She shrank from meeting him -again. The extraordinary remark she had made to -him haunted her. The only thing that appeased her -was the memory of his face, in which there was no -consciousness of the meaning of her words, only consternation -and amaze at the effect his news had produced.</p> - -<p>It was, indeed, a wonderful day. Through her -parted curtains she saw details of the splendor in the -bits of turquoise sky between the houses, and the vivid -greens of the rain-washed gardens. When the sun -was well up, and the opened window let in delicious -earth scents, she put on her hat and jacket and went -out, turning her steps to that high spine of the city -along the crest of which California Street runs.</p> - -<p>Has any place been found where there are finer days -than those San Francisco can show in winter? “The -breaks in the rain,” old Californians call them. It is -the rain that gives them their glory, for the whole -world has been washed clean and gleams like an agate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span> -beneath a wave. The skies reflect this clearness of -tint. There are no clouds. The whole arch is a rich -blue, fading at the horizon to a thin, pale transparency. -The landscape is painted with a few washes of fresh -primary colors, each one deep, but limpid, like the -tints in the heart of a gem. And in this crystalline -purity of atmosphere every line is cut with unfaltering -distinctness. There is no faintness, no breath of haze, -or forgotten film of fog. Nature seems even jealous of -the smoke wreaths that rise from the city to blur the -beauty of the mighty picture, and the gray spirals are -hurriedly dispersed.</p> - -<p>Mariposa walked slowly, ascending by a zigzag -course from street to street, idly looking at the houses -and gardens as she passed. People of consideration -had for some time been on the move from South Park -to this side of town. The streets through which the -young girl’s course led her were now the gathering -place of the city’s successful citizens. On the heights -above them, the new millionaires were raising palaces, -which they were emulating on the ascending slopes. -Great houses reared themselves on every sunny corner. -The architecture of the bay-windowed mansion -with the two lions sleeping on the front steps had supplanted -that of the dignified, plastered-brick fronts, -with the long lines of windows opening on wrought-iron -balconies.</p> - -<p>These huge wooden edifices housed the wealth and -fashion of the city. Mariposa paused and stood with -knit brows, looking down from a vantage-point on the -glittering curve of greenhouse and the velvet lawns -of Jake Shackleton’s town house; there was no sign of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span> -life or occupation about it. Curtains of lace veiled its -innumerable windows. Only in the angle of lawn and -garden that abutted on the intersection of two streets, -a man, in his shirt-sleeves, was cutting calla lilies from -the hedge that topped the high stone wall which rose -from the sidewalk.</p> - -<p>Finally, on the crest of the hill, where California -Street runs between its palaces, the girl paused and -looked about her. The great buildings were new, and -stood, vast, awe-compelling monuments to California’s -material glory. Their owners were still trying to make -themselves comfortable in them. There were sons and -daughters to be married from them. Perched high -above the city, in these many-windowed aeries, they -could look down on the town they had seen grow from -a village in the days when they, too, had been young, -poor and struggling. What memories must have -crowded their minds as they thought of the San Francisco -they had first seen, and the San Francisco they -saw now; of themselves as they had been then, and as -they were now!</p> - -<p>Mariposa leaned against a convenient wall top and -looked down. The city lay clear-edged and gray in -the cup made by its encircling hills. It had not yet -thrown out feelers toward the Mission hills, and they -rose above the varied sweep of roof and chimney, in -undulating greenness, flecked here and there by the -white dot of a cottage. The girdle of the bay shone -sapphire-blue on this day of still sunshine. From its -farther side other hills were revealed, each peak and -shoulder clear cut against its neighbor and defining -themselves in a crumpled, cobalt line against the faint<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span> -sky. Over all Mount Diavolo rose, a purple point, -pricking up above the green of newly grassed hills, -about whose feet hung a white fringe of little towns.</p> - -<p>Turning her eyes again on the descending walls and -roofs, the watcher saw a long cortège passing soberly -between the gray house-fronts on a street a few blocks -below her. As she looked the boom of solemn music -rose to her. It was a funeral, and one of unusual -length, she thought, as her eyes caught the slow line of -carriages far back through breaks in the houses. Presently, -in the opening where two streets crossed, the -hearse came into view, black and gloomy, with its nodding -tufts of feathers and somberly caparisoned horses. -Men walked behind it, and the measured music swelled -louder, melancholy and yet inspiring.</p> - -<p>Suddenly she realized whose it was. The rich man -was going splendidly to his rest.</p> - -<p>“My father!” she whispered to herself. “My father! -How strange! how strange!”</p> - -<p>The cortège passed on, the music swelling grandiosely -and then dying down into fitful snatches of -sweetness. The long line of carriages moved slowly -forward, at a crawling foot-pace.</p> - -<p>The daughter leaned on the coping of the wall, -watching this last passage through the city of the -father she had known so slightly and toward whom she -felt a bitter and silent resentment.</p> - -<p>She watched the nodding plumes till they were out -of sight. How strangely death had drawn together -the three that life had separated! In six months the -woman and two men, tied together by a twist of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span> -hand of Fate, had been summoned, one after the other, -into the darkness beyond. Would they meet there? -Mariposa shuddered and turned away. The black -plumes had disappeared, but the music still boomed -fitfully in measured majesty.</p> - -<p>The whistles were blowing for midday when she retraced -her steps to the Garcia house. As she mounted -the stairs to the front door she became aware that -there were several people grouped on the balcony, -their forms dimly visible through the grimy glass and -behind the rampart of long-stemmed geraniums that -grew there in straggling neglect. The opening of the -outer door let her in on them. She started and slightly -changed color when she saw that one of the figures -was that of Gamaliel Barron. He was sitting on the -arm of a dilapidated rocker, frowningly staring at Benito, -the younger Garcia boy, against whom, it appeared, -a charge of some moment had just been -brought. The case was being placed before Barron, -who evidently acted as judge, by a person Mariposa -had not seen before—a tall, thin young man of some -thirty years, with a stoop in the shoulders, a shock of -fine black hair, and a pair of very soft and beautiful -blue eyes.</p> - -<p>They were so preoccupied in the matter before -them that no effort was made to introduce the stranger -to Mariposa, though Barron offered her his armchair, -retiring to a seat on the balcony railing, whence he -loomed darkly severe, from among the straggling -geraniums. Benito, in his sailor collar and wispy -curls, maintained an air of smiling innocence, but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span> -Miguel, the elder boy, who was an interested witness, -bore evidence of uneasiness of mind in the strained -attention of the face turned toward Barron.</p> - -<p>Mariposa paused, her hand on the back of the rocking-chair. -Benito had already inserted himself into -her affections. She looked from one to the other to -ascertain his offense. Both men were regarding the -culprit, Barron with frowning disapproval, the other -with eyes full of amusement. It was he who proceeded -to state the case against the accused:</p> - -<p>“She leaned over the railing and said to me, ‘Them -little boys will be sick if they eat that crab.’ ‘What -crab and what little boys?’ I asked, quite innocently, -and she answered, ‘Them little boys in the vacant -lot!’ Then I turned and saw Benito and Miguel squatting -in the grass among the tomato cans and fragments -of the daily press, with a crab that they were -breaking up between them, a crab about as big as a -cart-wheel.”</p> - -<p>“We found it there,” said Benito. “It were just -lying there.”</p> - -<p>“‘If they eat that crab,’ the lady continued, ‘they’ll -be sick. It ain’t no good. I threw it out myself. And -I’ve been hollerin’ to them to stop, and that little one -with the curls, just turned round on me and says, -“Oh, you go to the devil!”’”</p> - -<p>The complainant paused, looked at Mariposa with -an eye in which she saw laughter dancing, and said:</p> - -<p>“That’s rather a startling way for a gentleman to -speak to a lady, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>Though the language used by the accused was hard -to associate with his cherubic appearance, and had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span> -somewhat shocked Mariposa’s affection, she could -hardly repress a smile. Benito grinning, as if with -pride at the prowess he had shown in the encounter -with the strange female, looked at his brother and -emitted an explosive laugh. Miguel, however, had -more clearly guessed the seriousness of the offense, -and looked uneasy. Barron was regarding the younger -boy with unmoved and angry gravity. Mariposa saw -that the man was not in the least inclined to treat -the matter humorously.</p> - -<p>“Did you really say that, Benito?” he said.</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Benito, swaying his body from side to -side, and fastening his eyes on a knife he had carelessly -extracted from his pocket, “I didn’t see what -she had to do with that crab. It was all alone in the -vacant lot. How was we to know it was her crab?”</p> - -<p>“But,” to Miguel, “she told you before not to touch -it, that it was bad, didn’t she?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” returned the elder boy, exceedingly uncomfortable. -“She come and leaned over the railing and -hollered at us not to touch it, that it was bad and it ’ud -make us sick. Then I stopped ’cause I didn’t want to -get sick. But Ben wouldn’t, and she hollered again, -and then he told her to go to the devil, and Mr. Pierpont -came along just then, and she told him, and Ben -got skairt and stopped.”</p> - -<p>There was a moment’s silence. The younger boy -continued to smile and finger his knife, but it was evident -he was not so easy in his mind. The stranger, -now with difficulty restraining his laughter, turned -again to Mariposa and said:</p> - -<p>“If the lady had been in any way aggressing on the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span> -young gentleman’s comfort or convenience, it would -not have been exactly justifiable, but comprehensible. -But when you consider that her sole desire was to save -him from eating something that would make him sick, -then you begin to realize the seriousness of the offense. -Oh, Benito, you’re in a bad way, I’m afraid!”</p> - -<p>“I ain’t nothing of the kind,” said Benito, smiling -and showing his dimples. “I ain’t done nothing more -than Miguel.”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t tell her to go to the devil,” exclaimed -Miguel, in a loud, combative voice.</p> - -<p>“’Cause I said it first,” replied his brother, calmly. -“You didn’t have time.”</p> - -<p>“Well, Benito,” said Barron, “I’ve got no use for -you when you behave that way. There’s no excuse for -it. You’ve used the worst kind of language to a lady -who was trying to do a decent thing. I won’t take you -this afternoon.”</p> - -<p>The change on Benito’s face was sudden and piteous. -The smile was frozen on his lips, he turned -crimson, and said stammeringly, evidently hardly believing -his ears:</p> - -<p>“To see the balloon? Oh, Uncle Gam, you promised -it for a week. Oh, I’d rather see the balloon than anything. -Oh, Uncle Gam!”</p> - -<p>“There’s no use talking; I won’t take a boy who behaves -that way. I’m angry with you.”</p> - -<p>The man was absolutely grave and, Mariposa saw, -spoke the truth when he said he was angry. The boy -was about to plead, when probably a knowledge of the -hopelessness of such a course silenced him. With a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span> -flushed face, he stood before the tribunal fighting with -his tears, proud and silent. When he could no longer -control them he turned and rushed into the house, -his bursting sobs issuing from the hallway. Miguel -charged after him.</p> - -<p>“Oh, poor little fellow!” cried Mariposa; “how -could you? Take him to see the balloon; do, please.”</p> - -<p>Barron made no reply, sitting on the railing, frowning -and abstracted. She turned her eyes on the other -man. He was still smiling.</p> - -<p>“Barron’s bringing up the boys,” he said, “and he -takes it hard.”</p> - -<p>“If I didn’t,” said the man from the railing, “who -would? Heaven knows I don’t want to disappoint the -poor little cuss, but somebody’s got to try and keep -him in order.”</p> - -<p>“Can’t you punish him some other way? He’s been -talking about seeing the balloon for days.”</p> - -<p>“I wish to goodness I’d somebody to help me,” said -the judge moodily; “I’m not up to this sort of work. -It makes me feel the meanest thing that walks to get -up and punish a boy for things that are just what I -did when I was the same age. But what’s a man to -do? I can’t see those children go to the devil.”</p> - -<p>The howls of Benito had been rising loudly from -the house for some minutes. They now suffered a -sudden check; there was a quick step in the hall and -Mrs. Garcia appeared in the doorway, red and angry. -Benito was at her side, eating a large slice of cake.</p> - -<p>“What d’ye mean, Gam Barron,” she said in a high -key, “by making my son cry that way? Ain’t you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span> -got no better use for your time than to tease and torment -a poor, little, helpless boy, who’s got no father -to protect him?”</p> - -<p>“I wasn’t teasing him, Elsie,” he answered quietly; -“I only said I wouldn’t take him out this afternoon -because he behaved badly.”</p> - -<p>“Well, ain’t that teasing, when you promised it for -a week and more? That’s what I call a snide trick. -It’s just because you want to go somewhere else, I -know. And so you put it off on that woman and the -crab. Much good she is, anyway; I know her, too. -Never mind, my baby,” fondly to Benito, stroking his -hair with her hand, “mother’ll take you to see the -balloon herself.”</p> - -<p>Benito jerked himself away from the maternal hand -and said, with his mouth full of cake:</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to go with you; I want to go with -Uncle Gam. He lets me ride in the goat-cart and buy -peanuts.”</p> - -<p>“You’ll go with me,” said Mrs. Garcia with asperity, -“or you’ll not go at all.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to go with you,” said Benito, beginning -to grow clamorous; “I don’t have fun when I go -with you.”</p> - -<p>“You’ll go with me, or stay home shut up in the -cupboard all afternoon.”</p> - -<p>“I won’t; no, I won’t.”</p> - -<p>Benito was both tearful and enraged. His mother -caught his hand and, holding it in a tense grip, bent -her face down to his and said with set emphasis:</p> - -<p>“Do you want to stay all afternoon in the kitchen -cupboard?”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>He struggled to be free, reiterating:</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t, and I ain’t goin’ to. I think you’re -real mean to me; I ain’t goin’ to go nowhere with -you.”</p> - -<p>“You mean, ungrateful little boy,” said his parent, -furiously, shaking the hand she held. “Don’t talk -back to me. You’ll go with me this afternoon and see -that balloon if I have to drag you all the way. Yes, -you will.”</p> - -<p>“I won’t,” roared Benito, now enraged past all control; -and in his frenzy to escape he kicked at his -mother’s ankles through her intervening skirts.</p> - -<p>This was too much for Mrs. Garcia’s feelings as a -mother. She took her free hand and boxed Benito -smartly on the ear. Then for a moment there was -war. Benito kicked, roaring lustily, while his mother -cuffed. The din of combat was loud on the balcony, -and several of the geranium pots were knocked over.</p> - -<p>It remained for Barron to descend from the railing -and drag the boy away from his wrathful parent.</p> - -<p>“Here, stop kicking your mother,” he said peremptorily; -“that won’t do at all.”</p> - -<p>“Then make her stop slapping me,” howled Benito. -“Ain’t I got a right to kick back? I guess you’d kick -all right if you was slapped that way.”</p> - -<p>“All right,” said his mother from the doorway, -“next time you come to me, Benito Garcia, to be taken -to the circus or the fair, you’ll find out that you’ve -barked up the wrong tree.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t care,” responded Benito defiantly; “grandma -or Uncle Gam will.”</p> - -<p>Five minutes after her irate withdrawal she reappeared,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span> -calm and smiling, the memory of her recent -combat showing only in her heightened color, and -announced that lunch was ready.</p> - -<p>At lunch the stranger was introduced to Mariposa, -and she learned that he was Isaac Pierpont, a singing -teacher living in the house.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XII<br /> - - -<small>DRIFT AND CROSSCUT</small></h3> -</div> - - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“A living dog is better than a dead lion.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Ecclesiastes.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>On the evening of the day when Jake Shackleton -went to his account Essex had walked slowly to Bertrand’s -<i>rôtisserie</i>, his head drooped, the evening paper -in his hand.</p> - -<p>Two hours before the cries of the newsboys announcing -the sudden demise of his chief had struck -on his ear, for the first moment freezing him into motionless -amazement. Standing under a lamp, he had -read the short report, then hurried down to the office of -<i>The Trumpet</i>. There in the turmoil and hubbub which -marks the first portentous movement of the great -daily making ready to go to press, he had heard fuller -details. The office was in an uproar, shaken to its -foundation by the startling news, every man and -woman ready with a speculation or a rumor as to the -ultimate fate of <i>The Trumpet</i>, on which their own little -fates hung.</p> - -<p>At his table in the far corner of Bertrand’s he mused -over the various reports he had heard. The death of -Shackleton would undoubtedly throw the present makeup -of <i>The Trumpet</i> out of gear. Its sale would be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span> -inevitable. From what he had heard of him, Win -Shackleton would be quite incapable of taking his -father’s place as proprietor and manager of the paper -that Jake Shackleton, the man of brain and initiative, -was transforming into a powerful organ of public -opinion. And in the general weeding out of men -which would unquestionably occur, why should not -Barry Essex mount to a top place?</p> - -<p><i>The Trumpet</i> had always paid its capable men large -salaries. It was worth while considering. Essex had -now decided to remain in San Francisco, at least -throughout the winter. The climate pleased him; the -cosmopolitan atmosphere of the remote, picturesque -city continued to exert its charm. The very duck he -was now eating, far beyond his purse in any other -American city, was an inducement to remain. But -the real one was the woman, all the more desperately -desired because denied him. Her indignation had not -repelled him, but he saw it would mean a long wooing.</p> - -<p>Once in his own room, he kindled the fire and drew -toward him a pile of reference books he had to consult -for an article on the great actresses of the French -stage from Clairon to Rachel. These light and brilliant -essays had been an experiment of Shackleton’s, -who maintained that the Sunday edition should furnish -food for all types of minds. Essex had produced exactly -the class of matter wanted, and received for it the -generous pay that the proprietor of <i>The Trumpet</i> was -always ready to give for good work.</p> - -<p>The reader was fluttering the leaves of the first book -of the pile when a knock at the door stopped him. He -knew it was his neighbor across the hall, who had been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span> -in bed for over a week, sick with bronchitis. Essex -had seen the man several times during his seclusion and -had conceived a carelessly cynical interest in him.</p> - -<p>When sober, he had developed remarkable anecdotal -capacity, which had immensely amused his new acquaintance. -Tales of ’49 and the early Comstock -days, scandals of those now in high places, discreditable -accounts of the making of fortunes, flowed -from his lips in a high-colored and diverting stream. -If they were lies they were exceedingly ingenious ones. -Essex saw material for a dozen novels in the man’s revealing -and lurid recitals. Of his own personal history -he was reticent, merely saying that his name was -George Harney, and his trade that of job-printer. -Drink had almost destroyed him. Physically he was -a mere bunch of nerves covered by flabby, sallow flesh.</p> - -<p>In answer to Essex’s “come in,” the door opened -and Harney shambled into the room. He was fully -dressed, but showed the evidences of illness in his -hollowed cheeks and eyes, and the yellow skin hanging -flaccid round jaw and throat. His hand shook and -his gait was uncertain, but he was perfectly sober.</p> - -<p>“I came to have a squint at the paper, Doc,” he said -in a hoarse voice. “I can’t go out with this blasted -wheezing on me. Don’t want to die in my prime.”</p> - -<p>Essex threw the paper across the table at him.</p> - -<p>“There’s news to-night,” he said, taking up his book; -“Shackleton’s dead.”</p> - -<p>The man stopped as if electrified.</p> - -<p>“Shackleton? Jake Shackleton?” he said in a loud -voice.</p> - -<p>“Jake Shackleton,” answered Essex, surprised at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span> -the startled astonishment of his face. “Did you know -him?”</p> - -<p>Harney snatched the paper and opened it with an -unsteady hand. He ran his eyes over the lines under -the black-lettered heading of the first page.</p> - -<p>“By gosh!” he said to himself, “so he is; so he is!”</p> - -<p>He sat down in the chair at the opposite side of the -table, smoothed out the sheet and read the account -slowly and carefully.</p> - -<p>“By gosh!” he said again when he had finished, -“who’d a thought Jake’d go off like that!”</p> - -<p>“Did you know him?” repeated Essex.</p> - -<p>“Once up in the Sierra, when we was all mining up -there.”</p> - -<p>He spoke absently and sat looking into the fire for -a moment, then said:</p> - -<p>“It’s pretty tough luck to be whisked off that way -when you just got everything in the palm of your -hand.”</p> - -<p>Essex made no reply, and after a pause he added:</p> - -<p>“Between fifteen and twenty millions it says there,” -indicating the paper, “and when I saw Jake Shackleton -first you wouldn’t er hired him to sweep down the -steps of <i>The Trumpet</i> office. But that was twenty-five -years ago at least.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Shackleton was an able man. There’s no -question about that. They were saying in the office -to-night that twenty million is a conservative figure -to put his money at.”</p> - -<p>“Who does it go to? Do you know that?” queried -the man by the fire.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span>“Widow and children, I suppose. There are two -children. Don’t amount to anything, I believe.”</p> - -<p>“No; there are three.”</p> - -<p>Harney turned from the fire and looked over his -shoulder. He was sitting in a hunched position, his -back rounded, his chin depressed. His black eyes, -that drew close to the nose, were instinct with eager -cunning. The skin across the bridge of the nose was -drawn in wrinkles. As he looked the wheezing of his -disturbed breathing was distinctly audible. Essex was -struck by the sly and malevolent intelligence of his -face.</p> - -<p>“Three children!” he said. “Well, I’ve always heard -the death of a bonanza king was the signal for a large -crop of widows and orphans to take the field.”</p> - -<p>“There won’t be any widow this time. She’s dead. -But the girl’s alive, and I’ve seen her.”</p> - -<p>He accompanied this remark with a second look, -significant with the same malicious intensity of meaning. -Then he rose to his feet and walked toward the -door.</p> - -<p>“Good night, Doc,” he said as he reached it; “ain’t -well enough to talk to-night.”</p> - -<p>Essex gave him a return good night and the door -closed on him. The younger man cogitated over his -books for a space. It did not strike him as interesting -or remarkable that Shackleton should have had an unacknowledged -child, of whose existence George Harney, -the drunken job-printer, knew. He was becoming -accustomed to the extraordinary intermingling of -classes and conditions that marked the pioneer period<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span> -of California life. But should the unacknowledged -child attempt to establish its claim to part of the great -estate left by the bonanza king, what a complication -that might lead to! These Californians were certainly -a picturesque people, with their dramatic ups and -downs of fortune, their disdain of accepted standards, -their indifference to tradition, and their magnificently -disreputable pasts.</p> - -<p>As one of the special writers of <i>The Trumpet</i>, Essex -attended the funeral of his chief. He and Mrs. Willers -and Edna, in company with the young woman -who did the “Fashions and Foibles” column, were in -one of the carriages that Mariposa had seen from the -hilltop. Mrs. Willers was silent on the long, slow -drive. She had honored her chief, who had been just -to her. Miss Peebles, the “Fashions and Foibles” -young woman, was so engrossed by her fears that a -change of ownership in <i>The Trumpet</i> would rob her of -her employment that she could talk of nothing else. -To Edna, the sensation of being in a carriage was so -novel it occupied her to the exclusion of all other matters, -and she looked out of the window with a face of -sparkling interest.</p> - -<p>That evening, after the funeral, Essex was preparing -to work late. He had “gutted” the pile of books, -and with their contents well assimilated was ready to -write his three columns. There was no car line on the -street, and traffic at that hour on that quiet thoroughfare -was over for the day. For an hour he wrote -easily and fluently. The sheets, glistening with damp -ink, were pushed in front of him in a careless pile. -Now and then he paused to consult his books, which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span> -were arranged round him on the table, open at the -places he needed for reference. The smoke wreaths -were thick round his head and the room was hot. It -was nearly ten o’clock when he heard the noisy entrance -of his fellow lodger. Harney was evidently -sufficiently well to go to work again and to come home -drunk. Essex listened with suspended pen and a half-smile -on his dark face, which turned to a frown as he -realized that the stumbling feet had turned his way. -The knock on the door came next, and simultaneously -it opened and Harney’s head was thrust in.</p> - -<p>“What the devil do you want?” said the scribe, sitting -erect, his pipe in his hand, the other waving -the smoke strata that hung before his face.</p> - -<p>“Let me come and get warm a minute. I’m wheezing -again, and my room’s cold as a tomb. Don’t mind -me—all I want is to set before the fire for a spell.”</p> - -<p>He sidled in before the permission was granted and -sank down in the armchair, hitching it nearer to the -grate. He was a man to whom intoxication lent a -curiously amiable and humorous quality. The ugliness -and evil that were so evidently part of his nature -were not so apparent, and he became cheerful, almost -genial.</p> - -<p>Sitting close to the fire, he held out his hands to the -blaze, then, stealing a look at Essex over his shoulder, -saw that he was refilling his pipe.</p> - -<p>“Be’n to the funeral?” he said.</p> - -<p>Essex grunted an assent.</p> - -<p>“The family there?”</p> - -<p>“None of the ladies; only Win Shackleton.”</p> - -<p>Harney was silent; then, with the greatest care, he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span> -took up a piece of coal and set it on the fire. The -action required all the ingenuity of which he was master. -His body responded to his intoxication, while, -save for an unusual fluency of speech, his mind appeared -to remain unaffected. After he had set the -coal in place he looked again at Essex, who was staring -vacantly at him, thinking of the second part of his -article.</p> - -<p>“Did you notice a tall, fine-looking young lady there -with dark red hair?” said Harney, without removing -his glassy gaze from the man at the table.</p> - -<p>Essex did not move his eyes, but their absent fixity -suddenly seemed to snap into a change of focus betokening -attention. Gazing at Harney, he answered -coldly:</p> - -<p>“No; I saw no one like that. To whom are you -referring?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I dunno, I dunno,” responded the other with -a clumsy shrug of his shoulders, and turning back to -the fire over which he cowered.</p> - -<p>“But you know her anyhow,” he added, half to himself.</p> - -<p>“Whom do I know? Turn around.”</p> - -<p>The man turned, looking a little defiant.</p> - -<p>“Now, what are you trying to say?”</p> - -<p>“I ain’t tryin’ to say nuthin’. All I done is to ask -yer if yer saw a lady—tall, with red hair—at the funeral. -You know her, ’cause I’ve seen you with her.”</p> - -<p>“Who is she?”</p> - -<p>“Well,” slowly and uneasily, “she’s called Moreau.”</p> - -<p>“You mean Miss Mariposa Moreau, the daughter of -a mining man, who died last spring in Santa Barbara?”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span>“Yes; that’s her all right. She’s called Moreau, but -it ain’t her name.”</p> - -<p>“Moreau isn’t her name? What is her name, then?”</p> - -<p>“I dunno,” he spoke stubbornly and turned back to -the fire.</p> - -<p>“Turn back here,” said Essex in a suddenly authoritative -tone; “explain to me what you mean by that.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t mean nuthin’,” said the other, looking sullenly -defiant, “and I don’t know nuthin’ only that that -ain’t her true name.”</p> - -<p>“What is her name? Answer me at once, and no -fooling.”</p> - -<p>“I dunno.”</p> - -<p>Essex rose. Harney, looking frightened, staggered -to his feet, clutching the mantelpiece. He half-raised -his arm as if expecting to be struck and said loudly:</p> - -<p>“If you want to know ask Shackleton’s widow. -<i>She</i> knows.”</p> - -<p>Essex stood a few paces from him, suddenly stilled -by the phrase. The drunkard, alarmed and yet defiant, -could only dimly understand what the expression -on the face of the man before him meant.</p> - -<p>“Sit down,” said Essex quietly; “I’m not going to -touch you. I’m going to get some whisky. That’ll -tone you up a bit. The bronchitis has taken it out of -you more than you think.”</p> - -<p>He went to a cupboard and brought out a bottle and -glasses. Pouring some whisky into one, he pushed it -toward Harney.</p> - -<p>“There, that’ll brace you up. You’ll feel more yourself -in a minute.”</p> - -<p>He diluted his own with water and only touched the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span> -glass’s rim to his lips. His eyes, glistening and intent, -were on the drunkard’s now darkly flushing face. The -glass rattled against the table as Harney set it down.</p> - -<p>“That puts mettle into me again. Makes me feel -like the old times before the malaria got into my bones. -Malaria was my ruin. Got it in the Sierra mining. -People think it’s drink that done it, but it’s malaria.”</p> - -<p>“That was when you knew Moreau? What sort of -man was he?”</p> - -<p>“Poor sort; not any grit. Had a good claim up -there beyond Placerville, he and I. Took out’s much -as eight thousand in that first summer. Moreau -stayed by it, but I quit. Both had our reasons.”</p> - -<p>“And Miss Moreau, you say, is not Dan Moreau’s -daughter. Is she a step-daughter?”</p> - -<p>“Well—in a sort of a way you might say so. Anyway, -she ain’t got no legal right to that name.”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t know the mother was a widow when she -married Moreau?”</p> - -<p>“She weren’t. She married twict, and she weren’t -divorced. There ain’t but two people in the world -that knows it. One’s Jake Shackleton’s widow,”—he -rose, and, putting an unsteady hand on the table, -leaned forward and almost whispered into his interlocutor’s -face,—“and the other’s me.”</p> - -<p>“Are you trying to tell me,” said Essex quietly, “that -Miss Moreau is Jake Shackleton’s daughter?”</p> - -<p>“That’s what she is.” The man turned round like a -character on the stage and swept the room with an investigating -look—“And she’s more’n that. She’s his -lawful daughter, born in wedlock.”</p> - -<p>The two faces stared at each other. The drunken<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span> -man was not too far beyond himself to realize the importance -of what he was saying. In a second’s retrospect -Essex’s mind flew back over the hitherto puzzling -interest Shackleton had taken in Mariposa -Moreau. Could it be possible the man before him was -telling the truth?</p> - -<p>“How does she come to be known as Moreau’s -daughter? Why didn’t Shackleton acknowledge her -if she was his legitimate child? That’s a fairy tale.”</p> - -<p>“There was complications. Have you ever heard -that Shackleton was once a Mormon?”</p> - -<p>Essex had heard the gossip which had persistently -followed Shackleton’s ascending course. He nodded -his head, gazing at Harney, a presentiment of coming -revelations holding him silent.</p> - -<p>“Well, that’s true. He was. I seen him when he -was. Jake Shackleton crossed the Sierra with two -wives. One—the first one—was the lady who died -here a month ago, and passed as Mrs. Moreau. The -other’s the widow. But she was the second wife. She -didn’t have no children then. But the first wife had -one, a girl baby, born on the plains in Utah. It weren’t -three weeks old when I seen it.”</p> - -<p>“Where did you see it?”</p> - -<p>“In the Sierra back of Hangtown. Me and Dan -Moreau was workin’ a stream bed there. And one day -two emigrants, a man and a woman, with a sick woman -inside the wagon, came down from the summit. They -was Jake Shackleton and his two wives, and they was -the worst looking outfit you’ve ever clapped your eyes -on. They was pretty near dead. One er their horses -did die, in front of our cabin, and the sick woman—she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span> -that afterwards was called Mrs. Moreau—was too -beat out to move on. Shackleton, who didn’t care who -died, so long’s they got into the settlements, calkalated -to make her ride a spell, and when the other horse -dropped make her walk. She was the orneriest lookin’ -scarecrow you ever seen, and she hadn’t no more -life’n a mummy. But she was ready to do just what -they said. She was just so beat out. And then -Moreau—he was just that kind of a fool—”</p> - -<p>He paused and looked at Essex, with his beady, dark -eyes glistening with a sense of the importance of his -communication. His hand sought the glass and he -drained it. Then he leaned forward to deliver the -climax of his story:—</p> - -<p>“Bought her from Shackleton for a pair of horses.”</p> - -<p>“Bought her for a pair of horses! How could he?”</p> - -<p>“I’m not sayin’ how he could; I’m sayin’ what he -did.”</p> - -<p>“What did he do it for?”</p> - -<p>“The Lord knows. He was that kind of a fool. We -had her in the cabin sick for days, with me and him -waitin’ on her hand and foot, and the cussed baby -yellin’ like a coyote. She wasn’t good for anything. -Just ust ter lie round sick and peaked and sorter pine. -But Moreau got a crazy liking for her, and he was -sot on the baby same’s if it was his own. I caught -on pretty soon to the way the cat was goin’ to jump. -I lit out and left ’em.”</p> - -<p>“Why did you leave if the claim was good?”</p> - -<p>“It weren’t no good when no one worked it, and -there weren’t more’n enough in it for Moreau alone, -with a woman and a baby on his hands. He said first<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span> -off he was only goin’ to get her cured up and send her -to the Eldorado Hotel to be a waitress, but I seen fast -enough what was goin’ to happen. And it did happen. -They was snowed in up there all winter. In the spring -he took her into Hangtown and married her—said he -was marryin’ a widow woman whose husband died on -the plains. I heard that afterwards from some er the -boys, but it weren’t my business to give ’em away. So -I shut my mouth and ain’t opened it till now. But -Moreau’s dead, and the woman’s dead, and now -Shackleton’s dead. There ain’t no one what knows but -me and Shackleton’s widow.”</p> - -<p>“And what makes you think this is the same child? -The baby you saw may have died and this may be a -child born a year or two later.”</p> - -<p>“It ain’t. It’s the same. There weren’t never any -other children. I kep’ my eye on ’em. Moreau was -mining round among the camps and afterward was in -Sacramento for a spell, and I was round in them places -off and on myself. I saw him, but I dodged him -’cause I knew he didn’t want to run up against me, -knowin’ as how I was onter what he’d done. He was -safe for me. But I seen the girl often; seen her grow -up. And I knew her in a minute the day I saw you -walkin’ with her on Sutter Street, and I thinks to myself, -‘You’re with the biggest heiress in San Francisco -if you and she only knew it.’ And that’s what she is, -if there was somethin’ else but my word to prove it.”</p> - -<p>Essex sat pushed back from the table, his hands in -his pockets, his pipe nipped between his teeth, his face -partly obscured by the floating clouds of smoke that -hung about his head.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span>“A first-rate story,” he said slowly; “have some more -whisky.”</p> - -<p>And he pushed the bottle toward Harney, who seized -it and fumblingly poured the fiery liquor into the glass.</p> - -<p>“And it’s true,” he said hoarsely—“every blamed -word.”</p> - -<p>He drank what he had poured out, set down the -glass and stared at Essex with his face puckered into -its expression of evil cunning.</p> - -<p>“And <i>she</i> don’t know anything about it, does she?” -he asked.</p> - -<p>“If you mean Miss Moreau, she certainly appears to -think she is the child of the man who brought her up.”</p> - -<p>“That’s what I heard. But Shackleton, when -Moreau died, was goin’ to do the square thing by her. -At least, I heard talk of his sendin’ her to Europe to be -a singer. Ain’t it so?”</p> - -<p>“I heard something about it myself. But I’m no -authority.”</p> - -<p>There was a pause. Harney settled back in his -chair. The room was exceedingly hot, and impregnated -with the odor of whisky and the smoke from -Essex’s pipe.</p> - -<p>“He couldn’t acknowledge her. It would er given -the other children too big a black eye. But it seemed -like he wanted to square things up when he was taken -off suddent like that.”</p> - -<p>He paused. The other, smoking, with frowning -brows and wide eyes, made no response, his own -thoughts holding him in tense immobility.</p> - -<p>“And the other wife wouldn’t er stood it, anyway. -She’s a pretty competent woman, I guess. Oh, he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span> -couldn’t have acknowledged her, nohow. But she’s -his legitimate daughter, all right. She’s the lawful -heir to—most er them—millions. She’s—”</p> - -<p>His voice broke and trailed off into silence, which -was suddenly interrupted by a guttural snort and then -heavy, regular breathing. Essex rose, and, going to -the window, opened it. A keen-edged breeze of air -entered, seeming all the fresher from the dense atmosphere -of the room. Its hurried entrance sent the -smoke wreaths scurrying about in fantastic whorls and -curls. The dying fire threw out a frightened flame.</p> - -<p>Essex moved toward it, saying as he approached:</p> - -<p>“Yes; it’s a good story. You ought to be a novelist, -Harney.”</p> - -<p>There was no answer, and, looking into the chair, he -saw that Harney had fallen into a sodden sleep, curled -against the chair-back, his chin sunk on his breast, the -hollows in his face looking black in the hard light of -the gas. The younger man gazed at him for a moment -with an expression of slight, cold disgust, then -turned back to the table and sat down.</p> - -<p>He wrote no more, but sat motionless, his eyes fixed -on vacancy, the thick, curling smoke oozing from the -bowl of his pipe and issuing from between his lips. -His thoughts reviewed every part of the story he had -heard. He felt certain of its truth. The drunken -job-printer had never imagined it.</p> - -<p>It explained many things that before had puzzled -him. Why the Moreaus, even in the days of their -affluence, had lived in such uneventful quietude, bringing -up their beautiful and talented daughter in a jealous -and unusual seclusion. It explained Shackleton’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span> -interest in the girl. He even saw now, recalling the -two faces, the likeness that the father himself had -seen in Mariposa’s firmly-modeled jaw and chin, which -did not belong to the soft, feminine prettiness of Lucy.</p> - -<p>It must be true.</p> - -<p>And, being true, what possibilities might it not develop? -Mrs. Shackleton knew it, too—that this penniless -girl was the bonanza king’s eldest and only -legitimate child, with power, if not entirely to dispossess -her own children, at least to claim the lion’s share -of the vast fortune. If Mariposa had proof of her -mother’s marriage to Shackleton and of her own identity -as the child of that marriage, she could rise and -claim her heritage—her part of the twenty millions!</p> - -<p>The thought, and what it opened before him, dizzied -him. He drank some of the diluted whisky in the -glass beside him and sat on motionless. It was evident -Mariposa did not know. She had been brought -up in ignorance of the whole extraordinary story. The -man and woman she had been taught to regard as her -parents had committed an offense against the law, -which they had hidden from her, secure in the thought -that the other participants in the strange proceeding -would never dare to confess.</p> - -<p>The minutes and hours ticked by and Essex still sat -thinking, while the drunkard breathed stertorously in -his heavy sleep, and the coals dropped softly in the -grate as the fire sank into clinkers and ashes.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XIII<br /> - - -<small>THE SEED OF BANQUO</small></h3> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“What says the married woman?”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Shakespeare.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>As soon as Mrs. Shackleton was sufficiently recovered, -the family had moved from Menlo Park to their -town house.</p> - -<p>The long work of settling up the great estate which -had been left to the widow and her children, required -their presence in the city, and the shock which Bessie -had suffered in finding her husband dead, had rendered -the country place unbearable to her.</p> - -<p>The day after the funeral the women had moved to -town. Win, however, remained at Menlo Park, to go -over such documents of his father’s as had been left -there. Shackleton had lived so much at his country -place for the last two or three years that many of -his papers and letters were kept in the library, which -had been his especial sanctum.</p> - -<p>Among these, the son had come upon a small package -of letters, which, fastened together with an elastic, -and bearing a note of their contents on one end, had -roused his interest. They were the letters exchanged -between his father and the chief of the detective bureau -when the latter had been commissioned to locate the -widow and daughter of Daniel Moreau.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span>Shackleton, a man of exceedingly methodical habits, -had kept copies of his letters. There were only seven of -them altogether—three from him; four in reply. The -first ones were short, only a few lines, containing the -request to find the ladies who, the writer understood, -were in San Francisco, and ascertain their circumstances -and position. Then came the acknowledgment -of that, and then in a few days, the answer stating the -whereabouts of Mrs. Moreau and her daughter, their -means, and such small facts about them as that the -mother was in delicate health and the daughter “a -handsome, accomplished, and estimable young lady.”</p> - -<p>Win looked over this correspondence, puzzled and -wondering. He remembered the girl he had seen in -<i>The Trumpet</i> office that dark afternoon, and how the -office boy had told him it was a Miss Moreau, a friend -of Mrs. Willers, and a singer. What motive could his -father have had in seeking out this girl and her mother -in this secret and effectual way? He read over the -letters again. Moreau had died in Santa Barbara in -the spring, the widow and her daughter had then -come to San Francisco, and by the wording of the -second letter he inferred that his father had been ignorant -of their means, and of the girl’s appearance, -style and character. It was evidently not the result -of an interest in people he had once known and then -lost sight of. It seemed to be an interest, for some -outside reason, in two women of whom he knew absolutely -nothing.</p> - -<p>Win had heard that his father contemplated offering -a musical education to some singing girl, of whom -the young man knew nothing, and had seen only for a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span> -moment that day in <i>The Trumpet</i> office. This was undoubtedly -the girl. But Shackleton evidently had not -heard of her through Mrs. Willers, who was known -to be an energetic boomer of obscure genius. He had -hunted her out himself; had undoubtedly had some -ulterior interest in, or knowledge of her some time before -the day Win had seen her. It was odd, the boy -thought, meditating over the correspondence. What -could have led his father to search for, and then attempt -to assist, a woman who seemed to be a complete -stranger to him? It looked like the secret paying of -an old debt.</p> - -<p>Win put the letters in his pocket and went up to -town. There was more work for him to do now than -there had ever been before, and he rose to it with a -spirit and energy that surprised himself. Neither he -nor any one else had ever realized how paralyzing to -him had been his father’s cold scorn. From boyhood, -Win had felt himself to be an aggravating failure. -The elder man had not scrupled to make him understand -his inferiority. The mere presence of his father -seemed to numb his brain and make his tongue stammer -over the simplest phrases. Now, he felt himself -free and full of energy, as though bands that had -cramped his mind and confined his body were broken. -His old attitude of posing as a fast young man of -fashion lost its charm. Life grew suddenly to mean -something, to be full of use and purpose.</p> - -<p>He was left very much to himself, his mother being -still too much broken to attend to business, and Maud -being absorbed in her affair with Latimer, which had -recently culminated in a secret engagement. This she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span> -had been afraid to tell to her domineering father and -ambitious mother, and her opportunities of seeing her -fiancé had been of the briefest until now. Latimer -haunted the house of evenings, when Bessie was lying -on the sofa in an upstairs boudoir and Win was locked -in his father’s study going over the interminable documents.</p> - -<p>The first darkness of her grief and horror past, Bessie, -in her seclusion, thought of many things. One of -these was the fate of Mariposa Moreau. The bonanza -king’s widow, with all her faults, had that lavish and -reckless generosity, where money was concerned, that -marked the early Californians. This forceful woman, -who had made the blighting journey across the plains -without complaint, faced the fierce hardships of her -early married life with a smile, borne her children amid -the rude discomforts of remote mining camps, was -an adept in the art of luxurious living. She knew -by instinct how to be magnificent, and one of her magnificences -was the careless munificence of her generosity.</p> - -<p>Now, she felt for Mariposa. She knew Shackleton’s -plans for her, and realized the girl’s disappointment. -In her heart she had been bitterly jealous of the other -wife’s child, who had the beauty and gifts her own -lacked. It would be to everybody’s advantage to remove -the girl to another country and sphere. And -because her husband had died there was no reason -why his plans should remain unfulfilled. Though -Shackleton had assured her that the girl knew nothing, -though every one connected with the shameful bargain -but herself was dead, it was best to be prudent,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span> -especially when prudence was the course most agreeable -to all concerned. She would rest easier; her children -would seem more secure in their positions and -possessions, if Mariposa Moreau, well provided for, -were safe in Paris studying singing.</p> - -<p>When she was fully decided as to the wisdom of -her course, she wrote Mariposa a short but friendly -letter, speaking of her knowledge of Mr. Shackleton’s -plans for her advancement, of her desire to carry out -her late husband’s wishes, and naming a day and hour -at which she begged the young girl to call on her. It -was a simple matter to ascertain Miss Moreau’s address -from Mrs. Willers, and the letter was duly sent.</p> - -<p>It roused wrath in its recipient. Mariposa was learning -worldly wisdom at a rate of which her tardy development -had not given promise. Great changes were -taking place in her simple nature. She had been -wakened to life with savage abruptness. Dormant -characteristics, passions unsuspected, had risen to the -surface. The powerful feelings of a rich, but undeveloped -womanhood had suddenly been shaken from -their sleep by a grip of the hand of destiny. The unfamiliarity -of a bitter anger against the Shackletons -struggled with the creeping disgust of Essex, that -grew daily.</p> - -<p>Morning after morning she woke when the first gray -light was faintly defining the squares of the windows. -The leaden sense of wretchedness that seemed to draw -her out of sleep, gave place to the living hatred and -shame that the upheaval of her life had left behind. -She watched the golden wheat-ears dimly glimmering -on the pale walls, while she lay and thought of all she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span> -had learned of life, her faith and happy ignorance destroyed -forever.</p> - -<p>Six weeks ago Mrs. Shackleton’s letter would have -represented no more to her than what its words expressed. -Now, she saw Bessie’s anxiety to be rid of -her, to push her out of sight as a menace. How much -more readily would the widow have gone to work, -with what zest of alarm and energy, would she have -contrived for her expulsion, had she guessed what -Mariposa knew. The girl vacillated for a day, hating -the thought of an interview with any member of the -family whose wrongs to her beloved mother were -seared scars in her brain; but finally concluding that -it would be better to end her connection with them by -an interview with Mrs. Shackleton, she answered the -letter, stating that she would come at the appointed -hour.</p> - -<p>Two days later, at the time set in the afternoon, she -stood in the small reception-room, to the left of the -wide marble hall, waiting. The hushed splendor of -the house would have impressed and awed her at any -other time. But to-day her heart beat loud and her -brain was preoccupied with its effort to keep her purpose -clear, and yet not to be angered into revealing -too much. The vast lower floor was loftier and more -spacious than anything she had ever seen before. -There were glimpses through many doors, and artificial -elongations of perspective by means of mirrors. -The long receding vista was touched with gleams -of light on parquet flooring, reflections on the gray -surfaces of mirrors, the curves of porcelain vases, the -bosses of gilded frames. Over all hung the scent of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span> -flowers, that were massed here and there in Chinese -bowls.</p> - -<p>Bessie’s step, and the accompanying rustle of brushing -silks, brought the girl to her feet, rigid and cold. -The widow swept into the room with extended hand. -She was richly and correctly garbed in lusterless -black, that sent out the nervous whisperings of crushed -silks and exhaled a faint perfume. It was impossible -to ignore the hand, and Mariposa touched it with her -own for a minute. She had seen Bessie only once -before, on the evening of the opera. The change -wrought in her by grief and illness was noticeable. -Her fine, healthy color had faded; her eyes were darkened, -and there were many deep lines on her forehead -and about her mouth. Nevertheless, a casual eye -would have still noticed her as a woman of vigor, -mental and physical. It was easy to understand how -she had stood shoulder to shoulder with her husband -in his fight for fortune.</p> - -<p>She motioned Mariposa to a chair facing the window, -and studied her as she glibly accomplished the -commonplaces of greeting. Her heart drew together -with a renewed spasm of jealousy as she noted the -girl’s superiority to her own daughter. What subtly -finer qualities had Lucy had, that her child should be -thus distinguished from the other children of Jake -Shackleton? The indignation working against this -woman gave a last touch of stateliness to poor Mariposa’s -natural dignity of demeanor. She seemed to -belong, by nature and birth, to these princely surroundings, -which completely dwarfed Maud, and even made -the adaptive Bessie look common.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span>“My husband,” said the elder woman, when the beginnings -of the conversation were disposed of, “was -very much interested in you. He knew your father, -Dan Moreau, very well.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa was becoming used to this phrase and -could listen to it without the stare of surprise, or the -blush of consciousness.</p> - -<p>“So Mr. Shackleton told me,” she answered.</p> - -<p>“Your father”—Bessie looked down at the deeply-bordered -handkerchief in her hand—“was a man of -great kindliness and generosity. Mr. Shackleton knew -him in the Sierras, mining, a long time ago, when he”—she -paused, not from embarrassment, but in order to -choose her words carefully—“was very kind to my husband -and others of our party. It was an obligation -Mr. Shackleton never forgot.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa could make no answer. Shackleton had -never spoken to her with this daring. Bessie looked -at her for a response, and saw her with her eyes on -the ground, pale and slightly frowning. She wanted -to sweep away any possible suspicion from the girl’s -mind by making her understand that the attitude of -the family toward her rose from gratitude for a past -benefit.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Shackleton,” she went on, “often talked to -me about his plans for you. He wanted to have you -study in Paris, under some teacher Lepine spoke to him -about. I understand you’ve got a remarkable voice. -I wanted, several times, to hear you, but it couldn’t -seem to be managed, living in the country, and always -so busy. In his sudden—passing away, all these plans<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span> -came to an end. He hadn’t regularly arranged anything. -There were such a lot of delays.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa nodded, then feeling that she must say -something, she murmured:</p> - -<p>“My mother died. I was not well, and I couldn’t -see him.”</p> - -<p>“Exactly, I understand just how it was. And it -wasn’t a bit fair, that simply because you didn’t happen -to be able to go to the office at that time, you should -lose your chance of a musical education and all that -might have come out of it. Now, Miss Moreau, it’s -my intention to carry out my husband’s wishes.”</p> - -<p>She looked at Mariposa, not smiling, nor condescending, -but with a hard earnestness. The girl raised -her eyes and the two glances met.</p> - -<p>“His wishes with regard to me?” said Mariposa, with -a questioning inflection.</p> - -<p>“That’s it. I want you to go to Paris, as he wanted -you to go. I want you to study to be a singer. I’ll -pay it all—education, masters, and a monthly sum for -living besides. I don’t think, from what I hear, that it -would be necessary for you to study more than two or -three years. Then you would make your appearance -as a grand opera prima donna, or concert singer, as -your teachers thought fit. I don’t know much about -it, but I believe they can’t always tell about a voice -right off at the start. Anyway, I’d see to it that yours -got every chance for the best development.”</p> - -<p>She paused.</p> - -<p>“I—I’m—afraid it will be impossible,” said Mariposa, -in a low voice.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span>“Impossible!” exclaimed the elder woman, sitting -upright in her surprise. “Why?”</p> - -<p>Mariposa had come to the house of Mrs. Shackleton -burning with a sense of the wrongs her mother had -suffered at the hands of this woman and her dead -husband. She had thought little of what the interview -would be like, and now, with the keen, hard, and astonished -eyes of Bessie upon her, she felt that something -more than pride and indignation must help her -through. The world’s diplomacy of tongue and brain -was an unsuspected art to her.</p> - -<p>“I—I—” she stammered irresolutely, “have changed -my mind since I talked with Mr. Shackleton.”</p> - -<p>“Changed your mind! But why? What’s made you -change your mind in so short a time?”</p> - -<p>“Many things,” said the girl, with her face flushing -deeply under Bessie’s unflinching stare. “There have -been changes—in—in—circumstances—and in me. My -mother was anxious for my advancement. Now she -is dead and—it doesn’t matter.”</p> - -<p>It was certainly not a brilliant way out of the difficulty. -A faint smile wrinkled the loose skin round -Mrs. Shackleton’s eyes.</p> - -<p>“Oh, my dear,” she said, with a slight touch of impatience -in her voice. “If that’s all, I guess we needn’t -worry about it. People die, and we lose our energies -and ambition, so we just want to lie round and mourn. -But at your age that don’t last long. You’ve got to -make your future yourself, and now’s your chance. -It just comes once or twice in a lifetime, and the people -who get there are the people who know enough to -snatch it as it comes by.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span>Mariposa’s irresolution had passed. She realized -that she had not merely to state her intentions, but to -fight a will unused to defeat.</p> - -<p>“I can’t go,” she said quietly; “I understand that -all you say is perfectly true. You probably think I -am silly and ungrateful. I don’t think I am either, -but that’s because I know what I feel. I thank you -very much, but I can’t accept it.”</p> - -<p>She rose to her feet. Bessie saw that she was pale—evidently -agitated.</p> - -<p>“Sit down,” she said, indicating the chair again. -“Now let me hear your reasons, my dear girl. People -don’t throw up the chance of a lifetime for nothing. -What’s behind all this?”</p> - -<p>There was a pause. Mariposa said slowly:</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to accept it. I don’t want to take the -money or be under any obligation.”</p> - -<p>“You were willing to be under the obligation, as -you call it, a few weeks ago?”</p> - -<p>Bessie’s voice was as cold as steel. From the moment -she had entered the room she had felt an instinctive -antagonism between herself and her husband’s eldest -child. It would become a hatred in time. The -girl’s slow and reluctant way of speaking seemed to -indicate that she expressed herself with difficulty, like -one who, under pressure, tells the truth.</p> - -<p>“My mother wanted me to accept anything that was -for my own benefit. Now she is dead. I am my own -mistress. I grieve or hurt no one but myself if I refuse -your offer. And, as things are now, it is better -for me to refuse it.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean by ‘as things are now’? Has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span> -anything happened to change your ideas since my -husband first made the suggestion to you?”</p> - -<p>Mariposa told her lie as a woman does, with reservations. -It was creditably done, for it was the first -lie she had ever told in her life.</p> - -<p>“Nothing has actually happened, but—I—I—have -changed.”</p> - -<p>“And are you going to let a girl’s whims stand in -the way of your future success in life? I can’t believe -that. My dear, you’re handsome and you’ve a fine -voice, but do you think those two things, without a -cent behind them, are going to put you on top of the -heap? You’re not the woman to get there without a -lot of boosting.”</p> - -<p>“Why should I want to get on top of the heap?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, if you <i>want</i> to stay at the bottom—”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Shackleton gave a shrug and rose to her feet. -The girl was incomprehensible. She was either very -subtile and deep, or she was extraordinarily dull and -shallow. Shackleton had said to her once that she -seemed to him childish and undeveloped, for her age. -The woman’s keen eye saw deeper. If Mariposa was -not disingenuous, she would always, on the side of -shrewdness and worldly wisdom, be undeveloped.</p> - -<p>“Well, my dear,” she said coldly, “it all rests with -yourself. But I can’t, conscientiously, let you throw -your best chances away. We won’t speak of this any -more to-day. But go home and think about it, and in -a week or two let me know what conclusion you’ve -come to. Don’t ever throw a chance away, even if -you don’t happen to like the person who offers it.”</p> - -<p>She gave Mariposa a shrewd and good-natured smile.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span> -The girl, her face crimsoning, was about to answer, -when the hall door opened, and, with a sound of laughter -and a whiff of violets, Maud and the Count de Lamolle -entered the room.</p> - -<p>In her heavy mourning, Maud looked more nearly -pretty than she had ever done before. It was not the -dress that beautified her, but the happiness of her engagement -to Latimer, with whom she was deeply in -love, which had lent her the fleeting grace and charm -that only love, well bestowed, can give. She carried a -large bunch of violets in her hand, and her face was -slightly flushed.</p> - -<p>The count, who had attentively read the will of Jake -Shackleton in the papers, was staying on in San Francisco. -His attentions to Maud were not more assiduous, -but they were more “serious,” to use the technical -phrase, than heretofore. She would make him an ideal -wife, he thought. Even her lack of beauty was an -advantage. When an American girl was both rich -and pretty, she was more than even the most tactful -and sophisticated Frenchman could manage. Maud, -ugly, gentle, and not clever, would be a delightful -wife, ready to love humbly, unexacting, easy to make -happy.</p> - -<p>The count, a handsome, polished Parisian, speaking -excellent English, bowed over Mrs. Shackleton’s -hand, and then, in answer to her words of introduction, -shot an exploring look, warmed by a glimmer -of discreet admiration, at Mariposa. He wondered -who she was, for his practised eye took in at a glance -that she was shabbily dressed and evidently not of the -world of bonanza millions. He wished that he knew<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span> -her, now that he had made up his mind to spend some -months in San Francisco, paying court to the heiress -who would make him such an admirable wife, and in -whose society time hung so heavily on his hands.</p> - -<p>Mariposa excused herself and hurried away. She -was angry and confused. It seemed to her she had -done nothing but be rude and obstinately stupid, while -the cold and composed older woman had eyed her -with wary attentiveness. What did Mrs. Shackleton -think she had meant? She felt that the widow had -not, for a moment, abandoned the scheme of sending -her away. Descending the wide steps in the early -dark, the girl realized that the woman she had just left -was not going to be beaten from her purpose by what -appeared a girl’s unreasonable caprice.</p> - -<p>A man coming up the steps brushed by her, paused -for a moment, and then mechanically raised his hat. -In the gleam of the lamps, held aloft at the top of the -flight, she recognized the thin face and eye-glasses of -Win Shackleton. She did not return the salute, as it -was completely unexpected, and from the foot of the -stairs she heard the hall door bang behind him.</p> - -<p>“Who was that girl I met on the steps just now, -going out?” Win asked his mother, as they went upstairs -together.</p> - -<p>“That Miss Moreau your father was interested in. -He was going to send her to Paris to learn singing.”</p> - -<p>“What was she doing here?”</p> - -<p>“I sent for her. I wanted to talk over things with -her. I intended sending her.”</p> - -<p>“And did you fix it?”</p> - -<p>“No,” with a little laugh, “she’s a very changeable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span> -young woman. She says she doesn’t want to go now; -that she’s come to the conclusion she doesn’t want to -be under the obligation.”</p> - -<p>“That’s funny,” said Win. “She must be sort of -original. Mommer, why did the governor want to -send her to Paris? What was it made him so interested -in her?”</p> - -<p>“He knew her father long ago, mining, in the Sierra, -and Moreau did him a good turn up there. Your father -had never forgotten it and was anxious to repay it by -helping the daughter. She don’t seem to be easy to -help.”</p> - -<p>Win, as he dressed for dinner, meditated on his -mother’s explanation. It sounded reasonable enough, -only a thirst to repay past obligations was not—according -to his experience and memories—a peculiarity -that had troubled his father. Both he and Maud knew -that all the generosities and charities of the household -had been inspired by their mother. His childish memory -was stocked by recollections of her urging the -advantage of the bestowal of pecuniary aid to this and -that person, association and charity. It was she who -had saved Jake Shackleton from the accusation of -meanness, which California society invariably makes -against its rich men.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XIV<br /> - - -<small>VAIN PLEADINGS</small></h3> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent4">“Are there not, * * *</div> -<div class="indent">Two points in the adventure of the diver:</div> -<div class="verse">One—when a beggar he prepares to plunge;</div> -<div class="verse">One—when a prince he rises with his pearl?”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Browning.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>To the astonishment of his world, Win Shackleton -announced his intention of retaining <i>The Trumpet</i>, -and conducting it, himself, on the lines laid down by -his father. There was a slight shifting of positions, in -which some were advanced and one or two heads were -unexpectedly lopped off and thrown in the basket. The -new ruler took control with a decision that startled -those who had regarded him as a typical millionaire’s -son. The men on the paper, who had seen the time -of their lives coming in the managership of a feeble -and inexperienced boy, were awakened from their -dreams by feeling a hand on the reins, as tight as that -of Jake Shackleton himself. Win had ideas. Mrs. -Willers was advanced to the managership of the Woman’s -Page, into which she swept triumphant, with Miss -Peebles, the young woman of the “Foibles and Fancies” -column, in her wake. Barry Essex was lifted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span> -to a staff position, at a high salary, and had to himself -one of the little cells that branch off the main passage.</p> - -<p>Here he worked hard, for Win permitted no drones -in his hive. The luck was with Essex, as it had been -often before in his varied career. Things had fallen -together exactly as they should for the furthering of -his designs. It would take a long wooing to win over -Mariposa. Now, he could save money against the -day when he and she would leave together for the -Europe where they were to conquer fame and fortune.</p> - -<p>He had had other talks with Harney since the evening -of his revelation. He was convinced that the man -was telling the truth. He had known men before of -Harney’s type and wondered why the drunkard had -not made use of his knowledge for his own advancement. -He had evidently kept his eye on both Shackleton -and Moreau, and it was strange, that, as the two -men rose to affluence, he had not used the ugly secret -he held. The only explanation of it was that they held -an even greater power over him. He had undoubtedly -had reason to fear both men. Shackleton, once -arrived at the pinnacle of his success, would have -crushed like a beetle in his path this drunken threatener -of his peace. Moreau, whose every movement he -seemed to have followed, had evidently had a hold over -him. Hold or no hold, Shackleton would have swept -him aside by the power of his money and his position, -into the oblivion that awaits the enemies of rich and -unscrupulous men.</p> - -<p>Now both were dead. But the day of Harney’s -power was over. Enfeebled in mind and body by -drink and disease, he had neither the force nor the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span> -brain to be dangerous. His uses were merely those -of an instrument in daring hands. And those hands -had found him. There were long talks in Essex’s -room in the evenings, during which the story was -threshed out. George Harney, drunk or sober, neither -contradicted himself nor varied in his details. His -mind, confused and addled on other matters, retained -this memory with unblurred clearness.</p> - -<p>So Essex deliberated, carefully and without haste, -for there was plenty of time.</p> - -<p>The bright days continued. On a radiant Saturday -afternoon, Mariposa, tired with a morning’s teaching, -started forth to spend an hour or two in the park. She -had done this several times before, finding the green -peace and solitude of that beautiful spot soothing to -her harassed spirit. It was a long ride in those days, -and this had its charm, the little steam dummy cresting -the tops of sandy hills, clothed with lupins and -tiny frightened oaks, crouching before the sea winds. -On this occasion she had invited the escort of Benito, -who had been hanging drearily about the house, thinking -with mingled triumph and envy of Miguel, who -had gone with his mother to have a tooth pulled out.</p> - -<p>“Pulling the tooth’s bad, of course,” Benito had -said to Mariposa, as he trotted by her side to the car, -“but then afterward there’s candy. I dunno but what -it’s worth while. And then you have the tooth.”</p> - -<p>“Have the tooth!” said Mariposa. “What do you -want the tooth for?”</p> - -<p>“You can show it to the boys in school, and you can -generally trade it. I traded mine for a knife with two -blades, but both of ’em was broke.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span>Benito was becoming very friendly with Mariposa. -He was a cheerful and expansive soul. Could they have -heard him, Uncle Gam and his mother might have -suffered some embarrassment on the score of his revelations -as to their quarrels concerning his upbringing. -Benito had thoroughly gaged the capacity of -each of them in resisting his charms and urging -him to higher and better things. He was already at -the stage when his mother appealed slightly to his -commiseration and largely to his sense of humor. Mariposa -saw that while he had grasped the great fact that -his Uncle Gam had an unfortunately soft heart, he -also knew there was a stage when it was resolutely -hardened and his most practised wiles fell baffled from -its surface.</p> - -<p>They alighted from the car at what was then the -main entrance, and, side by side, Benito fluently talking, -made toward the gate. Here a peanut vender -had artfully placed his stall, and the fumes from the -roasted nuts rose gratefully to the nostrils of the small -boy. He said nothing, but sniffed with an ostentatious -noise, and then looked sidewise at Mariposa. One of -the sources of his respect for her was that she was so -quick in reading the language of the eye. One did -not vulgarly have to demand things of her. He felt -the nickel in his hand and galloped off to the stand, to -return slowly, his head on one side, an eye investigating -the contents of the opened paper bag he carried.</p> - -<p>Being a gentleman of gallant forbears, he offered -this to Mariposa, listening with some uneasiness to -the scraping of her fingers among its contents. He -had an awful thought that she might be like Miguel,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span> -who could never be trusted to withdraw his hand until -it was full to bursting. But Mariposa’s eventually -emerged with one small nut between thumb and finger. -This she nibbled gingerly as they passed under the -odorous, dark shade of the cypresses. Benito spread -a trail of shells behind him, dragging his feet in silent -happiness, his eyes fixed on the brilliant prospect of -sunlit green that filled in the end of the vista like a -drop-curtain.</p> - -<p>As they emerged from the cypress shadows the -lawns and shrubberies of the park lay before them radiantly -vivid in their variegated greens. The scene -suggested a picture in its motionless beauty, the sunlight -sleeping on stretches of shaven turf where the -peacocks strutted, the red dust of the drive unstirred -by wind or wheel. Rich earth scents mingled with the -perfume of the winter blossoms, delicate breaths of -violets from beneath the trees, spices exhaled by belated -roses still bravely blossoming in November, and -now and then a whiff of the acrid, animal odor of the -eucalyptus.</p> - -<p>Following pathways, now damp beneath the shade -of melancholy spruce and pine, now hard and dry between -velvety lawns, they came out on a large circular -opening. Here Mariposa sat down on a bench, with her -back to a sheltering mass of fir and hemlock, the -splendid sunshine pouring on her. Benito, with his -bag in his hand, trotted off to the grassy slope opposite -where custom has ordained that little boys may -roll about and play. He had hardly settled himself -there to the further enjoyment of his nuts when another -little boy appeared and made friendly overtures,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span> -with his eyes on the bag. Mariposa could not hear -them, but she could see the first advance and Benito’s -somewhat wary eyings of the stranger. In a few moments -the formalities of introduction were over, and -they were both lying on their stomachs on the grass, -kicking gently with their toes, while the bag stood -between them.</p> - -<p>Mariposa had intended to read, but her book lay -unopened in her lap. The sun in California is something -more than warming and cheerful. It is medicinal. -There is some unnamed balm in its light that -soothes the tormented spirit and rests and revivifies -the wearied body. It is at once a stimulant and a -sedative. It seems to have sucked up healing breaths -from the resinous forests inland and to be exhaling -them again upon those who can not seek their aid.</p> - -<p>As the soothing rays enveloped her, Mariposa felt -the strain of mind and body relax and a sense of rest -suffuse her. She stretched herself into a more reposeful -attitude, one arm thrown along the back of the -bench. Her book lay beside her on the seat. To -keep the blinding light from her eyes she tilted her hat -forward till the shade of its brim cut cleanly across the -middle of her face.</p> - -<p>Her mouth, which was plainly in view, had the expression -of suffering that is acquired by the mouths -of those who have been forced to endure suddenly and -silently. Her thoughts reverted to Essex and the -scene in the cottage. She wondered if the smart and -shame of it would ever lessen—if she would ever see -him again, and what he would say. She could not -imagine him as anything but master of himself. But<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span> -he was no longer master of her. The subtile spell he -had once exercised was forever broken.</p> - -<p>She heard a foot on the gravel, but did not look up; -several people had passed close to her crossing to the -main drive. The new-comer advanced toward her idly, -noting the grace of her attitude, the rich and yet elegant -proportions of her figure. Her face was turned -from him, but he saw the roll of rust-colored hair -beneath her hat, started, and quickened his pace. He -had come to a halt beside her before she looked up -startled. A quick red rushed into her face. He, for -his part, stood suave and smiling, holding his hat in -one hand, no expression on his face but one of frank -pleasure. Even in his eyes there was not a shade of -consciousness.</p> - -<p>“What a piece of luck!” he said. “Who’d have -thought of meeting you here?”</p> - -<p>Mariposa had nothing to respond. In a desperate -desire for flight and protection she looked for Benito, -but he was at the top of the slope, well out of earshot -of anything but a scream.</p> - -<p>Essex surveyed her face with fond attention.</p> - -<p>“You’re looking better than you did before you -moved,” he said; “you were just a little too pale then. -You know, I didn’t know it was you at all. I was -looking at you as I came across the drive, and I hadn’t -the least idea it was you till I saw your hair”—his -eye lighted on it caressingly—“I knew there was only -one woman in San Francisco with hair like that.”</p> - -<p>His voice seemed to mesmerize her at first. Now her -volition came back and she rose.</p> - -<p>“Benito!” she cried; “come at once.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span>The two little boys had their heads close together -and neither turned.</p> - -<p>“What are you going to go for?” said Essex in surprise.</p> - -<p>“What a question!” she said, picking up her book -with a trembling hand, and thinking in her ignorance -that he spoke honestly; “what an insulting question!”</p> - -<p>“Insulting! What on earth do you mean by that?” -coaxingly. “Please tell me why you are going?”</p> - -<p>“Because I don’t want ever to see you or speak to -you again,” she said in a voice shaken with anger. “I -couldn’t have believed any man could be so lacking -in decency as—as—to do this.”</p> - -<p>“Do what?” he asked with an air of blank surprise. -“What am I doing?”</p> - -<p>“Thrusting yourself on me this way when—when—you -know that the sight of you is humiliating and hateful -to me.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mariposa!” he said softly. He looked into -her face with eyes brimming with teasing tenderness. -“How can you say that to me when my greatest fault -has been to love you?”</p> - -<p>“Love me!” she ejaculated with breathless scorn; -“love me! Oh, Benito,”—calling with all her force—“come; -do come. I want you!”</p> - -<p>Benito, who undoubtedly must have heard, was too -pleasantly engaged with the companionship of his -new friend to make any response. Early in life he had -learned the value of an occasional attack of deafness.</p> - -<p>Mariposa made a motion to go to him, but Essex -gently moved in front of her. She drew away from -him, knitting her brows in helpless, heated rage.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span>“You know you’re treating me very badly,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Treating you very badly,” she now fairly gasped, -once more a bewildered fly in the net of this subtile -spider, “how else should I treat you?”</p> - -<p>“Kindly,” he said, softly bending his compelling -glance on her, “as a woman treats a man who loves -her.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Essex,” she said, turning on him with all the -dignity she had at her command, “we don’t seem to -understand each other. The last time I saw you, you -insulted and humiliated me. I don’t know how it can -be, but you seem to have forgotten all about it. I -haven’t. I never can, and I don’t want to see you or -speak to you or think of you ever again in this world.”</p> - -<p>“What makes you think I’ve forgotten?” he said, -suddenly dropping his voice to a key that thrilled with -meaning.</p> - -<p>He saw the remark shake her into startled half-comprehension. -That she still took his words at their -face value proved to him again how strangely simple -she was.</p> - -<p>“What makes you think I’ve forgotten?” he repeated.</p> - -<p>She raised her eyes in arrested astonishment and -met his, now seeming suddenly to have become charged -with memories of the scene in the cottage.</p> - -<p>“How could I forget?” he murmured. “Do you -really think I could ever forget that evening?”</p> - -<p>She turned away speechless with embarrassment -and anger, recollections of the kisses of that ill-omened -interview burning in her face.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span>“When a man wounds the one woman in the world -he cares for, can he ever forget, do you think?”</p> - -<p>He again had the gratification of seeing her flash a -look of artless surprise at him.</p> - -<p>“Then—then—” she stammered, completely bewildered, -“if you know that you wounded me so, why do -you come back? Why do you speak to me now? -There is nothing more to be said between us.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, there is; much more.”</p> - -<p>She drew back, frowning, on the alert to go. For a -second he thought he was to lose this precious and -unlooked-for chance of righting himself with her.</p> - -<p>“Sit down,” he said entreatingly; “sit down; I must -speak to you.”</p> - -<p>She turned from him and sent a quick glance toward -Benito. She was going.</p> - -<p>“Mariposa,” he said, desperately catching at her -arm, “please—a moment. Give me one moment. You -<i>must</i> listen to me.”</p> - -<p>She tried to draw her arm away, but he held it, and -pleaded, genuine feeling flushing his face and roughening -his voice.</p> - -<p>“I beg—I implore—of you to listen to me. I only -ask a moment. Don’t condemn me without hearing -what I have to say. I behaved like a blackguard. I -know it. It’s haunted me ever since. Sit down and -listen to me while I try to explain and make you forgive -me.”</p> - -<p>He was really stirred; the sincerity of his appeal -touched the heart, once so warm, now grown so cold -toward him. She sat down on the bench, at the end<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span> -farthest from him, her whole bearing suggesting self-contained -aloofness.</p> - -<p>“I know I shocked and hurt you. I know it’s just -and natural for you to treat me this way. I was mad. -I didn’t know what I was saying. If you knew how I -have suffered since you would at least have some pity -for me. Can you guess what it means to give a blow -to the being who is more to you than all the rest of the -world? I was mad for that one evening.”</p> - -<p>He paused, looking at her. Her profile was toward -him, pale and immovable. She neither turned nor -spoke. He continued with a slight diminution of confidence:</p> - -<p>“I’ve been a wild sort of fellow, consorting with all -sorts of riffraff and thinking lightly of women. I’ve -met lots of all kinds. It was all right to talk to them -that way. You were different. I knew it from the -first. But that night in the cottage I lost my head. -You looked so pale and sad; my love broke the bonds -I had put upon it. Can’t you understand and forgive -me?”</p> - -<p>He leaned toward her, his face tense and pale. As -he became agitated and fell into the position of pleader, -she grew calm and regained her hold on herself. There -was a chill poise about her that frightened him. He -felt that if he attempted to touch her she would draw -away with quick, instinctive repugnance.</p> - -<p>She turned and looked into his face with cold eyes.</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t think I understand. I should think -those very things you mention would appeal to the -chivalry of a man even if he didn’t care for a woman.”</p> - -<p>“Do you doubt that I love you?”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span>“Yes,” she said, turning away; “I don’t think that -you ever could love me or any other woman.”</p> - -<p>“Why do you say that?”</p> - -<p>She looked out over the grassy slope in front of -them.</p> - -<p>“Because you don’t understand the first principles -of it. When you’re fond of people you don’t want -to hurt and humiliate them. You don’t want to drag -them down to shame and misery. You’d die to save -them from those things. You want to protect them, -help them, take care of them, be proud of them and -say to all the world: ‘Here, look; this is the person -I love!’”</p> - -<p>Her simplicity, that once would have amused him, -now had something in it that at once touched and -alarmed him. There was a downright conviction in -it, that argument, eloquence, passion even, would not -be able to shake.</p> - -<p>“And that, Mariposa,” he said, ardently, “is the way -I love you.”</p> - -<p>“That the way!” she echoed scornfully. “No—your -way is to ask me to destroy myself, body and soul. -You ask me to give you everything, while you give -nothing. You say you love me, and yet you’re so -ashamed of me and your love, that it would have to be -a hateful secret thing, that you told lies about, and -would expect me to tell lies about, too. I can’t understand -how you can dare to call it love. I can’t understand. -Oh, don’t talk about it any more. It’s all too -horrible and cruel and false!”</p> - -<p>Her words still further alarmed the man. He knew<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span> -they were not those of a woman swayed by sentiment, -far less by passion.</p> - -<p>“That’s all true,” he said hastily, “that’s all true of -what I said to you that night in the cottage. Now it’s -different. Aren’t you large-hearted enough to forgive -a man whose greatest weakness has been his infatuation -for you? I was a ruffian and you an unsuspecting -angel. Now I want to offer you the only kind of love -that ever should be offered you. Will you be my -wife?”</p> - -<p>Mariposa started perceptibly. She turned and looked -with amazed eyes into his face. He seemed another -man from the one who had so bitterly humiliated her -at their last interview. He was pale and in earnest.</p> - -<p>“Will you?” he repeated.</p> - -<p>“No,” she said with slow decisiveness, “I will not.”</p> - -<p>“No?” he exclaimed, in loud-voiced incredulity and -bending his head to look into her face. “No?”</p> - -<p>“No,” she reiterated; “I said no.”</p> - -<p>She felt with every moment that their positions were -changing more and more. She was gradually ascending -to the command, while he was slowly coming under -her will.</p> - -<p>“Why do you say no?” he demanded.</p> - -<p>“Because I want to say no.”</p> - -<p>“But—but—why? Are you still angry?”</p> - -<p>“I want to say no,” she repeated. “I couldn’t say -anything else.”</p> - -<p>“But you love me?” with angry persistence.</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t love you.”</p> - -<p>“You do,” he said in a low voice. “You’re not telling -the truth. You do love me. You know you do.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span>She looked at him with cold defiance, and said steadily:</p> - -<p>“I do not.”</p> - -<p>He drew nearer her along the bench and said with -his eyes hard upon her:</p> - -<p>“I didn’t think you were the kind of woman to kiss a -man you didn’t care for.”</p> - -<p>He knew when he spoke the words they were foolish -and jeopardized his cause, but his fury at her disdainful -attitude forced them from him.</p> - -<p>She turned pale and her nostrils quivered. He had -given her a body blow. For a moment they sat side -by side looking at each other like two enraged animals -animated by equally violent if different passions.</p> - -<p>“Thank you for saying that,” she said, when she -could command her voice; “now I understand what -your love for me means.”</p> - -<p>She rose from the bench. He seized her hand and -attempted to draw her back, saying:</p> - -<p>“Mariposa, listen to me. You drive me distracted. -You force me to say things like that to you, when you -know that I’m mad with love for you. Listen—”</p> - -<p>She tore her hand out of his grasp and ran across the -space to the slope, calling wildly to Benito. The boy -at last could feign deafness no longer and sat up on his -heels in well-simulated surprise.</p> - -<p>“Come, come,” she cried angrily. “Come at once. -I want you.”</p> - -<p>He rose, dusting his nether parts and shouting:</p> - -<p>“Why? why? we’re havin’ an awful nice time up -here.”</p> - -<p>“Come,” she reiterated; “it’s late and we must go.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span>He trotted down the slope, extremely reluctant, and -inclined to be rebellious.</p> - -<p>Mariposa caught him by the hand and swept him -back toward the path between the spruces. Essex was -still standing near the bench, an elegant figure with -a darkly sinister face. As they passed him he raised -his hat. Mariposa, whose face was bent down, did -not return the salute; so Benito did, as he was hauled -by. She continued to drag the unwilling little boy -along, while he hung loosely from her hand, staring -backward for a last look at his playmate.</p> - -<p>“What’s your name?” he roared as he was dragged -toward the shadowy path that plunged into the trees. -“I forget what your name is.”</p> - -<p>The answer was lost in the intervening space, and -the next moment he and Mariposa disappeared behind -the screen of thick-growing evergreens.</p> - -<p>“Say,” said Benito, “leggo my hand. What’s the -sense ’er hauling me this way?”</p> - -<p>Mariposa did not heed, and they went on at a feverish -pace.</p> - -<p>“What makes your hand shake that way?” was his -next observation. “It’s like grandma’s when she came -home from Los Angeles with the chills.”</p> - -<p>There was something in this harmless comment -that caused Mariposa suddenly to loosen her hold.</p> - -<p>“My hand often does that way,” she said with an air -of embarrassment.</p> - -<p>“What makes it?” asked Benito, suddenly interested.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know; perhaps playing the piano,” she said, -feeling the necessity of having to dissemble.</p> - -<p>“I’d like to be able to make my hand shake that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span> -way,” Benito observed enviously. “When grandma -had the chills I used to watch her. But she shook all -over. Sometimes her teeth used to click. Do your -teeth ever click?”</p> - -<p>The subject interested him and furnished food for -conversation till they reached their car and were swept -homeward over the low hills, breaking here and there -into sand, and with the little oaks crouching in grotesque -fear before the winds.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XV<br /> - - -<small>THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY</small></h3> -</div> - - -<p class="quote">“Thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment. -Thou hast showed thy people hard things.”—<span class="smcap">Psalms.</span></p> - - - -<p>The third boarder at the Garcias’ was Isaac Pierpont, -the teacher of singing. The Garcia house offered, -at least, the one recommendation of being a place -wherein musically inclined lodgers might make the -welkin ring with the sounds of their industry and no -voice be raised in protest. Between the pounding of -her own pupils Mariposa could hear the voices of Pierpont’s -as they performed vocal prodigies under their -teacher’s goadings.</p> - -<p>The young man was unusual and interesting. He -had a “method” which he expounded to Mariposa during -the process of meals. It was founded on a large -experience of voices in general and a close anatomical -study of the vocal chords. All he wanted, he said, to -demonstrate its excellence to the world was a voice. -Mrs. Garcia, who used to drop in on Mariposa with -her head tied up in white swathings and a broom in -her hand, had early in their acquaintance given her a -life history of the two other boarders, with a running -accompaniment of her own comments. Pierpont had -not her highest approval, as he was exasperatingly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span> -indifferent to money, being bound, to the exclusion of -all lesser interests, on the search for his voice. Half -his pupils were taught for nothing and the other half -forgot to pay, or Pierpont forgot to send in his bills, -which was the same thing in the end, Mrs. Garcia -thought.</p> - -<p>“I can’t see what’s the good of working,” she said, -daintily brushing the surface of the carpet with her -broom, “if you don’t make anything by your work. -What’s the sense of it, I’d like to know?”</p> - -<p>As soon as the singing teacher heard that Mariposa -had a voice he had espied in her the object of his search -and begged her to sing for him. But she had refused. -She had not sung a note since her mother’s death. The -series of unforeseen and disastrous developments that -had followed the opening scene of the drama in which -she found herself the central figure had robbed her of -all desire to use the gift which was her one source of -fortune. Sometimes, alone in her room, her fingers -running over the keys of the piano, she wondered -dreamily what it would be like once again to hear the -full, vibrating sounds booming out from her chest. -Now and then she had tried a note or two or an old -familiar strain, then had stopped, repelled and disenchanted. -Her voice sounded coarse and strange. -And while it quivered on the air there came a rush of -exquisitely painful memories.</p> - -<p>But one afternoon, a few days after her encounter -with Essex, she had come in early to find the lower hall -full of the sound of a high, crystal clear soprano, which -was pouring from the teacher’s room. She listened interested, -held in a spell of envious attention. It was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span> -evidently a girl of whom Pierpont had spoken to her, -who possessed the one voice of promise he had yet -found, and who was studying for the stage. Leaning -over the stair-rail, Mariposa felt, with a tingling at her -heart, that this singing had a finish and poise hers -entirely lacked, and yet the voice was thin, colorless -and fragile compared with her own. With all its -flawless ease and fluency it had not the same splendor -of tone, the same passionate thrill.</p> - -<p>She went slowly upstairs, pursued by the beautiful -sounds, bending over the railing to catch them more -fully, with, for the first time since her mother’s death, -the desire to emulate, to be up and doing, to hear once -more the rich notes swelling from her throat.</p> - -<p>“Some day <i>I’ll</i> sing for him,” she said to herself, -with her head up and her eyes bright, “and he’ll see -that none of them has a voice like mine.”</p> - -<p>The stir of enthusiasm was still on her when she -shut the door of her own room. It was hard to settle -to anything with this sudden welling up of old ambitions -disturbing the apathy following on grief. She -was standing, looking down on the garden—a prospect -which had long lost its forlornness to her accustomed -eyes—when a knock at the door fell gratefully -on her ears. Even the society of Mrs. Garcia, with -her head tied up in the white duster, had its advantages -now and then.</p> - -<p>But it was not Mrs. Garcia, but Mrs. Willers whom -the opening door revealed. Mariposa’s welcome was -warmed not only by the desire for companionship but -by genuine affection. She had come to regard Mrs. -Willers as her best friend.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span>They did not see each other as often as formerly, -for the newspaper woman found all her time occupied -by her new work. To-day being Monday, she had -managed to get off for the afternoon, as it was in the -Sunday edition that the Woman’s Page attained its -most imposing proportions. Monday was a day off. -But Mrs. Willers did not always avail herself of it. -She was having the first real chance of her life and was -working harder than she had ever done before. Her -bank account was mounting weekly. On the occasions -when she had time to consult the little book she saw -through the line of figures Edna going to a fine school -in New York, and then, perhaps, a still finer one -abroad, and back of that again—dimly, as became a -blissful vision—Edna grown a woman, accomplished, -graceful, beautiful, a glorified figure in a haze of wealth -and success.</p> - -<p>She had no war-paint on to-day, but was in her -working clothes, dark and serviceable, showing lapses -between skirt and waist-band, and tag ends of tape -appearing in unexpected places. She had dressed in -such a hurry that morning that only three buttons of -each boot were fastened, though the evening before -Edna had seen to it that they were all on. She had -come up the hill on what she would have called “a dead -run,” and was still fetching her breath with gasps.</p> - -<p>Sitting opposite Mariposa, in the bright light of the -window, she let her eyes dwell fondly on the girl’s -face.</p> - -<p>“Well, young woman, do you know I’ve come up -here on the full jump to lecture you?”</p> - -<p>“Lecture me?” said Mariposa, laughing and bending<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span> -forward to give Mrs. Willers’ hand a friendly squeeze. -“What have I been doing now?”</p> - -<p>“That’s just what I’ve come to find out. Left a -desk full of work, and Miss Peebles hopping round like -a chicken with its head off, to find out what you’ve -been doing. I’d have come up before only I couldn’t -get away. Mariposa, my dear, I’ve had a letter from -Mrs. Shackleton.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa’s color deepened. A line appeared between -her eyebrows, and she looked out of the window.</p> - -<p>“Well,” she said; “and did she say anything about -me?”</p> - -<p>“That’s what she did—a lot. A lot that sorter -stumped me. And I’ve come up here to-day to find -out what’s the matter with you. What is it that’s making -you act like several different kinds of fool all at -once?”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?” said Mariposa weakly, trying -to gain time. “What did she tell you?”</p> - -<p>“My dear, you know as well as I do what she told -me. And I can’t make head or tail of it. What’s -come over you?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” said the girl in a low voice. “I -suppose I’ve changed.”</p> - -<p>“Stuff!” observed Mrs. Willers briskly. “Don’t try -to tell lies; you don’t know how. One’s got to have -some natural capacity for it. You’ve had an offer -that makes it possible for you to go to Europe, -educate your voice, study French and German, and -become a prima donna. Everything’s to be paid—no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span> -limit set on time or money. Now, what in heaven’s -name made you refuse that?”</p> - -<p>Facing her in the bright light, the questioner’s eyes -were like gimlets on her face. Mrs. Willers saw its -distressed uneasiness, but could read no further. Three -days before she had received Mrs. Shackleton’s letter, -and had been amazed by its contents. She could -neither assign to herself nor to Mrs. Shackleton a reason -for the girl’s unexplainable conduct.</p> - -<p>“I can’t explain it to you,” said Mariposa. “I—I—didn’t -want to go. That was all.”</p> - -<p>“But you wanted to go only a month or two before, -when Shackleton himself made you the offer?”</p> - -<p>Mariposa nodded without answering.</p> - -<p>“But why? That’s the part that’s so extraordinary. -You’d take it from him, but not from his wife.”</p> - -<p>“A person might change her mind, mightn’t she?”</p> - -<p>“A fool might, but a reasonable woman, without a -cent, with hardly a friend, how could she?”</p> - -<p>“Well, she has.”</p> - -<p>“Mariposa, look me in the eye.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Willers met the amber-clear eyes and saw, with -an uneasy thrill, that there was knowledge in them -there had not been before. It was not the limpid -glance of the candid, unspoiled youth it had once been. -She felt a contraction of pain at her heart, as though -she had read the same change in Edna’s eyes.</p> - -<p>“What made you change your mind?—that’s what I -want to know.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa lowered her lids.</p> - -<p>“I can’t tell. What makes anybody change his mind?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span> -You think differently. Things happen that make you -think differently.”</p> - -<p>“Well, what’s happened to make <i>you</i> think differently?”</p> - -<p>The lines appeared again on the smooth forehead. -She shifted her glance to the window and then back -to the hands on her lap.</p> - -<p>“Suppose I don’t want to tell? I’m not a little girl -like Edna, to have to tell every thought I have. Mayn’t -I have a secret, Mrs. Willers?”</p> - -<p>She looked at her interlocutor with an attempt at a -coaxing smile. Mrs. Willers saw that it was an effort, -and remained grave.</p> - -<p>“I don’t want you to have secrets from me, dear, no -more than I would Edna. Mariposa,” she said in a -lowered voice, leaning forward and putting her hand -on the girl’s knee, “is it because of some man?”</p> - -<p>Mariposa looked up quickly. The elder woman saw -that, for a moment, she was startled.</p> - -<p>“Some man!” she exclaimed. “What man?”</p> - -<p>“You haven’t changed your mind because of Essex?”</p> - -<p>“Essex!” She slowly crimsoned, and Mrs. Willers -kept her pitiless eyes on the rising flood of color.</p> - -<p>“Oh, my dear girl,” she said almost in an agony, -“don’t say you’ve got fond of him.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t like Mr. Essex. I—I—can’t bear him.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Willers knew enough of human nature not to -be at all convinced by this remark.</p> - -<p>“He’s not the man for any woman to give her heart -to. He’s not the man to take seriously. He’s never -loved anything in his life but himself. Don’t let yourself<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span> -be fooled by him. He’s handsome, and he’s about -the smoothest talker I ever ran up against. But don’t -you be crazy enough to fall in love with him.”</p> - -<p>“I tell you, I don’t like him.”</p> - -<p>“My goodness, I wish there was somebody in this -world to take care of you. You’ve got no sense, and -you’re so unfortunately good-looking. Some day -you’ll be fooled just as I was with Willers. Are you -telling the truth? It isn’t Essex that’s made you -change your mind?”</p> - -<p>These repeated accusations exasperated Mariposa.</p> - -<p>“No, it is not,” she said angrily; and then, in the -heat of her annoyance, “if anything would make me -accept Mrs. Shackleton’s offer it would be the hope -of getting away from that man.”</p> - -<p>There was no doubt she was speaking the truth now. -Mrs. Willers’ point of view of the situation underwent -a kaleidoscopic upsetting.</p> - -<p>“Oh,” she said, in a subdued voice, “then it’s <i>he</i> -that’s in love?”</p> - -<p>The girl made no answer. She felt hot and sore, -pricked by this insistent probing of spots that were -still raw.</p> - -<p>“Does he—does he—bother you?” the elder woman -said in an incredulous voice. Somehow she could not -reconcile the picture of Essex as a repulsed and suppliant -wooer with her knowledge of him as such a very -self-assured and debonair person.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what you mean by ‘bother me,’” said -Mariposa, still heated. “He makes love to me, and I -don’t like it. I don’t like him.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span>“Makes love to you? What do you mean by ‘makes -love to you?’”</p> - -<p>“He has asked me to be his wife,” said the victim, -goaded to desperation by this tormenting catechism.</p> - -<p>She could not have confessed that Essex had entertained -other designs with regard to her, any more -than she could have told her real reason for refusing -Mrs. Shackleton’s offer. But she felt ashamed and -miserable at these half-truths, which her friend was -giving ear to with the wide eyes of wonder.</p> - -<p>“Humph!” said Mrs. Willers, “I never thought that -man would want to marry a poor girl. But that’s not -as surprising as that you had sense enough to refuse -him.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t like him. I know I’m stupid, but I know -when I like a person and when I don’t. And I’d rather -stand on the corner of Kearney and Sutter Streets with -a tin cup begging for nickels than marry Mr. Essex, -or be sent to Europe by Mrs. Shackleton.”</p> - -<p>“Well, you’re a combination of smartness and folly -I never expect to see beaten. You’ve got sense enough -to refuse to marry a man who’s bound to make you -miserable. That’s astonishing in any girl. And then, -on the other hand, you throw up the chance of a lifetime -for nothing. That would be astonishing in a -candidate for entrance into an asylum for the feeble-minded.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps I am feeble-minded,” said Mariposa humbly. -“I certainly don’t think I’m very clever, especially -now with everybody telling me what a fool I -am.”</p> - -<p>“You’re only a fool on that one point, honey. And<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span> -that’s what makes it so aggravating. It’s just a kink -in your brain, for you’ve got no reason to act the way -you do.”</p> - -<p>She spoke positively, but her pleading look at Mariposa -showed that she was not yet willing to give up the -search for a reason. Mariposa leaned forward and -took her hand.</p> - -<p>“Oh, dear Mrs. Willers,” she said, “don’t ask me any -more. Don’t tease me. I do love you, and you’ve -been so kind to me I can never stop loving you, no matter -what you did. But let me be. Perhaps I have a -reason, and perhaps I am only a fool, but whichever -way it is, be sure I haven’t acted hastily; and I’ve suffered, -too, trying to do what seemed to me right.”</p> - -<p>Her eyes suddenly filled with tears, and she got up -quickly to hide them, and stood looking out of the -window. Mrs. Willers rose, too, and, putting an arm -around her, kissed her cheek.</p> - -<p>“All right,” she said, “I’ll try not to bother. But -you want to tell me whatever you think you can. -You’re too good-looking, Mariposa, and you’re such—a—”</p> - -<p>She stopped.</p> - -<p>“A fool,” came from Mariposa, in the stifled tones -of imminent tears. There was a moment’s pause, and -then their simultaneous laughter filled the room.</p> - -<p>“You see you can’t help saying it,” said Mariposa, -laughing foolishly, with the tears hanging on her -lashes. “It’s like any other bad habit—its getting entire -control of you.”</p> - -<p>A few moments later Mrs. Willers was walking -quickly down the hill toward Sutter Street, her brows<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span> -knit in thought. She had certainly discovered nothing. -In her pocket was Mrs. Shackleton’s letter telling -of Miss Moreau’s refusal of her offer and asking if -Mrs. Willers knew the reason of it. Mrs. Shackleton -had wondered if Miss Moreau’s affections had been -engaged, which could perhaps account for her otherwise -unaccountable rejection of an opportunity upon -which her whole future might depend.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Willers had been relieved to find there was -certainly no man influencing Miss Moreau’s decision. -For unless it was Essex, it could be no one. Mrs. -Willers knew the paucity of Mariposa’s social circle. -That Essex had asked the girl to marry him and been -refused was astonishing. The rejection was only a -little more surprising than the offer. For a man like -Essex to want to marry a penniless orphan was only -exceeded in singularity by a girl like Mariposa refusing -a man of Essex’s indisputable attractions. But -there was always something to be thankful for in the -darkest situation, and Mariposa undoubtedly had no -intention of marrying him. Providence was guiding -her, at least, in that respect.</p> - -<p>It was still early when Mrs. Willers approached <i>The -Trumpet</i> office. The sky was leaden and hung with -low clouds. As she drew near the door the first few -drops of rain fell, spotting the sidewalk here and there -as though they were slowly and reluctantly wrung from -the swollen heavens. It would be a storm, she thought, -as she turned into the doorway and began the ascent -of the dark stairs with the lanterns on the landings. -In her own cubby-hole she answered Mrs. Shackleton’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span> -letter, and then passed along the passageway to the -sanctum of the proprietor, who was still in his office.</p> - -<p>Win, in his father’s swivel chair, looked very small -and insignificant. The wide window behind him let -a flood of pale light over his bullet-shaped head with -its thatch of limp, blond hair, and his thin shoulders -bowed over the desk. His eyes narrowed behind his -glasses as he looked up in answer to Mrs. Willers’ -knock, and then, when he saw who it was, he smiled, -for Win liked Mrs. Willers.</p> - -<p>She handed him the letter with the request that he -give it to his mother that evening, and sat down in -the chair beside him, facing the long white panes of -the window, which the rain was beginning to lash.</p> - -<p>“My mother and you seem to be having a lively correspondence,” -said Win, who had brought down Mrs. -Shackleton’s letter some days before.</p> - -<p>“Yes, we’ve got an untractable young lady on our -hands, and it’s a large order.”</p> - -<p>“Miss Moreau?” said the proprietor of <i>The Trumpet</i>. -“My mother told me. She’s very independent, isn’t -she?”</p> - -<p>“She’s a strange girl. You can tell your mother, -as I’ve told her in this letter, that I don’t understand -her at all. She’s got some idea in her head, but I -can’t make it out.”</p> - -<p>“Mightn’t a girl just be independent?” said the -young man, putting up a long, thin hand to press his -glasses against his nose with a first and second finger. -“Just independent, and nothing else?”</p> - -<p>“There’s no knowing what a girl mightn’t be, Mr.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span> -Shackleton,” Mrs. Willers responded gloomily. “I was -one myself once, but it’s so long ago I’ve forgotten what -it’s like; and, thank heaven, it’s a stage that’s soon -passed.”</p> - -<p>It so happened that this little conversation set Win’s -mind once more to thinking of the girl his father had -been so determined to find and benefit. As he left -<i>The Trumpet</i> office, shortly after the withdrawal of -Mrs. Willers, his mind was full of the queries the finding -of the letters had aroused in it. The handsome -girl he had seen that afternoon, three months ago, -appeared before his mental vision, and this time as -her face flashed out on him from the dark places of -memory it had a sudden tantalizing suggestion of -familiarity. The question came that so often teases us -with the sudden glimpse of a vaguely recognized face: -“Where have I seen it before?”</p> - -<p>Win walked slowly up Third Street meditating -under a spread umbrella. It was raining hard now, a -level downpour that beat pugnaciously on the city, -which gleamed and ran rillets of water under the -onslaught. People were scurrying away in every -direction, women with umbrellas low against their -heads, one hand gripping up their skirts, from beneath -which came and went glimpses of muddy boots -and wet petticoats. Loafers were standing under -eaves, looking out with yellow, apathetic faces. The -merchants of the quarter came to the doorways of the -smaller shops that Win passed, and stood looking out -and then up into the sky with musing smiles. It was -a heavy rain, and no mistake.</p> - -<p>Win had a commission to execute before he went<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span> -home, and so passed up Kearney Street to Post, where, -a few doors from the corner, he entered a photographer’s. -He was having a copy made on ivory of -an old daguerreotype of his father, to be given as a -present to his mother, and to-day it was to be finished.</p> - -<p>The photographer, a clever and capable man, had -started the innovation of having his studio roughly -lined with burlaps, upon which photographs of local -belles and celebrities were fastened with brass-headed -nails. Win, waiting for his appearance, loitered round -the room looking at these, recognizing a friend here, -and there a proud beauty who had endured him as a -partner at the cotillion because he was the only son of -Jake Shackleton. Farther on was one of Edna Willers, -looking very lovely and seraphic in her large-eyed -innocence.</p> - -<p>On a small slip of wall between two windows there -was only one picture fastened, and as his eye fell on -this he started. It was Mariposa Moreau, in the lace -dress she had worn at the opera, the face looking directly -and gravely into his. At the moment that his -glance, fresh from other faces, fell on it, the haunting -suggestion of familiarity, of having some intimate connection -with or memory of it, possessed him with sudden, -startling force. Of whom did she remind him?</p> - -<p>He backed away from it, and, as he did so, was conscious -that he knew exactly the way her lips would open -if she had been going to speak, of the precise manner -she had of lifting her chin. Yet he had seen her only -twice in his life that he knew of, and then in the half-dark. -It was not she that was known to him, but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span> -some one that she looked like—some one he knew well, -that had some vague, yet close connection with his -life. He felt in an eery way that his mind was gropingly -approaching the solution, had almost seized it, -when the photographer’s voice behind him broke the -thread.</p> - -<p>“It will be ready in a moment, Mr. Shackleton,” he -said. “You’re looking at that picture. It’s a Miss -Moreau, a young lady who, I believe, is a singer. I -put it there by itself, as I was just a little proud of it.”</p> - -<p>“It’s a stunning picture and no mistake,” said Win, -arranging his glasses, “but it must be easy to make a -picture of a girl like that.”</p> - -<p>“On the contrary, I think it’s hard. Miss Moreau’s -handsome, but it’s a beauty that’s more suitable to a -painter than a photographer. It’s the coloring that’s -so remarkable, so rich and yet so refined—that white -skin and dark red hair. That’s why I am proud of the -picture. It suggests the coloring, I think. It seems -to me there’s something warm about that hair.”</p> - -<p>Win said vaguely, yes, he guessed there must -be, wondering what the fellow meant about there -being something warm about the hair. Further comment -was ended by an attendant coming forward with -the picture and handing it to the photographer.</p> - -<p>The man held it out to Win with a proud smile. It -was an enlargement of a small daguerreotype, taken -some twenty years previously, and representing -Shackleton in full face and without his beard. The -work had been excellently done. It was a faithful and -spirited likeness.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span>As his eye fell on it Win suffered a sudden and -amazing revelation. It was like a dazzling flash of -light tearing away the shadows of a dark place. -Through the obscurity of his mind enlightenment rent -like a current of electricity. That was what the memory -was, that dim sense of previous knowledge, that -groping after something well known and yet elusive.</p> - -<p>He stared at the picture, and then turned and looked -at Mariposa’s hanging on the wall. The photographer, -looking commiseratingly at him, evidently -mistaking his obvious perturbation of mind for a rush -of filial affection, recalled him to himself. He did not -know that he was pale, but he saw that the plate of -ivory in his hand trembled.</p> - -<p>“It’s—it’s—first-rate,” he said in a low voice. “I’m -tremendously pleased. Send it to <i>The Trumpet</i> office -to-morrow, and the bill with it, please. You’ve done -an A number one job.”</p> - -<p>He turned away and went slowly out, the photographer -and his assistant looking curiously after him. -There were steps to go down before he regained the -street, and he descended them in a maze, the rain -pouring on his head, his closed umbrella in his hand. -It was all as clear as daylight now—the secret searching -out of the mother and daughter, the interest taken -by his father in the beautiful and talented girl, his desire -to educate and provide for her. It was all as plain -as A, B, C.</p> - -<p>“She was so different from Maud and me,” Win -thought humbly, as he moved forward in the blinding -rain. “No wonder he was fond of her.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span>It was so astonishing, so simple, and yet so hard -to realize in the first moment of discovery this way, -that he stopped and stood staring at the pavement.</p> - -<p>Two of his friends, umbrellaed and mackintoshed, -bore down on him, not recognizing the motionless -figure with the water running off its hat brim till they -were close on him.</p> - -<p>“Win, gone crazy!” cried one gaily. “When did it -come on, Winnie boy?”</p> - -<p>He looked up startled, and had presence of mind -enough not to open his umbrella.</p> - -<p>“Win’s trying to grow,” said the other, knowing that -his insignificant size was a mortification to the young -man. “So he’s standing out in the rain like a plant.”</p> - -<p>“Rain’s all right,” said Win. “I like it.”</p> - -<p>“No doubt about that, sonny. Only thing to doubt’s -your sanity.”</p> - -<p>“Cute little day, ain’t it?” said his companion.</p> - -<p>“Win likes it,” said the first. “Keep it up, old chap, -and you’ll be six feet high before the winter’s over.”</p> - -<p>And they went off cackling to the club to tell the -story of Win, with the water pouring off his hat and his -glasses damp, standing staring at the pavement on -Post Street.</p> - -<p>Win opened his umbrella and went on. He walked -home slowly and by a circuitous route. His mind traversed -the subject back and forth, and at each moment -he became more convinced, as all the muddle of puzzling -circumstances fell into place in logical sequence.</p> - -<p>She was his half-sister, older than he was—his -father’s first-born. By this accident of birth she was -an outcast, penniless and unacknowledged, from the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span> -home and fortune he and Maud had inherited. At the -very moment when the father had found her free to -accept his bounty he had been snatched away. And -she knew it. That was the explanation of her changeable -conduct. She had found it out in some way between -the deaths of her mother and Shackleton. Some -one had told her or she had discovered it herself.</p> - -<p>In the dripping dark Win pondered it all, going up -and down the ascending streets in a tortuous route -homeward, wondering at fate, communing with himself.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XVI<br /> - - -<small>REBELLIOUS HEARTS</small></h3> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent5">“Constant you are,</div> -<div class="verse">But yet a woman; and for secrecy,</div> -<div class="verse">No lady closer, for I will believe</div> -<div class="verse">Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Shakespeare.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>Win found his mother in her boudoir and delivered -Mrs. Willers’ letter to her without comment. He saw -her read it and then sit silent, her brows drawn, looking -into the fire beside which she sat. It was impossible -just then for him to allude to the subject of the -letter, and, after standing by the mantelpiece awkwardly -warming his wet feet, he went upstairs to his -own rooms.</p> - -<p>At dinner the family trio was unusually quiet. -Under the blaze of light that fell from the great crystal -chandelier over the table with its weight of glass and -silver, the three participants looked preoccupied and -stupid. The two Chinese servants, soft-footed as cats, -and spotless in their crisp white, moved about the table -noiselessly, offering dish after dish to their impassive -employers.</p> - -<p>It was one of those irritating occasions when everything -seems to combine for the purpose of exasperating.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span> -Bessie, annoyed by the contents of Mrs. Willers’ -letter, found her annoyance augmented by the fact that -Maud looked particularly plain that evening, and the -Count de Lamolle was expected after dinner. Worry -had robbed her face of such sparkle as it possessed and -had accentuated its ungirlish heaviness. She felt that -her engagement to Latimer must be announced, for the -Count de Lamolle was exhibiting those signs of a coming -proposal that she knew well, and what excuse could -she give her mother for rejecting him? She must tell -the truth, and the thought alarmed her shrinking and -peaceable soul. She sat silent, crumbling her bread -with a nervous hand and wondering how she could -possibly avert the offer if the count showed symptoms -of making it that evening.</p> - -<p>After dinner her mother left her in the small reception-room, -a rich and ornate apartment, furnished in -an oriental manner with divans, cushions, and Moorish -hangings. The zeal for chaperonage had not yet -penetrated to the West, and Bessie considered that to -leave her daughter thus alone was to discharge her duties -as a parent with delicate correctness. She retired -to the adjoining library, where the count, on entering, -had a glimpse of her sitting in a low chair, languidly -turning the pages of a magazine. He, on his part, had -lived in the West long enough to know that the disposal -of the family in these segregated units was what -custom and conventionality dictated.</p> - -<p>The count was a clever man and had studied the -United States from other points of vantage than the -window of a Pullman car.</p> - -<p>With the murmur of his greetings to Maud in her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[296]</span> -ears, Bessie rose from her chair. She found the library -chill and cheerless after her cozy boudoir on the floor -above, and decided to go there. Glancing over her -shoulder, as she mounted the stairs, she could see the -count standing with his back to the fire, discoursing -with a smile—a handsome, personable man, with his -dark face and pointed beard looking darker than ever -over his gleaming expanse of shirt bosom. It would -be an entirely desirable marriage for Maud. Bessie -had found out all about the count’s position and title in -his native land, and both were all that he said they were, -which had satisfied and surprised her.</p> - -<p>In her own room she sat down before the fire to -think. Maud’s future was in her own hands now, -molding itself into shape downstairs in the reception-room. -Bessie could do no more toward directing it -than she had already done, and her active mind immediately -seized on the other subject that had been engrossing -it. She drew out Mrs. Willers’ letter and -read it again. Then crumpling it in her hand, she -looked into the fire with eyes of somber perplexity.</p> - -<p>What was the matter with the girl? Mrs. Willers -stated positively that, as far as she could ascertain, -there was no man that had the slightest influence over -Mariposa Moreau’s affections. She was acting entirely -on her own volition. But what had made her change -her mind, Mrs. Willers did not know. Something -had undoubtedly occurred, she thought, that had influenced -Mariposa to a total reversal of opinion. Mrs. -Willers said she could not imagine what this was, but -it had changed the girl, not only in ambition and point -of view, but in character.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[297]</span>The letter frightened Bessie. It had made her silent -all through dinner, and now brooding over the fire, she -thought of what it might mean and felt a cold apprehension -seize her. Could Mariposa know? Her behavior -and conduct since Shackleton’s death suggested -such a possibility. It was incredible to think of, but -Lucy might have told. And also, might not the girl, -in arranging her mother’s effects after her death, have -come on something, letters or papers, which had revealed -the past?</p> - -<p>A memory rose up in Bessie’s mind of the girl wife -she had supplanted, clinging to the marriage certificate, -which was all that remained to remind her of the days -when she had been the one lawful wife. Bessie knew -that this paper had been carefully tied in the bundle -which held Lucy’s few possessions when they left Salt -Lake. She knew it was still in the bundle when she, -herself, had handed it to the deserted girl in front of -Moreau’s cabin. Might not Mariposa have found it?</p> - -<p>She rose and walked about the room, feeling sick at -the thought. She was no longer young, and her iron -nerve had been permanently shaken by the suddenness -of her husband’s death. Mariposa, with her mother’s -marriage certificate, might be plotting some desperate -<i>coup</i>. No wonder she refused to go to Paris! If she -could establish her claim as Shackleton’s eldest and -only legitimate child, she would not only sweep from -Win and Maud the lion’s share of their inheritance, but, -equally unbearable, she would drag to the light the -ugly story—the terrible story that Jake Shackleton and -his second wife had so successfully hidden.</p> - -<p>Her thoughts were suddenly broken in on by the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[298]</span> -bang of the front door. She looked at the clock and -saw it was only nine. If it was the count who was -going he had stayed less than an hour. What had happened? -She moved to the door and listened.</p> - -<p>She heard a light step, slowly and furtively mounting -the stairs. It was Maud, for, though she could attempt -to deaden her footfall, she could not hush the rustling -of her silken skirts. As the sweeping sound reached -the stair-head, Bessie opened her door. Maud stopped -short, her black dress fading into the darkness about -her, so that her white face seemed to be floating unattached -through the air like an optical delusion.</p> - -<p>“Why, mommer,” she said, falteringly, “I thought -you were in bed.”</p> - -<p>“Has the count gone?” queried her mother, with an -unusual sternness of tone.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said the girl, “he’s gone. He—he—went -early to-night.”</p> - -<p>“Why did he go so early?”</p> - -<p>“He didn’t want to stay any longer.”</p> - -<p>Maud was terrified. Her hand clutching the balustrade -was trembling and icy. In her father’s lifetime -she had known that she would never dare to tell of her -engagement to Latimer. She would have ended by -eloping. Now, the fear of her mother, who had always -been the gentler parent, froze her timid soul, and even -the joy of her love seemed swamped in this dreadful -moment of confession.</p> - -<p>“Did the count ask you to marry him?” said Bessie.</p> - -<p>“Yes! and—” with tremulous desperation, “I said -no, I couldn’t.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[299]</span>“You said no! that’s not possible. You couldn’t be -such a fool.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I was, and I said it.”</p> - -<p>“Come in here, Maud,” said her mother, standing -back from the doorway; “we can’t talk sensibly this -way.”</p> - -<p>But Maud did not move.</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t want to go in there,” she said, like a -naughty child; “there’s nothing to talk about. I don’t -want to marry him and I told him so and he’s gone, -and that’s the end of it.”</p> - -<p>“The end of it! That’s nonsense. I want you to -marry Count de Lamolle. I don’t want to hear silly -talk like this. I’ll write to him to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“Well, it won’t do you or him any good,” said -Maud, to whom fear was giving courage, “for I won’t -marry him, and neither you nor he can drag me to the -altar if I won’t go. It’s not the time of the Crusades.”</p> - -<p>If Maud’s allusion was not precisely illuminating, -her mother understood it.</p> - -<p>“It may not be the time of the Crusades,” she said, -grimly, “but neither is it a time when girls can be fools -and no one hold out a hand to check them. Do you -realize what this marriage means for you? Position, -title, an entrance into society that you never in any -other way could put as much as the end of your nose -into.”</p> - -<p>“If I don’t want to put even the end of my nose into -it, what good does it do me? You know I hate society. -I hate going to dinners and sitting beside people who -talk to me about things I don’t understand or care for.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[300]</span> -I hate going to balls and dancing round and round like -a teetotum with men I don’t like. And if it’s bad here, -what would it be over there where I don’t speak their -language or know their ways, and they’d think I was -just something queer and savage the count had caught -over here with a lasso.”</p> - -<p>Fears and doubts she had never spoken of to any -one but Latimer came glibly to her lips in this moment -of misery. Her mother was surprised at her -fluency.</p> - -<p>“You’re piling up objections out of nothing,” she -said. “When those people over in France know what -your fortune is, make no mistake, they’ll be only too -glad to know you and be your friend. They’ll not -think you queer and savage. You’ll be on the top of -everything over there, not just one of a bunch of -bonanza heiresses, as you are here. And the count? -Do you know any one so handsome, so gentlemanly, -so elegant and polite in San Francisco?”</p> - -<p>“I know a man I like better,” said Maud, in a muffled -voice.</p> - -<p>The white face, with its dimly suggested figure, -looked whiter than ever.</p> - -<p>“What do you mean by that?” said her mother, -stiffening.</p> - -<p>“I mean Jack Latimer.”</p> - -<p>“Jack Latimer? One of your father’s clerks! Maud, -come in here at once. I can’t stand talking in the hall -of things like this.”</p> - -<p>“No, I won’t come in,” cried Maud, backing away -against the baluster, and feeling as she used to do in -her juvenile days, when she was hauled by the hand<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[301]</span> -to the scene of punishment. “There’s nothing more -to talk about. I’m engaged to Jack Latimer, and I’m -going to marry him, and that’s the beginning and the -end of it all.”</p> - -<p>She felt desperately defiant, standing there in the -darkness looking at her mother’s massive shape -against the glow of the lit doorway.</p> - -<p>“Jack Latimer!” reiterated Mrs. Shackleton, “who -only gets a hundred and fifty dollars a month and has -to give some of it to his people.”</p> - -<p>“Well, haven’t I got enough for two?”</p> - -<p>“Maud, you’ve gone crazy. All I know is that I’ll -not let you spoil your future. I’ll write to Count de -Lamolle to-morrow, and I’ll write to Jack Latimer, -too.”</p> - -<p>“What good will that do anybody? Count de Lamolle -can’t marry me if I don’t want to. And why -should Jack Latimer throw me over because you ask -him to? He,” she made a tremulous hesitation that -would have touched a softer heart, and then added, -“he likes me.”</p> - -<p>“Likes you!” repeated her mother, with furious -scorn, “he likes the five million dollars.”</p> - -<p>“It’s me,” said Maud, passionately; “it isn’t the -money. And he’s the only person in the world except -Win who has ever really liked me. I don’t feel when -I’m with him that I’m so ugly and stupid, the way I -feel with everybody else. He likes to hear me talk, -and when he looks at me I don’t feel as if he was saying -to himself, ‘What an ugly girl she is, anyway.’ -But I feel that he doesn’t know whether I’m pretty or -ugly. He only knows he loves me the way I am.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[302]</span>She burst into wild tears, and before her mother -could answer or arrest her, had brushed past her and -fled up the next flight of stairs, the sound of her -sobs floating down from the upper darkness to the -listener’s ears. Bessie retreated into the boudoir and -shut the door.</p> - -<p>Maud ran on and burst into her own room, there -to throw herself on the bed and weep despairingly for -hours. She thought of her lover, the one human being -besides her brother who had never made her feel her -inferiority, and lying limp and shaken among the pillows, -thought, with a wild thrill of longing of the -time when she would be free to creep into his arms -and hide the ugly face he found so satisfactory upon -his heart.</p> - -<p>In the morning, before she was up, Bessie visited -her and renewed the conversation of the night before. -Poor Maud, with a throbbing head and heavy eyes, lay -helpless, answering questions that probed the tender -secrets of the clandestine courtship, which had been -to her an oasis of almost terrifying happiness in the -lonely repression of her life. Finally, unable longer -to endure her mother’s sarcastic allusions to Latimer’s -disingenuousness, she sprang out of bed and ran into -the bath-room, which was part of the suite she occupied. -Here she turned on both taps, the sound of the -rushing water completely drowning her mother’s -voice, and sitting on the side of the tub, looked drearily -down into the bath, while Bessie’s concluding and -indignant sentences rose from the outer side of the -door.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Shackleton lunched alone that day. Win generally<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[303]</span> -went to his club for his midday meal, and Maud -had gone out early and found hospitality at the house -of Pussy Thurston. Bessie had done more thinking -that morning in the intervals of her domestic duties—she -was a notable housekeeper and personally superintended -every department of her establishment—and -had decided to dedicate part of the afternoon to -the society of Mrs. Willers. One of the secrets of -Mrs. Shackleton’s success in life had been her power -to control and retain interests in divers matters at the -same time. Maud’s unpleasant news had not pushed -the even more weighty subject of Mariposa into abeyance. -It was as prominent as ever in the widow’s -mind.</p> - -<p>She drove down to <i>The Trumpet</i> office soon after -lunch and slowly mounted the long stairs. It would -have been a hardship for any other woman of her -years and weight, but Bessie’s bodily energy was still -remarkable, and she had never indulged herself in the -luxury of laziness. At the top of the fourth flight she -paused, panting, while the astonished office boy stared -at her, recognizing her as the chief’s mother.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Willers was in her cubby-hole, with a drop-light -sending a little circle of yellow radiance over the -middle of the desk. A litter of newspaper cuttings -surrounded her, and Miss Peebles, at the moment of -Mrs. Shackleton’s entrance, was in the cane-bottomed -chair, in which aspirants for journalistic honors usually -sat. The rustle of Mrs. Shackleton’s silks and the -faint advancing perfume that preceded her, announced -an arrival of unusual distinction, and Miss Peebles -had turned uneasily in the chair and Mrs. Willers was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[304]</span> -peering out from the circle of the drop-light, when the -lady entered the room.</p> - -<p>Miss Peebles rose with a flurried haste and thrust -forward the chair, and Mrs. Willers extricated herself -from the heaped up newspapers and extended a welcoming -hand. The greetings ended, the younger -woman bowed herself out, her opinion of Mrs. Willers, -if possible, higher even than it had been before.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Willers was surprised, but discreetly refrained -from showing it. She had known Mrs. Shackleton -for several years, and had once heard, from her late -chief, that his wife approved her matter and counseled -her advancement.</p> - -<p>But to have her appear thus unannounced in the -intimate heat and burden of office hours was decidedly -unexpected. Mrs. Shackleton knew this and proceeded -to explain.</p> - -<p>“You must think it queer, my coming down on you -this way, when you’re up to your neck in work, but I -won’t keep you ten minutes.” She looked at the small -nickel clock that ticked aggressively in the middle of -the desk. “And I know you are too busy a woman to -ask you to come all the way up to my house. So I’ve -come down to you.”</p> - -<p>“Pleased and flattered,” murmured Mrs. Willers, -pushing back her chair, and kicking a space in the -newspapers, so that she could cross her knees at ease. -“But, don’t hurry, Mrs. Shackleton. Work’s well on -and I’m at your disposal for a good many ten minutes.”</p> - -<p>“It’s just to talk over that letter you sent me by Win.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[305]</span> -What do you understand by Miss Moreau’s behavior, -Mrs. Willers?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t understand anything by it. I don’t understand -it at all.”</p> - -<p>“That’s the way it seems to me. There’s only one -explanation of it that I can see, and you say that -isn’t the right one.”</p> - -<p>“What was that?”</p> - -<p>“That there’s some man here she’s interested in. -When a girl of that age, without a cent, or a friend or -a prospect, refuses an offer that means a successful and -maybe a famous future, what’s a person to think? -Something’s stopping her. And the only thing I know -of that would stop her is that she’s fallen in love. But -you say she hasn’t.”</p> - -<p>“She don’t strike me as being so. She don’t talk -like a girl in love.”</p> - -<p>“Is there any man who is interested in her and sees -her continually?”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Willers was naturally a truthful woman, but -a hard experience of life had taught her to prevaricate -with skill and coolness when she thought the occasion -demanded it. She saw no menace now, however, and -was entirely in sympathy with Mrs. Shackleton in -her annoyance at Mariposa’s irritating behavior.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said, nodding with grave eyes, “there <i>is</i> -a man.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, there <i>is</i>,” said the other, bending forward with -a sudden eager interest that was not lost upon Mrs. -Willers. “Who?”</p> - -<p>“One of our men here, Barry Essex.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[306]</span>“Essex!” exclaimed the widow, with a sudden light -of relieved comprehension suffusing her glance. “Of -course. I know him. That dark, foreign-looking man -that nobody knows anything about. Mr. Shackleton -thought a great deal of him; said he was thrown away -on <i>The Trumpet</i>. He’s not a bit an ordinary sort of -person.”</p> - -<p>“That’s the one,” said Mrs. Willers, nodding her -head in somber acquiescence. “And you’re right about -nobody knowing anything about him. He’s a dark -mystery, I think.”</p> - -<p>“And you say he’s in love with her?”</p> - -<p>“That’s what I’d infer from what she tells me.”</p> - -<p>“What <i>does</i> she tell you?”</p> - -<p>“He’s asked her to marry him.”</p> - -<p>“Then they’re engaged. That accounts for the -whole thing.”</p> - -<p>“No, they’re not engaged. She’s refused him.”</p> - -<p>“Refused him? That girl who’s been living in an -adobe at Santa Barbara, refuse that fine-looking fellow? -Why, she’ll never see a man like that again in -her life. <i>She’s</i> not refused him? Of course, she’s engaged -to him.”</p> - -<p>“No, you’re mistaken. She’s not. She doesn’t like -him.”</p> - -<p>“That’s what she tells you. Girls always say that -sort of thing. That explains the way she’s acted -from the start. He hadn’t asked her when Mr. Shackleton -was alive. She’s engaged to him now and -doesn’t want to leave him. She struck me as just -that soft, sentimental sort.”</p> - -<p>“You’re wrong, Mrs. Shackleton; I know Mariposa<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[307]</span> -Moreau. She tells the truth; all of it. That’s why -it’s so hard sometimes to understand what she means. -We’re not used to it. She doesn’t like that man, and -she wouldn’t marry him if he was hung all over with -diamonds and was going to give her the Con Virginia -for a wedding present.”</p> - -<p>“Bosh!” ejaculated her companion, with sudden, -sharp irritation. “That’s what she says. They have -no money to marry on, I suppose, and she’s trying to -keep her engagement secret. It explains everything. -I must say I’m relieved. I had the girl on my mind, -and it seemed to me she was so senseless and fly-away -that you didn’t know where she’d fetch up.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Willers was annoyed. It was not pleasant to -her to hear Mariposa spoken of this way. But a long -life of struggle and misfortune had taught her, among -other valuable things, the art of hiding unprofitable -anger under a bland smile.</p> - -<p>“Well, all I can say,” she said, laughing quite naturally, -“is that I hope you’re wrong. I’m sure I don’t -want to see her married to that man.”</p> - -<p>“Why not?” queried Mrs. Shackleton, with the -sudden arrested glance of surprised curiosity. “What -is there to object to in such a marriage?”</p> - -<p>“Hundreds of things,” answered Mrs. Willers, feeling -that there are many disadvantages in having to -converse with your employer’s mother on the subject -of one of your best friends. “Who knows anything -about Barry Essex? No one knows where he comes -from, or who he is, or even if Essex is his name. I -don’t believe it is, at all. I think he just took it because -it sounds like the aristocracy. And what’s his record?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[308]</span> -I’ll lay ten to one there are things behind him he -wouldn’t like to see published on the front page of <i>The -Trumpet</i>. He’s no man to make a girl happy.”</p> - -<p>“You seem to be taking a good deal for granted. -Because you don’t know anything about him, it’s no -reason to suppose the worst. He certainly looks and -acts like a gentleman, and he’s finely educated. And -isn’t it better for a girl like Miss Moreau to have a -husband to take care of her than to go roaming around -by herself, throwing away every chance she gets, for -some crazy notion? That young woman’s not able to -take care of herself. The best thing for her is to get -Barry Essex to do it for her.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve known women,” said Mrs. Willers, judicially, -“who thought that a bad husband was better than no -husband at all. But I’m not of that opinion myself, -having had one of the bad ones. Solomon said a corner -of a housetop and a dinner of herbs was better -than a wide house with a brawling woman. And I -tell you that one room in Tar Flat and beef’s liver for -every meal is better than a palace on Nob Hill with a -husband that’s no account.”</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid you’re inclined to look on the dark side -of matrimony,” said Mrs. Shackleton, laughing, as -she rose from her chair.</p> - -<p>“May be so,” said the other; “but after my experience -I don’t think it such a blissful state that I want -to round up all my friends and drive them into the -corral, whether they want to go or not.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Shackleton looked down for a pondering moment. -She was evidently not listening. Raising her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[309]</span> -head she met Mrs. Willers’ half-sad, half-twinkling -eyes with a gaze of keen scrutiny, and said:</p> - -<p>“Then if it isn’t a love affair, what is it that’s made -Miss Moreau change her mind?”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” Mrs. Willers shrugged her shoulders. -“That’s what I’d like to know as well as you. I can -only say what it’s not.”</p> - -<p>“And that’s Barry Essex. Well, Mrs. Willers, -you’re a smart woman, but you know your business -better than you do the vagaries of young girls. I don’t -know Miss Moreau well, but I’d like to bet that I understand -her this time better than you do.”</p> - -<p>She smiled genially and held out her hand.</p> - -<p>“My ten minutes are up,” nodding at the clock. -“And I’m too much of a business woman to outstay -my time limit. No”—in answer to Mrs. Willers’ polite -demur—“I must go.”</p> - -<p>She moved toward the door, then paused and said:</p> - -<p>“Isn’t Essex a sort of Frenchman? Or wasn’t he, -anyway, brought up in Paris, or had a French mother, -or something?”</p> - -<p>“As to his mother,” said Mrs. Willers, sourly, “the -Lord alone knows who she was. I’ve heard she was -everything from the daughter of a duke to a snake-charmer -in a dime museum. But he told me he was -born and partly educated in Paris, and Madame Bertrand, -at the Rôtisserie, tells me he must have been, as -he talks real French French, not the kind you learn out -of a book.”</p> - -<p>“He certainly looks like a Frenchman,” said the departing -guest. “Well, good by. It’s a sort of bond between<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[310]</span> -us to try to settle to her advantage this silly -girl who doesn’t want to be settled. If you hear any -more of her affair with Essex, you might let me know. -In spite of my criticisms, I take the greatest interest in -her. I wouldn’t criticize if I didn’t.”</p> - -<p>As Mrs. Shackleton was slowly descending the long -stairs, Mrs. Willers still stood beside her desk, thinking. -The visit had surprised her in the beginning. -Now it left her feeling puzzled and vaguely disturbed. -Why did Mrs. Shackleton seem to be so desirous of -thinking that Mariposa was betrothed to Essex? The -bonanza king’s widow was a woman of large charities -and carelessly magnificent generosities, but she was -also a woman of keen insight and unwavering common -sense. Her interest in Mariposa was as strong -as her husband’s, and was entirely explainable as his -had been, in the light of their old acquaintance with -the girl’s father. What Mrs. Willers could not understand -was how any person, who had Mariposa -Moreau’s welfare at heart, could derive satisfaction -from the thought of her marrying Barry Essex.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[311]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XVII<br /> - - -<small>FRIEND AND BROTHER</small></h3> -</div> - - - -<p class="quote">“Wisdom is good with an inheritance, and by it there is -profit to them that see the sun.”—<span class="smcap">Ecclesiastes.</span></p> - - - -<p>Mariposa’s sixteen dollars a month had been augmented -to twenty-eight by the accession of three new -pupils. These had been acquired through Isaac Pierpont, -who was glad to find a cheap teacher for his -potential prima donnas, who were frequently lacking -in the simplest knowledge of instrumental music.</p> - -<p>Mariposa was impressed and flattered by her extended -clientele, and at first felt some embarrassment -in finding that one of the pupils was a woman ten years -older than herself. The worry she had felt on the -score of her living was now at rest, for Pierpont had -promised her his continued aid, and her new scholars -professed themselves much pleased with her efforts.</p> - -<p>Her monthly earnings were sufficient to cover her -exceedingly modest living expenses. The remnants of -her fortune—the few dollars left after her mother’s -funeral and the money realized by the sale of the -jewelry and furniture that were the last relics of their -<i>beaux jours</i>—made up the amount of three hundred -and twenty dollars. This was in the bank. In the -little desk that stood on a table in her room was the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[312]</span> -five hundred dollars in gold Shackleton had sent her. -She had not touched it and never intended to, seeming -to repudiate its possession by keeping it thus secret and -apart from her other store.</p> - -<p>The time was wearing on toward mid-December. -Christmas was beginning to figure in the conversation -of Miguel and Benito, and with an eye to its approach -they had both joined a Sunday-school, to which they -piously repaired every Sabbath morn. They had introduced -the question of presents in their conversations -with Mariposa with such smiling persistence that she -had finally promised them that, on her first free afternoon, -she would go down town and price certain articles -they coveted. The afternoon came within a few -days after her promise, one of her pupils sending her -word that she was invited out of town for the holidays, -and her lessons would cease till after New Year’s.</p> - -<p>The pricing had evidently been satisfactory, for, -late in the afternoon, Mariposa turned her face homeward, -her hands full of small packages. It was one -of the clear, hazeless days of thin atmosphere, with -an edge of cold, that are scattered through the San -Francisco winter. There is no frost in the air, but -the chill has a searching quality which suggests winter, -as does the wild radiance of the sunset spread over the -west in a transparent wash of red. The invigorating -breath of cold made the young girl’s blood glow, and -she walked rapidly along Kearney Street, the exercise -in the sharp air causing a faint, unusual pink to tint -her cheeks. Her intention was to walk to Clay Street -and then take the cable-car, which in those days slid<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[313]</span> -slowly up the long hills, past the Plaza and through -Chinatown.</p> - -<p>She was near the Plaza, when a hail behind her fell -on her ear, and turning, she saw Barron close on her -heels, his hands also full of small packages. He had -been at the mines for two weeks, and she could but notice -the unaffected gladness of his greeting. She felt -glad, too, a circumstance of which, for some occult -reason, she was ashamed, and the shame and the gladness -combined lent a reserved and yet conscious quality -to her smile and kindled a charming embarrassment in -her eye. They stood by the curb, he looking at her -with glances of naïve admiration, while she looked -down at her parcels. Passers-by noticed them, setting -them down, she in her humble dress, he in his unmetropolitan -roughness of aspect, as a couple from the country, -a rancher or miner and his handsome sweetheart.</p> - -<p>He took her parcels away from her, and they started -forward toward the Plaza.</p> - -<p>“Do you hear me panting?” he said, laying his free -hand on his chest.</p> - -<p>“No, why should you pant?”</p> - -<p>“Because I’ve been running all down Kearney Street -for blocks after you. I never knew any one to walk as -fast in my life. I thought even if I didn’t catch you -you’d hear me panting behind you and think it was -some new kind of fire-engine and turn round and look. -But you never wavered—simply went on like a racer -headed for the goal. Did you walk so fast because -you knew I was behind you?”</p> - -<p>She looked at him quickly with a side glance of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[314]</span> -protest and met his eyes full of quizzical humor and -yet with a gleam of something eager and earnest in -them.</p> - -<p>“I like to walk fast in this cold air. It makes me feel -so alive. For a long time I’ve felt as though I were -half dead, and you don’t know how exhilarating it is -to feel life come creeping back. It’s like being able -to breathe freely after you’ve been almost suffocated. -But where did you see me on Kearney Street?”</p> - -<p>“I was in a place buying things for the boys. I -was looking at a drum for Benito, and I just happened -to glance up, and there you were passing. I dropped -the drum and ran.”</p> - -<p>“A <i>drum</i> for Benito! Oh, Mr. Barron, don’t get -Benito a drum!”</p> - -<p>He could not control his laughter at the sight of her -expression of horrified protest. He laughed so loudly -that people looked at him. She smiled herself, not -quite knowing why, and insensibly, both feeling -curiously light-hearted, they drew closer together.</p> - -<p>“What can I get?” he said. “I looked at knives -and guns, and I knew that they wouldn’t do. Benito -would certainly kill Miguel and probably grandma. -I thought of a bat and ball, and then I knew he’d -break all the windows. The man in the store wanted -me to buy a bow and arrow, but I saw him taking his -revenge on the crab lady. Benito’s a serious problem -any way you take him.”</p> - -<p>They had come to the Plaza, once an open space of -sand, round which the wild, pioneer city swept in whirlpool -currents, now already showing the lichened brick -and dropping plaster, the sober line of house-fronts, of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[315]</span> -an aging locality. Where Chinatown backed on -the square the houses had grown oriental, their western -ugliness, disguised by the touch of gilding that, here -and there, incrusted their fronts, the swaying of crimson -lanterns, the green zigzags of dwarf trees. Over -the top of the Clay Street hill the west shone red -through smoke which filled the air with a keen, acrid -smell. It told of hearth-fires. And oozing out of a -thousand chimneys and streaming across the twilight -city it told of homes where the good wife made ready -for her man.</p> - -<p>“Let’s not take the cars,” said Barron. “Let’s walk -home. Can you manage those hills?”</p> - -<p>She gave a laughing assent, and they turned upward, -walking slowly as befitted the climb. Chinatown -opened before them like the mysterious, medieval haunt -of robbers in an old drawing. The murky night was -settling on it, shot through with red gleams at the end -of streets, where the sunset pried into its peopled -darkness. The blackness of yawning doorway and -stealthy alley succeeded the brilliancy of a gilded interior, -or a lantern-lit balcony. Strange smells were -in the air, aromatic and noisome, as though the dwellers -in this domain were concocting their wizard brews. -There was a sound of shifting feet, a chatter of guttural -voices, and a vision of faces passing from light -to shadow, marked by a weird similarity, and with eyes -like bits of onyx let into the tight-drawn skin.</p> - -<p>It was an alien city, a bit of the oldest civilization in -the world, imbedded in the heart of the newest. -Touches of bizarre, of sinister picturesqueness filled it -with arresting interest. On the window-sills lilies,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[316]</span> -their stalks bound with strips of crimson paper, grew -in blue and white china bowls filled with pebbles -round which their white roots clung. Miniature pine-trees, -in pots of brass, thrust their boughs between the -rusty ironwork of old balconies. Through an open -doorway a glimpse was given down a dark hallway, -narrow, black, a gas-jet, like a tiny golden tear, diffusing -a frightened gleam of light. From some dim -angle the glow of a blood-red lantern mottled a space -of leprous wall. On a tottering balcony a woman’s -face, rounded like a child’s, crimson lipped, crowned -with peach blossoms, looked down from shadows, the -light of a lantern catching and loosening the golden -traceries of her rich robe, the trail of peach blossoms -against her cheek.</p> - -<p>The ascent was long and steep, and they walked -slowly, talking in a desultory fashion. Mariposa recounted -the trivial incidents that had taken place in -the Garcia house during her companion’s absence. As -they breasted the last hill the light grew brighter, for -the sunset still lingered in a reluctant glow.</p> - -<p>“Take my arm,” said Barron. “You’re out of -breath.”</p> - -<p>She took it, and they began slowly to mount the last -steep blocks. She glanced up at him to smile her -thanks for his support, and met his eyes, looking intently -at her. The red light strengthened on her face -as they ascended.</p> - -<p>“You’ve the strangest eyes,” he said suddenly. “Do -you know what they’re the color of?”</p> - -<p>“My father used to say they were like a dog’s,” she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[317]</span> -answered, feeling unable to drop them and yet uneasy -under his unflinching gaze.</p> - -<p>“They’re the color of sherry—exactly the same.”</p> - -<p>“I won’t let you see them any more if that’s the best -you can say of them,” she said, dropping them.</p> - -<p>“I could say they were the color of beer,” he answered, -“but I thought sherry sounded better.”</p> - -<p>“Beer!” she exclaimed, averting not only her eyes, -but her face. “That’s an insult.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, I’ll only say in the simplest way what I -think. I’m not the kind of man who makes fine -speeches—they’re the most beautiful eyes in the world.”</p> - -<p>“That’s the worst of all,” she answered, extremely -confused and not made more comfortable by the -thought that she had brought it on herself. “Let’s -leave my eyes out of the question.”</p> - -<p>“All right, I’ll not speak of them again. But I’ll -want to see them now and then.”</p> - -<p>He saw her color mounting, and in the joy of her -close proximity, loitering arm in arm up the sordid -street, he laughed again in his happiness and said:</p> - -<p>“When a person owns something that’s rare and -beautiful he oughtn’t to be mean about it.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose not,” said the owner of the rare and -beautiful possessions, keeping them sternly out of -sight.</p> - -<p>He continued to look ardently at her, not conscious -of what he was doing, his step growing slower and -slower.</p> - -<p>“It’s a long climb,” he said at length.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she assented. “Is that why you’re going so -slowly?”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[318]</span>“Are we going so slowly?” he asked, and as if to -demonstrate how slow had been their progress, they -both came to a stop like a piece of run-down machinery.</p> - -<p>They looked at each other for a questioning moment, -then burst into simultaneous peals of laughter.</p> - -<p>One of the last and daintiest charms that nature can -give a woman is a lovely laugh. It suggests unexplored -riches of tenderness and sweetness, unrevealed -capacity for joy and pain, as a harsh and unmusical -laugh tells of an arid nature, hard, without juice, devoid -of imagination, mystery and passion. Like her -mother before her, Mariposa possessed this charm in -its highest form. The ripple of sound that flowed -from her lips was music, and it cast a spell over the -man at whose side she stood, as Lucy’s laugh, twenty-five -years before, had cast one over Dan Moreau.</p> - -<p>“I never heard you laugh before,” he said in delight. -“What can I say to make you do it again?”</p> - -<p>“You didn’t say anything that time,” said Mariposa. -“So I suppose the best way is for you to be silent.”</p> - -<p>Barron took her advice and surveyed her mutely -with dancing eyes. For a moment her lips, puckered -into a tremulous pout, twitched with the premonitory -symptoms of a second outburst. But she controlled -them, moved by some perverse instinct of coquetry, -while the laughter welled up in the eyes that were fixed -on him.</p> - -<p>“I see I’ll have to make a joke,” he said, “and I -can’t think of any.”</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Garcia’s got a book full. You might borrow -it.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[319]</span>“Couldn’t you tell me one that’s made you laugh -before and loan it to me?”</p> - -<p>“But it mightn’t work a second time. I might take -it quite solemnly. A sense of humor’s a very capricious -thing.”</p> - -<p>“I think the lady who’s got it is even more so,” he -said.</p> - -<p>And then once again they laughed in concert, foolishly -and gaily and without knowing why.</p> - -<p>They had gained the top of the hill, and the blaze -of red that swept across the west shone on their faces. -They were within a few minutes’ walk of the house -now and they continued, arm in arm, as was the custom -of the day, and at the same loitering gait.</p> - -<p>“Didn’t you tell me your people came originally -from Eldorado County, somewhere up near Hangtown?” -he asked. “I’ve just been up that way, and -if I’d known the place I might have stopped there.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you never could have found it,” said Mariposa -hastily. “It was only a cabin miles back in the -foothills. My mother often told me of it—just a cabin -by a stream. It has probably disappeared now. My -father and mother met and were married there among -the mines, and—and—I was born there,” she ended, -stammeringly, hating the lies upon which her youthful -traditions had been built.</p> - -<p>“If I’d known you had been born there I’d have gone -on a pilgrimage to find that cabin if it had taken a -month.”</p> - -<p>“But I tell you it can’t be standing yet. I’m twenty-four -years old—” she suddenly realized that this, too,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[320]</span> -was part of the necessary web of misstatement in which -she was caught. The color deepened on her face into -a conscious blush. She dropped her eyes, then raising -them to his with a curious defiance, said:</p> - -<p>“No—that’s a mistake. I’m—I’m—more than that, -I’m twenty-five, nearly twenty-six.”</p> - -<p>Barron, who saw nothing in the equivocation but a -girl’s foolish desire to understate her age, burst into -delighted laughter, and pressing the hand on his arm -against his side, said:</p> - -<p>“Why, I always thought you were <i>years</i> older than -that—thirty to thirty-five at least.”</p> - -<p>And he looked with teasing eyes into her face. But -this time Mariposa did not laugh, nor even smile. The -joy had suddenly gone out of her, and she walked on -in silence, her head drooped, seeming in some mysterious -way to have grown suddenly anxious and preoccupied.</p> - -<p>“There’s the house,” she said at length. “I was -getting tired.”</p> - -<p>“There’s a light in the parlor,” said Barron, as he -opened the gate. “What can be the matter? Has -Benito killed grandma, or is there a party?”</p> - -<p>Their doubts on this point were soon set at rest. -Their approaching footsteps evidently were heard by -a listening ear within, for the hall door opened and -Benito appeared in the aperture.</p> - -<p>“There’s a man to see you in the parlor,” he announced -to Mariposa.</p> - -<p>Inside the hallway the door on the left that led to -Mrs. Garcia’s apartments opened and the young woman -thrust out her head, and said in a hissing whisper:</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[321]</span>“There’s a gentleman waiting for you in the parlor, -Miss Moreau.”</p> - -<p>At the same time Miguel imparted similar information -from the top of the stairs, and the Chinaman -appeared at the kitchen door and cried from thence, -with the laconic dryness peculiar to his race:</p> - -<p>“One man see you, parlor.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa stood looking from one to the other with -the raised eyebrows of inquiring astonishment. The -only person who had visitors in the Garcia house was -Pierpont, and they did not come at such a fashionably -late hour.</p> - -<p>“He’s a thin, consumpted-looking young man with -eye-glasses,” said Mrs. Garcia, curling round the door -the better to project the hissing whisper she employed, -“and he said he’d wait till you came in.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa turned toward the parlor door, leaving the -family, with Barron, on the stairs, and the Chinaman, -peering from the kitchen regions, watching her with -tense interest, as if they half expected they would never -see her again.</p> - -<p>Two of the gases in the old chandelier were lit and -cast a sickly light over the large room, which had the -close, musty smell of an unaired apartment. The last -relics of Señora Garcia’s grandeur were congregated -here—bronzes that once had cost large sums of money, -a gilt console that had been brought from a rifled -French château round the Horn in a sailing ship, a -buhl cabinet with its delicate silvery inlaying gleaming -in the half-light, and two huge Japanese vases, with -blue and white dragons crawling round their necks, -flanking the fireplace.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[322]</span>On the edge of a chair, just under the chandelier, -sat a young man. He had his hat in his hand, and -his head drooped so that the light fell smoothly on -the crown of blond hair. He looked small and meager -in the surrounding folds of a very large and loose -ulster. As the sound of the approaching step caught -his ear he started and looked up, with the narrowed -eyes of the near-sighted, and then jumped to his feet.</p> - -<p>“Miss Moreau?” he said inquiringly, and extended -a long, thin hand which, closing on hers, felt to her -warm, soft grasp like a bunch of chilled sticks. She -had not the slightest idea who he was, and looking at -him under the wan light, saw he was some one from -that world of wealth with which she had so few affiliations. -Something about him—the coldness of his -hand, an indescribable trepidation of manner—suggested -to her that he was exceedingly ill at ease. She -looked at him wonderingly, and said:</p> - -<p>“Won’t you sit down?”</p> - -<p>He sat at her bidding on the chair he had risen from, -subsiding into the small, shrunken figure in the middle -of enveloping folds of overcoat. One hand hung down -between his knees holding his hat. He looked at -Mariposa and then looked down at the hat.</p> - -<p>“Cold afternoon, isn’t it?” he said.</p> - -<p>“Very cold,” she responded, “but I like it. I hope -you haven’t been waiting long.”</p> - -<p>“Not very,” he looked up at her, blinking near-sightedly -through the glasses; “I don’t know whether you -know what my name is, Miss Moreau? It’s Shackleton—Winslow -Shackleton. I forgot my card.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa felt a lightning-like change come over<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[323]</span> -her face, in which there was a sudden stiffening of -her features into something hard and repellent. To -Win, at that moment, she looked very like his father.</p> - -<p>“Oh!” she said, hearing her voice drop at the end -of the interjection with a note of vague disapproval -and uneasiness.</p> - -<p>“I’ve seen you,” continued Win, “once at <i>The -Trumpet</i> office, when you were there with Mrs. Willers. -I don’t think you saw me. I was back in the corner, -near the table where Jack—that’s the boy—sits.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa murmured:</p> - -<p>“No, I didn’t see you.”</p> - -<p>She hardly knew what he said or what she responded. -What did <i>this</i> mean? What was going to -happen now?</p> - -<p>“You must excuse my coming this way, without an -introduction or anything, but as you knew my father -and mother, I—I—thought you wouldn’t mind.”</p> - -<p>He glanced at her again, anxiously, she thought, -and she said suddenly, with her habitual directness:</p> - -<p>“Did you come from your mother?”</p> - -<p>“No, I came on—on—my own hook. I wanted”—he -looked vaguely about and then laid his hat on a -table near him—“I wanted to see you on business of -my own.”</p> - -<p>The nervousness from which he was evidently suffering -began to communicate itself to Mariposa. The -Shackleton family had come to mean everything that -was painful and agitating to her, and here was a new -one wanting to talk to her about business that she -knew, past a doubt, was of some unusual character.</p> - -<p>“If you’ve come to talk to me about going to Europe,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[324]</span> -she said desperately, “I may as well tell you, -there’s no use. I won’t go to Paris now, as I once -said I would, and there’s no good trying to make me -change my mind. Your mother and Mrs. Willers -have both tried to, and it’s very kind of them, but I—can’t.”</p> - -<p>She had an expression at once of fright and determination. -The subject was becoming a nightmare to -her, and she saw herself attacked again from a strange -quarter, and with, she imagined, a new set of arguments.</p> - -<p>“It’s nothing to do with going to Europe,” he said. -“It’s—it’s”—he put up one of the long, bony hands, -and with the two first fingers pressed his glasses back -against his eyes, then dropped the hand and stared at -Mariposa, the eyes looking strangely pale and prominent -behind the powerful lenses.</p> - -<p>“It’s something that’s just between you and me,” he -said.</p> - -<p>She surveyed him without answering, her brows -drawn, her mind concentrated on him and on what he -could mean.</p> - -<p>“Do you want me to teach somebody music?” she -said, wondering if this could be the pleasant solution -of the enigma.</p> - -<p>“No. The—er—the business I’ve come to talk to -you about ought to do away altogether with the necessity -of your giving lessons.”</p> - -<p>They looked at each other silently for a moment. -Win was conscious that his hands were trembling, and -that his mouth was dry. He rose from his chair and -mechanically reached for his hat. When he had started<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[325]</span> -on his difficult errand he had been certain that she -knew her relationship to his father. Now the dreadful -thought entered his mind that perhaps she did not. -And even if she did, it was evident that she was not -going to give him the least help.</p> - -<p>“What <i>is</i> the business you’ve come to see me about?” -she asked.</p> - -<p>“It’s a question of money,” he answered.</p> - -<p>“Money!” ejaculated Mariposa, in baffled amaze. -“What money? Why?”</p> - -<p>He glanced desperately into his hat and then back -at her. She saw the hat trembling in his hand -and suddenly realized that this man was trying to say -something that was agitating him to the marrow of -his being.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Shackleton,” she said, rising to her feet, “tell -me what you mean. I don’t understand. I’m completely -at sea. How can there be any question of -money between us when I’ve never seen you or met -you before? Explain it all.”</p> - -<p>He dropped the hat to his side and said slowly, looking -her straight in the face:</p> - -<p>“I want to give you a share of the estate left me by -my father. I look upon it as yours.”</p> - -<p>There was a pause. He saw her paling under his -gaze, and realized that, whatever she might pretend, -she knew. His heart bled for her.</p> - -<p>“As mine!” she said in a low, uncertain voice. -“Why?”</p> - -<p>“Because you have a right to it.”</p> - -<p>There was another pause. He moved close to her -and said, in a voice full of a man’s deep kindness:</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[326]</span>“I can’t explain any more. Don’t ask it. Don’t -let’s bother about anything in the background. It’s -just the present that’s our affair.”</p> - -<p>He suddenly dropped his hat and took her hand. -It was as cold now as his had been. He pressed it, -and Mariposa, looking dazedly at him, saw a gleam -like tears behind the glasses.</p> - -<p>“It’s hateful to have you living here like this, while -we—that is, while other people—have everything. I -can’t stand it. It’s too mean and unfair. I want you -to share with me.”</p> - -<p>She shook her head, looking down, a hundred -thoughts bursting in upon her brain. What did he -know? How had he found it out? In his grasp, her -hand trembled pitifully.</p> - -<p>“Don’t shake your head,” he pleaded, “it’s so hard to -say it. Don’t turn it down before you’ve heard me out.”</p> - -<p>“And it’s hard to hear it,” she murmured.</p> - -<p>“No one knows anything of this but me,” he continued, -“and I promise you that no other ever shall. -It’ll be just between us as between”—he paused and -then added with a voice that was husky—“as between -brother and sister.”</p> - -<p>She shook her head again, feeling for the moment -too upset to speak, and tried to draw away from him. -But he put his other hand on her shoulder and held -her.</p> - -<p>“I’ll go halves with you. I can have it all arranged -so that no one will ever find out. I can’t make the -regular partition of the property until the end of the -year. But, until then, I’ll send you what would be -your interest, monthly, and you can live where, or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[327]</span> -how, you like. I—I—can’t go on, knowing things, and -thinking of you living in this sort of way and teaching -music.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t do it,” she said, in a strangled undertone, -and pulling her hand out of his grasp. “I can’t. It’s -not possible. I can’t take money that was your -father’s.”</p> - -<p>“But it’s not his—it’s mine now. Don’t let what’s -dead and buried come up and interfere.”</p> - -<p>She backed away from him, still shaking her head. -She made an effort toward a cold composure, but her -pain seemed to show more clearly through it. He -looked at her, vexed, irresolute, wrung with pity, that -he knew she would not permit him to express.</p> - -<p>It was impossible for them to understand each other. -She, with her secret knowledge of her mother’s lawful -claim and her own legitimacy—he regarding her as the -wronged child of his father’s sin. In her dazed distress -she only half-grasped what he thought. The -strongest feeling she had was once again to escape -the toils that these terrible people, who had so wronged -her mother, were spreading for her. They wanted -to pay her to redeem the stain on their past.</p> - -<p>“Money can’t set right what was wrong,” she said. -“Money can’t square things between your family and -mine.”</p> - -<p>“Money can’t square anything—I don’t want it to. -I’m not trying to square things; I’ve not thought about -it that way at all. I just wanted you to have it because -it seemed all wrong for you not to. You had a right, -just as I had, and Maud had. I don’t think I’ve -thought much about it, anyway. It just came to me<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[328]</span> -that you ought to have what was yours. I wouldn’t -make you feel bad for the world.”</p> - -<p>“Then remember, once and forever, that I take nothing -from you or your people. I’d rather beg than take -money that came from your father.”</p> - -<p>“But he has nothing to do with it. It’s mine now. -I’ve done you no injury, and it’s I that want you to -take it. Won’t you take it from me?”</p> - -<p>He spoke simply, almost wistfully, like a little boy. -Mariposa answered:</p> - -<p>“No—oh, Mr. Shackleton, why don’t you and your -people let me alone? I won’t tell. I’ll keep it all a -secret. But your mother torments me to go to Europe—and -now you come! If I were starving, I wouldn’t—I -couldn’t—take anything from any of you. I think -<i>you’re</i> kind. I think you’ve just come to-day because -you were sorry. But don’t talk about it any more. Let -me be. Let me go along teaching here where I belong. -Forget me. Forget that you ever saw me. Forget the -miserable tie of blood there is between us.”</p> - -<p>“That’s the thing I can’t forget. That’s the thing -that worries me. It’s not the past. I’ve nothing to -do with that. It’s the present that’s my affair. I can’t -have everything while you have nothing. It don’t seem -to me it’s like a man to act that way. It goes against -me, anyhow. I don’t offer you this because of anything -in the past; that’s my father’s affair. I don’t -know anything about it. I offer it because I—I—I”—he -stammered over the unfamiliar words and finally -jerked out—“because I want to give back what belongs -to you. That’s all there is to it. Please take it.”</p> - -<p>She looked directly into his eyes and said, gravely:</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[329]</span>“No. I’m sorry if it’s a disappointment, but I can’t.”</p> - -<p>Then she suddenly looked down, her face began to -quiver, and she said in a broken undertone:</p> - -<p>“Don’t talk about it any more; it hurts me so.”</p> - -<p>Win turned quickly away from her and picked up -his hat. He was confused and disappointed, and relieved, -too, for he had done the most difficult piece of -work of his life. But, at the moment, his most engrossing -feeling was sympathy for this girl, so bravely -drawing her pride together over the bleeding of her -heart.</p> - -<p>She murmured a response in a steadier voice and -he turned toward her. Had any of his society friends -been by they would hardly have known him. The -foolish manner behind which he sheltered his shy and -sensitive nature was gone. He was grave and looked -very much of a man.</p> - -<p>“Well, of course, it’s for you to say what you want. -But there’s one thing I’d like you to promise.”</p> - -<p>“To promise?” she said uneasily.</p> - -<p>“Yes, and to keep it, too. And that is, if you ever -want anything—help in any way; if you get blue -in your spirits, or some one’s not doing the straight -thing by you, or gone back on you—to come to me. -I’m not much in some ways, but I guess I could be of -use. And, anyway, it’s good for a girl to have some -friend that she can count on, who’s a man. And”—he -paused with the door-handle in his hand—“and now -you know me, anyway, and that’s something. Will -you promise?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I’ll promise that,” said Mariposa, and moving -toward him she gave him her hand.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[330]</span>He pressed it, dropped it, and opened the door. A -moment later Mariposa heard the hall door bang behind -him. She sat down in the chair from which she -had risen, her hands lying idle in her lap, her eyes on -a rose in the carpet, trying to think, to understand -what it meant.</p> - -<p>She did not hear the door open or notice Benito’s -entrance, which was accomplished with some disturbance, -as he was astride a cane. His spirited course -round the room, the end of the cane coming in violent -contact with the pieces of furniture that impeded his -route, was of so boisterous a nature that it roused her. -She looked absently at him, and saw him wreathed in -smiles. Having gained her attention, he brought his -steed toward her with some ornamental prancings. She -noticed that he held a pair of gloves in his hands.</p> - -<p>“That man what came to see you,” he said, “left this -cane. It was in the hat-rack, and I came out first, so I -swiped it. I took these for Miguel”—he flourished -the gloves—“but the cane’s mine all right. Come in -to supper.”</p> - -<p>And he wheeled away with a bridling step, the end -of his cane rasping on the worn ribs of the carpet. -Mariposa, mechanically following him, heard his triumphant -cries as he entered the dining-room and then -his sudden wails of wrath as Miguel expressed his disapprobation -of the division of the spoils in the vigorous -manner of innocent childhood.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[331]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XVIII<br /> - - -<small>WITH ME TO HELP</small></h3> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="first"> -“Look in my face, my name is—Might Have Been!</div> -<div class="verse">I am also called, No More, Too Late, Farewell.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Rosetti.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>Had Essex realized that Mrs. Willers was an adverse -agent in his pursuit of Mariposa, he would not -have greeted her with the urbane courteousness that -marked their meetings. He was a man of many -manners, and he never would have wasted one of his -best on the newspaper woman, to him essentially uninteresting -and unattractive, unless he had intended -thereby to further his own ends. Mrs. Willers he -knew to be a friend of Mariposa’s, and he thought it -a wise policy to keep in her good graces. He made -that mistake, so often the undoing of those who are -unscrupulous and clever, of not crediting Mrs. Willers -with her full amount of brains. He had seen -her foolish side, and he knew that she was a good -journalist of the hustling, energetic, unintellectual -type, but he saw no deeper.</p> - -<p>Since their meeting in the park and her unequivocal -rejection of him his feeling for Mariposa had augmented -in force and fire until it had full possession of -him. He was of the order of men whom easy conquests<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[332]</span> -cool. Now added to the girl’s own change of -front was the overwhelming inducement of the -wealth she represented. His original idea of Mariposa -as a handsome mistress that he would take to -France and there put on the operatic stage, of whom -he would be the proud owner, while they toured -Europe together, her voice and beauty charming -kings, had been abandoned since the night of his talk -with Harney. He would marry her, and, with her -completely under his dominion, he would turn upon -the Shackleton estate and make her claim. He supposed -her to be in entire ignorance of her parentage, -and his first idea had been to marry her and not lighten -this ignorance till she was safely in his power. He -had a fear of her shrinking before the hazards of the -enterprise, but he was confident that, once his, all -scruples, timidity and will would give way before him.</p> - -<p>But her refusal of him had upset these calculations, -and her coldness and repugnance had been as oil to the -flame of his passion. He was enraged with himself -and with her. He thought of the night in the cottage -and cursed himself for his precipitation, and his gods -for the ill luck that, too late, had revealed to him her -relationship to the dead millionaire. At first he had -thought the offer of marriage would obliterate all unpleasant -memories. But her manner that day in the -park had frightened him. It was not the haughty -manner, adopted to conceal hidden fires, of the woman -who still loves. There had been a chill poise about -her that suggested complete withdrawal from his influence.</p> - -<p>Since then he had cogitated much. He foresaw<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[333]</span> -that it was going to be very difficult to see and have -speech of her. An occasional walk up Third Street -to Sutter with Mrs. Willers kept him informed of -her movements and doings. Had he guessed that -Mrs. Willers, with her rouge higher up on one cheek -than the other, the black curls of her bang sprawlingly -pressed against her brow by a spotted veil, was quite -conversant with his pretensions and their non-success, -he would have been more guarded in his exhibition of -interest. As it was, Mrs. Willers wrote to Mariposa -after one of these walks in which Essex’s questions -had been carelessly numerous and frank, and told her -that he was still “camped on her trail, and for goodness’ -sake not to weaken.” Mariposa tore up the letter -with an angry ejaculation.</p> - -<p>“Not to weaken!” she said to herself. If she had -only dared to tell Mrs. Willers the whole instead of -half the truth!</p> - -<p>The difficulty of seeing Mariposa was further intensified -by the fullness of his own days. He had little -time to spare. The new proprietor worked his -people for all there was in them and paid them well. -Several times on the regular weekly holiday the superior -men on <i>The Trumpet</i> were given, he loitered -along streets where she had been wont to pass. But -he never saw her. The chance that had favored him -that once in the park was not repeated. Mrs. Willers -said she was very busy. Essex began to wonder if -she suspected him of lying in wait for her and was -taking her walks along unfrequented byways.</p> - -<p>Finally, after Christmas had passed and he had -still not caught a glimpse of her, he determined to see<span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[334]</span> -her in the only way that seemed possible. He had -inherited certain traditions of good breeding from -his mother, and it offended this streak of delicacy -and decency that was still faintly discernible in his -character to intrude upon a lady who had so obviously -shown a distaste for his society. But there was nothing -else for it. Interests that were vital were at -stake. Moreover, his desire, for love’s sake, to see -her again was overmastering. Her face came between -him and his work. There were nights when he -stood opposite the Garcia house watching for her -shadow on the blind.</p> - -<p>He timed his visit at an hour when, according to the -information extracted from Mrs. Willers, Mariposa’s -last pupil for the day should have left. He loitered -about at the corner of the street and saw the pupil—one -of the grown-up ones in a sealskin sack and a black -Gainsborough hat—open the gate and sweep majestically -down the street. Then he strode from his -coign of vantage, stepped lightly up the stairs, and -rang the bell.</p> - -<p>It was after school hours, and Benito opened the -door. Essex, in his silk hat and long, dark overcoat, -tall and distinguished, was so much more impressive -a figure than Win that the little boy stared at him -in overawed surprise, and only found his breath when -the stranger demanded Miss Moreau.</p> - -<p>“Yes, she’s in,” said Benito, backing away toward -the stairs; “I’ll call her. She has quite a lot of callers -sometimes,” he hazarded pleasantly.</p> - -<p>The door near by opened a crack, and a female<span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[335]</span> -voice issued therefrom in a suppressed tone of irritation.</p> - -<p>“Benito, why don’t you show the gentleman into -the parlor?”</p> - -<p>“He’ll go in if he wants,” said Benito, who evidently -had decided that the stranger knew how to take -care of himself; “that’s the door; just open it and go -in.”</p> - -<p>Essex, who was conscious that the eye which pertained -to the voice was surveying him intently through -the crack, did as he was bidden and found himself in -the close, musty parlor. It was late in the afternoon, -and the long lace curtains draped over the windows -obscured the light. He wanted to see Mariposa -plainly and he looped the curtains back against the -brass hooks. His heart was beating hard with expectation. -As he turned round to look at the door -he noticed that the key was in the lock, and resolved, -with a sense of grim determination, that if she tried -to go when she saw who it was, he could be before -her and turn the key.</p> - -<p>Upstairs Benito had found Mariposa sitting in front -of the fire. She had been giving lessons most of the -day and was tired. She stretched herself like a -sleepy cat as he came in, and put her hand up to her -hair, pushing in the loosened hairpins.</p> - -<p>“It’s some one about lessons, I guess,” she said, -rising and giving a hasty look in the glass. “At this -rate, Ben, I’ll soon be rich.”</p> - -<p>“What’ll we do then?” said Benito, clattering to -the stair-head beside her.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[336]</span>“We’ll buy a steam yacht, just you and I, and -travel round the world. And we’ll stop in all sorts of -strange countries and ride on elephants and buy parrots, -and shoot tigers and go up in balloons and do -everything that’s dangerous and interesting.”</p> - -<p>She was in good spirits at the prospect of a new -pupil, and, with her hand on the door-knob, threw -Benito a farewell smile, which was still on her lips as -she entered.</p> - -<p>It remained there for a moment, for at the first -glance she did not recognize Essex, who was standing -with his back to the panes of the unveiled windows; -then he moved toward her and she saw who -it was.</p> - -<p>She gave a smothered exclamation and drew back.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Essex!” she said; “why do you come here?”</p> - -<p>He had intended to meet her with his customary -half impudent, half cajoling suavity, but found that -he could not. The sight of her filled him with fiery -agitation.</p> - -<p>“I came because I couldn’t keep away,” he said, -advancing with his hand out.</p> - -<p>“No,” she said, glancing at the hand and turning -her head aside with an impatient movement; “there -can’t be any pretenses at friendship between us. I -don’t want to shake hands with you. I don’t want -to see you. What did you come for?”</p> - -<p>“To see you. I had to see you.”</p> - -<p>His eyes, fixed on her as she stood in the light of -the window, seemed to italicize the words of the sentence.</p> - -<p>“There’s no use beginning that subject again,” she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[337]</span> -said hurriedly; “there’s no use talking about those -things.”</p> - -<p>“What things? What are you referring to?”</p> - -<p>For a moment she felt the old helpless feeling coming -over her, but she forced it aside and said, looking -steadily at him:</p> - -<p>“The things we talked about in the park the last -time we met.”</p> - -<p>She saw his dark face flush. He was too much in -earnest now to be able to assert his supremacy by -teasing equivocations.</p> - -<p>“Nevertheless, I’ve come to-day to repeat those -things.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t—don’t,” she said quickly; “there’s no use. -I won’t listen to them. It’s not polite to intrude into -a lady’s house and try to talk about subjects she detests.”</p> - -<p>“The time has passed for us to be polite or impolite,” -he answered hotly; “we’re not the man and woman -as society and the world has made them. We’re the -man and woman as they are and have always been -from the beginning. We’re not speaking to each -other through the veils of conventionality; we’re -speaking face to face. We have hearts and souls and -passions. We’ve loved each other.”</p> - -<p>“Never,” she said; “never for a moment.”</p> - -<p>“You have a bad memory,” he answered slowly; -“is it natural or cultivated?”</p> - -<p>He had the satisfaction of seeing her color rise. -The sight sent a thrill of hope through him. He -moved nearer to her and said in a voice that vibrated -with feeling:</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[338]</span>“You loved me once.”</p> - -<p>“No, never, never. It was never that.”</p> - -<p>“Then why,” he answered, his lips trying to twist -themselves into a sardonic smile, while rage possessed -him, “why did you—let us say—encourage me so -that night in the cottage on Pine Street?”</p> - -<p>Though her color burned deeper, her eyes did not -drop. He had never seen her dominating her own -girlish impulses like this. It seemed to remove her -thousands of miles from the circle of his power.</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you,” she answered; “I was lonely and -miserable, and you seemed the only creature that I -had to care for. I thought you were fond of me, and -I thought it was wonderful that any one as clever as -you could really care for me. That you regarded me -as you did I could no more have imagined than I -could have suspected you of picking my pocket or -murdering me. And that night in the cottage, when -in my loneliness and distress I seemed to be holding -out my arms to you, asking you to protect and comfort -me, you laughed at me and struck me a blow in -the face. It was the end of my dream. I wakened -then and saw the reality. But you—you as you are—as -I know you now—I never loved, I never could have -loved.”</p> - -<p>Her words inflamed his rage, not alone against her, -but against himself, who had had her in this pliant -mood in his very arms and had lost her.</p> - -<p>“And was it only a desire for consolation and sympathy -that made you behave toward me in what was -hardly—a—” he paused as if hesitating for a word -that would in a seemly manner express his thought,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[339]</span> -in reality racking his brains for the one that would -hurt her most—“hardly a maidenly way considering -your lack of interest in me?”</p> - -<p>The word he had chosen told. Her color sank suddenly -away, leaving her very pale. Her face seemed -to stiffen and lose its youthful curves.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think,” she said slowly, “that it’s necessary -to continue this conversation. It doesn’t seem to me -to be very profitable to anybody.”</p> - -<p>She looked at him, but he made no movement.</p> - -<p>“You will have to excuse me, Mr. Essex,” she said, -moving toward the door, “but if you won’t go I -must.”</p> - -<p>The expected had happened. He sprang before her -and locked the door. Leaning his back against it, he -stared at her. Both were now very pale.</p> - -<p>“No,” he said, hearing his own voice shaken by his -rapid breathing, “you’re not going. I’ve not said -half I came to say. I’ve not come to-day to plead -and sue like a beggar for the love that you’re ready -to give one day and take back the next. I’ve other -things to talk about.”</p> - -<p>“Open the door,” she commanded; “open the door -and let me out. I want to hear nothing that you have -to say.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you want to hear who you are?” he asked.</p> - -<p>The words passed through Mariposa like a current -of electricity. Every nerve in her body seemed to -tighten. She looked at him, staring and repeating:</p> - -<p>“Hear who I am?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he said, leaning toward her while one hand -still gripped the door-handle; “hear what your real<span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[340]</span> -name is, and who you are? Hear who your father -was and where you were born?”</p> - -<p>Her face blanched under his eyes. The sight -pleased him, suggesting as it did weakness and fear -that would give him back his old ascendancy. Horror -invaded her. He, of all people on earth, to know! She -could say nothing; could hardly think; only seemed -a thing of ears to hear.</p> - -<p>“Hear who my father was!” she repeated, this time -almost in a whisper.</p> - -<p>“Yes; I can tell you all that, and more, too. I’ve -got a wonderfully interesting story for you. You’ll -not want to go when I begin. Sit down.”</p> - -<p>“What do you know? Tell me quickly.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t be impatient. It’s a long story. It begins -on the Nevada desert. That’s where you were born; -not in the cabin in Eldorado County, as I heard you -telling Jake Shackleton that day at Mrs. Willers’.”</p> - -<p>He was watching her like a tiger, still standing -with his back against the door. Her eyes were on -him, wild and intent. Each word fell like a drop of -vitriol on her brain. She saw that he knew everything.</p> - -<p>“Your mother was Lucy Fraser, but your father -was not Dan Moreau. He was a very different man, -and you were his eldest child, his eldest and only -legitimate child. Do you know what his name was?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Mariposa in a low voice; “Jake Shackleton.”</p> - -<p>It was Essex’s turn to be amazed. He stared at -her, speechless, completely staggered.</p> - - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_340.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">“DON’T YOU WANT TO HEAR WHO YOU ARE?”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[341]</span>“You know it?” he cried, starting forward toward -her; “you know it?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she answered; “I know it.”</p> - -<p>He stood glaring, trying to collect his senses and -grasp in one whirling moment what difference her -knowledge would make to him.</p> - -<p>“How—how—did you know it?” he stammered.</p> - -<p>“That’s not of any consequence. I know that I am -Jake Shackleton’s eldest living child; that my mother -was married twice; that I was born in the desert instead -of in Eldorado County. I know it all. And what -is there so odd about that?” She threw her head up -and looked with baffling coldness into his eyes. “Why -shouldn’t I know my own parentage and birthplace?”</p> - -<p>“And—and—” he continued to speak with eager -unsteadiness—“you’ve done nothing yet?”</p> - -<p>“Done nothing yet,” she repeated; “what should I -do?”</p> - -<p>“That’s all right,” he said hastily, evidently relieved; -“you couldn’t do anything alone. There must -be some one to help you.”</p> - -<p>“Help me do what?”</p> - -<p>Both had forgotten the quarrel, the locked door, -the fever pitch of ten minutes earlier. All other -thoughts had been crowded out of Mariposa’s mind -by the horrible discovery of Essex’s knowledge, and -by the apprehensions that were cold in her heart. -She shrank from him more than ever, but had no desire -now to leave the room. Instead, she persisted in -her remark:</p> - -<p>“Help me do what? I don’t know what you mean.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[342]</span>“Help you in establishing your claim. And fate -has put into my hands the very person, the one person -who can do that. You know there was a man -who was in the cabin with Moreau—a partner. Did -you ever hear of him?”</p> - -<p>She nodded, swallowing dryly. Her sense of apprehension -strengthened with his every word.</p> - -<p>“Well, I have that man under my hand. He and -Mrs. Shackleton are the only living witnesses of the -transaction whereby your mother and you passed into -Moreau’s keeping. And I have him. I’ve got him -here.” He made a gesture with his thumb as though -pressing the ball of it down on something. Then he -looked at Mariposa with eyes full of an eager cupidity.</p> - -<p>She did not respond with the show of interest he -had expected, but stood looking down, pale and motionless. -Her brain was in an appalled chaos from -which stood out only a few facts. This terrible man -knew her secret—the secret of her mother’s life and -honor—that she would have died to hide in the sacredness -of her love for the dead man and woman -who could no longer defend themselves.</p> - -<p>“It seems as if fate had sent me to help you,” he -went on; “you couldn’t do it alone.”</p> - -<p>“Do what?” she asked without moving.</p> - -<p>“Establish your claim as the real heir. Of course -you’re the chief heir. I’ve been looking it up. The -others will get a share as acknowledged children. -But you ought to get the bulk of the fortune as the -only legitimate child.”</p> - -<p>“Establish my claim?” she repeated. “Do you -mean, prove that I’m Jake Shackleton’s daughter?”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[343]</span>“Yes. And there’s a tremendously important point. -Did your mother have papers or letters showing that -she had been Shackleton’s wife?”</p> - -<p>“She left her marriage certificate,” she said dully, -hardly conscious of her words. “I have it.”</p> - -<p>“Here?—by you?” with quick curiosity.</p> - -<p>“Yes; upstairs—in my little desk.”</p> - -<p>“Ah,” he said, with almost a laugh of relief. “That -settles it. You with the certificate and I with Harney! -Why, we’ve got them.”</p> - -<p>“We?” she said, looking up as though waking. -“We?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; we,” he answered.</p> - -<p>He had come close to her and, standing at her side, -bent his head in order to look more directly into her -face.</p> - -<p>“This ought to put an end, dear, to your objections,” -he said gently; “you can’t do it alone. No -woman could, much less one like you—young, inexperienced, -ignorant of the world. You’ve got no idea -what a big contest like this means. There must be a -man to help you, and I must be that man, Mariposa. -We can marry quietly as soon as you are ready. It -would be better not to make any move until after that, -as it would be much easier for me to conduct the -campaign as your husband than as your fiancé. I’d -take the whole thing off your shoulders. You’d have -almost nothing to do, except be certain of your memories -and dates, and I’d see to it that you were letter -perfect in that when the time came. I’d stand between -you and everything that was disagreeable.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[344]</span>He took her hand, which for the moment was passive -in his.</p> - -<p>“When will it be?” he said, giving it a gentle -squeeze; “when, sweetheart?”</p> - -<p>She tore her hand away.</p> - -<p>“Why, you’re crazy,” she cried. “There’ll never -be any of it. Never be any claim made or contest, or -anything that you talk of. You want me to make -money out of my mother’s story that was a tragedy—that -I can hardly think of myself! Oh!—” She -turned around, speechless, and put her hand to her -mouth.</p> - -<p>She thought of her dying mother, and grief for that -smitten soul, so deeply loved, so tenderly loving, rent -her with a throe of pity, poignant as bodily pain.</p> - -<p>“Your mother is dead,” he said, understanding her -and feeling some real sympathy for her. “It can’t -hurt her now.”</p> - -<p>“Drag it all out into the light,” she went on. “Fight -in a court with those horrible Shackletons! Have it -in the papers and all the mean, low people in California, -who couldn’t for one moment understand anything -that was pure and noble, jeering and talking -over my father and mother! That’s what you call -establishing my claim, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“That’s not all of it,” he stammered, taken aback -by her violence. “And, anyway, it’s all true.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, I’ll lie and say it was false. If it came -to fighting I’d say it was false. That I was not Jake -Shackleton’s daughter, and that my mother never -knew him, or saw him, or heard of him. I’d burn that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[345]</span> -certificate and say there never was such a thing, and -that anybody who suggested it was a liar or a madman. -And when it comes to you, there’s just one thing to -say: I wouldn’t marry you if forty fortunes hung -on it. I’d rather beg or steal than be your wife if -you owned all the Comstock mines. That’s the future -you think is going to tempt me—you for a husband -and a fortune for us both, made by proving that my -mother was never really married to the man I called -my father!”</p> - -<p>“But—but,” he said, not heeding her anger in his -bewildered amazement, “you intended it sooner or -later yourself?”</p> - -<p>“I?—I?—Betray my parents for money? <i>I</i> do -that?”</p> - -<p>She stared at him, with eyes of wild indignation. -He began to have a cold comprehension of what she -felt, and it shook him as violently as his passion for -her had ever done.</p> - -<p>“But you don’t understand,” he cried. “This is -not a matter of thousands; it’s millions, and it’s yours -by right. It’s a colossal fortune here in your hand—yours -almost for the asking.”</p> - -<p>“It will never be mine. I wouldn’t have it. Oh, -let me go! This is too horrible.”</p> - -<p>“Wait—just one moment. If it came to an actual -suit it might be painful and trying for you. But how -if I can arrange a compromise with Mrs. Shackleton? -I think I can. When she knows that you have the -proofs of the marriage she’ll be glad enough to settle. -She doesn’t want these things to come out any more<span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[346]</span> -than you do. She’s a smart woman, and she’ll know -that your silence is the most valuable thing she can -buy. Do you understand?”</p> - -<p>“I understand just one thing.”</p> - -<p>“What’s that?”</p> - -<p>“You.”</p> - -<p>For the second time they looked at each other for -a motionless, deep-breathing moment. There was -nothing in their faces or attitudes that suggested -lovers. They looked like a pair of antagonists at -pause in their struggle—on the alert for a continuance -of battle.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I understand you now,” she said in a low -voice; “you’ve made me understand you.”</p> - -<p>“I only want to make you understand one thing—how -much I love you.”</p> - -<p>She drew back with a movement of violent repugnance. -He suddenly stretched out his arms and came -toward her.</p> - -<p>She ran toward the door, for the moment forgetting -it was locked. Then, as it resisted, memory awoke. -He was beside her and tried to take her in his arms, -but she turned and struck him, with all her force, a -blow on the face. She saw the skin redden under it.</p> - -<p>“Open the door!” she gasped; “open the door!”</p> - -<p>For the moment the blow so stunned and enraged -him that he drew back from her, his hand instinctively -rising to the smarting skin. An oath burst from his -compressed mouth.</p> - -<p>“I’d like to kill you for that,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Open the door,” she almost shrieked, rattling the -handle.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[347]</span>“I’ll pay you for this. You seem to forget that I -know all the disreputable secrets of your beginnings. -I can tell all the world how your mother was sold to -Dan Moreau, and how—”</p> - -<p>Mariposa heard the click of the gate and a step on -the outside stairs. She drowned the sound of Essex’s -voice in a sudden furious pounding on the door, while -she cried with the full force of her lungs:</p> - -<p>“Benito! Miguel! Mrs. Garcia!—Come and open -this door! Come and let me out! I’m locked in! -Come!”</p> - -<p>Essex was at the door in an instant, the key in the -lock. As he turned it he gave her a murderous look.</p> - -<p>“You fool!” he said under his breath.</p> - -<p>As the portal swung open and he passed into the -hall, the front door was violently pushed inward, and -Barron almost fell against him in the hurry of his -entrance.</p> - -<p>The new-comer drew back from the departing -stranger with an apologetic start.</p> - -<p>“Beg your pardon,” he said bruskly, “but I thought -I heard some one scream in here.”</p> - -<p>“Scream?” said Essex, languidly selecting his hat -from the disreputable collection on the rack; “I didn’t -notice it, and I’ve been sitting in there for nearly an -hour with Miss Moreau. I fancy you’ve made a mistake.”</p> - -<p>“I guess I must have. It’s odd.”</p> - -<p>The hall door slammed behind Essex, and the other -man turned into the parlor, where the light was now -very dim. In his exit from the room Essex had flung -the door open with violence, and Mariposa, who had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[348]</span> -backed against the wall, was still standing behind it. -As Barron pushed it to he saw her, a vague black -figure with white hands and face, in the dark.</p> - -<p>“What on earth are you doing there?” he said; -“standing behind the door like a child in the corner.”</p> - -<p>She thanked heaven for the friendly dark and answered -hurriedly:</p> - -<p>“I—I—I—didn’t want you to catch me. I’m so—so—untidy.”</p> - -<p>“Untidy? I never saw you untidy, and don’t believe -you ever were. I met a man in the hall, who -said he’d been here for an hour. You must have -been playing puss in the corner with him.”</p> - -<p>“Yes; his name’s Essex, and he’s a friend of Mrs. -Willers’ that I know. He was here, and I thought -he’d come about music lessons, so I came down looking -rather untidy. That was how it happened.”</p> - -<p>“And he stayed an hour talking about music lessons?”</p> - -<p>“No—oh, no; other things.”</p> - -<p>They turned into the hall, Barron, in his character -of general guardian of the Garcia fortunes, shutting -the door of the state apartment. He had the appearance -of taking no notice of Mariposa, but as soon as -he got into the light of the hall gas he sent a lightning-like -glance over her face.</p> - -<p>“It was funny,” he said, “but as I came up the -steps I thought I heard some one calling out. I -dashed in and fell into the arms of your music-lesson -man, who said no cries of any kind had disturbed the -joy of his hour in your society.”</p> - -<p>Mariposa had begun to ascend the stairs.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[349]</span>“Cries?” she said over her shoulder; “I don’t think -there were any cries. Why should any one cry out -here?”</p> - -<p>“That’s exactly what I wanted to know,” he said, -watching her ascending back.</p> - -<p>She turned and passed out of sight at the top of -the stairs. Barron stood below under the hall gas, -his head drooped. He was puzzled, for, say what they -might, he was certain he had heard cries.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[350]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XIX<br /> - - -<small>NOT MADE IN HEAVEN</small></h3> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="first">“Women are like tricks by sleight of hand</div> -<div class="verse">Which to admire we should not understand.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Congreve.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>At <i>The Trumpet</i> office the next morning Essex -found a letter awaiting him. It was from Mrs. -Shackleton, asking him to dinner on a certain evening -that week—“very informally, Mr. Essex would understand, -as the family was in such deep mourning.”</p> - -<p>Essex turned the letter over, smiling to himself. It -was an admirable testimony to Bessie’s capability. Her -monogram, gilded richly, adorned the top of the sheet -of cream-laid paper, and beneath it, in a fine running -hand, were the few carefully-worded sentences, and -then the signature—Bessie A. Shackleton. It was a -remarkable letter, considering all things; wonderful -testimony to that adaptive cleverness which is the birth-right -of Bessie’s countrywomen. In her case this -care of externals had not been a haphazard acquirement. -She was not the woman to be slipshod or -trust to the tutoring of experience. When her husband’s -star had begun to rise with such dazzling effulgence -she had hired teachers for herself, as well as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[351]</span> -those for Maud, and there were many books of etiquette -on the shelves in her boudoir.</p> - -<p>The letter contained more for Essex than a simple -invitation to dinner. It was the first move of the -Shackleton faction in the direction he desired to see -them take. Bessie had evidently heard something that -had made her realize he, too, might be more than a -pawn in the game. He answered the note with a sentence -of acceptance and a well-turned phrase, expressing -his pleasure at the thought of meeting her again.</p> - -<p>He was not in an agreeable frame of mind. His -interview with Mariposa had roused the sleeping devil -within him, which, of late, had only been drowsy. His -worst side—ugly traits inherited from his rascally -father—was developing with overmastering force. -Lessons learned in those obscure and unchronicled -years when he had swung between London and Paris -were beginning to bear fruit. At the blow from Mariposa -a crop of red-veined passions had burst into life -and grown with the speed of Jack’s beanstalk. His -face burned with the memory of that blow. When he -recalled its stinging impact, he did not know whether -he loved or hated Mariposa most. But his determination -to force her to marry him strengthened with her -openly expressed abhorrence. The memory of her -face as she struck at him was constantly before his -mental vision, and his fury seethed to the point of a -still, level-brimming tensity, when he recalled the fear -and hatred in it.</p> - -<p>The dinner at Mrs. Shackleton’s was a small and -informal one. The company of six—for, besides himself, -the only guests were the Count de Lamolle and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[352]</span> -Pussy Thurston—looked an exceedingly meager array -in the vast drawing-room, whose stately proportions -were rendered even larger by mirrors which rose from -the floor to the cornice, elongating the room by many -shadowy reflections. A small fire burned at each end, -under mantels of Mexican onyx, and these two little -palpitating hearts of heat were the brightest spots in -the spacious apartment where even Miss Thurston’s -dress of pale-blue gauze seemed to melt into the effacing -shadows.</p> - -<p>The Count de Lamolle gave Essex a quick glance, -and, as they stood together in front of one of the fires—the -two girls and Win having moved away to look -at a painting of Bouguereau’s on an easel—addressed -a casual remark to him in French. The count had already -met the newspaper man, and set him down, -without illusion or hesitation, as a clever adventurer. -He overcame his surprise at meeting him in the house -of the bonanza widow, by the reflection that this was -the United States where all men are equal, and women -with money free to be wooed by any of them.</p> - -<p>The count was in an uncertain and almost uncomfortable -state of mind. The letter he had received -from Mrs. Shackleton, bidding him to the feast, was -the second from her since Maud’s rejection of him. -The first had been of a consolatory and encouraging -nature. Mrs. Shackleton told him that Maud was -young, and that many women said no, when they -meant yes. The count knew both these things as well -as Mrs. Shackleton; the latter, even better. But it -seemed to him that Maud, young though she was, had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[353]</span> -not meant yes, and the handsome Frenchman was not -the man to force his attentions on any woman. He -watched her without appearing to notice her. She -had been greatly embarrassed at sight of him, and only -for the briefest moment let her cold fingers touch his -palm. Under the flood of light from the dining-room -chandelier she looked plainer than ever; her lack of -color and stolid absence of animation being even more -noticeable than usual in contrast with the brilliant -pink and white prettiness of Pussy Thurston, who -chattered gaily with everybody, and attempted a little -French with De Lamolle.</p> - -<p>Maud sat beside Essex, and even that easily fluent -gentleman found her difficult to interest. She appeared -dull and unresponsive. Looking at her with -slightly narrowed eyes, he wondered how the count, -of whose name and exploits he had often heard in -Paris, could contemplate so brave an act as marrying -her.</p> - -<p>The count, who, having more heart, could see deeper, -asked himself if the girl was really unhappy. As he -listened to Miss Thurston’s marvelous French he wondered, -with a little expanding heat of irritation, if the -mother was trying to force the marriage against the -daughter’s wish. He had broken hearts in his day, -but it was not a pastime he found agreeable. He was -too gallant a gentleman to woo where his courtship -was unwelcome.</p> - -<p>When the gentlemen entered the drawing-room from -their after-dinner wine and cigars, they found the ladies -seated by one of the fires below the Mexican<span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[354]</span> -onyx mantels. Bessie rose as they approached and, -turning to Essex, asked him if he had seen the Bouguereau -on the easel, and steered him toward it.</p> - -<p>“It was one of Mr. Shackleton’s last purchases,” -she said; “he was very anxious to have a fine collection. -He had great taste.”</p> - -<p>Her companion, looking at the plump, pearly-skinned -nymph and her attendant cupids, thought of -Harney’s description of Shackleton in the days when -he had first entered California, and said, with conviction:</p> - -<p>“What a remarkably versatile man your husband -was! I had no idea he was interested in art.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, he loved it,” said Bessie, “and knew a great -deal about it. We were in Europe two years ago for -six months, and Mr. Shackleton and I visited a great -many studios. That is a Meissonier over there, and -that one we bought from Rosa Bonheur. She’s an interesting -woman, looked just like a man. Then in -the Moorish room there’s a Gérôme. Would you like -to see it? It’s considered a very fine example.”</p> - -<p>He expressed his desire to see the Gérôme, and -followed Bessie’s rustling wake into the Moorish room. -The little room was warm, with its handful of fire, and -softly lit with chased and perforated lanterns of bronze -and brass. The heat had drawn the perfume from the -bowls full of roses and violets that stood about and -the air was impregnated with their sweetness. The -Gérôme, a scene in the interior of a harem, with a -woman dancing, stood on an easel in one corner.</p> - -<p>“That’s it,” said Bessie, drawing to one side that -he might see it better. “One on the same sort of subject<span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[355]</span> -was in the studio when we first went there, but -Mr. Shackleton thought it was too small, and this was -painted to order.”</p> - -<p>“Superb,” murmured Essex; “Gérôme at his best.”</p> - -<p>“We hoped,” continued Bessie, sinking into a seat, -“to have a fine collection, and build a gallery for them -out in the garden. There was plenty of room, and -they would have shown off better all together that -way, rather than scattered about like this. But I’ve -no ambition to do it now, and they’ll stay as they are.”</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you go on with the collection?” said -the young man, taking a seat on a square stool of -carved teak wood. “It would be a most interesting -thing to do, and you could go abroad every year or -two, and go to the studios and buy direct from the -artists. It’s much the best way.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I couldn’t,” she said, with a little shrug; “I -don’t know enough about it. I only know what I like, -and I generally like the wrong thing. I’m not versatile -like my husband. When I first came to California -I didn’t know a chromo from an oil painting. In fact,” -she said, looking at him frankly and laughing a little, -“I don’t think I’d ever seen an oil painting.”</p> - -<p>Essex returned the laugh and murmured a word or -two of complimentary disbelief. He was wondering -when she would get to the real subject of conversation -which had led them to the Gérôme and the Moorish -room. She was nearer than he thought.</p> - -<p>“It would be a temptation to go to Paris every year -or two,” she said. “That’s the most delightful place in -the world. It’s your home, isn’t it? So, of course, -you agree with me.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[356]</span>“Yes, I was born there, and have lived there off and -on ever since. To me, there is only one Paris.”</p> - -<p>“And can you fancy any one having the chance to -go there, and live and study, with no trouble about -money, refusing?”</p> - -<p>Essex looked into the fire, and responded in a tone -that suggested polite indifference:</p> - -<p>“No, that’s quite beyond my powers of imagination.”</p> - -<p>“I have a sort of—I think you call it protégée—isn’t -that the word?—yes”—in answer to his nod—“whom I -want to send to Paris. She’s a young girl with a fine -voice. Mr. Shackleton was very much interested in -her. He knew her father in the mining days of the -early fifties and wanted to pay off some old scores by -helping the daughter. And now the daughter seems -to dislike being helped.”</p> - -<p>“There are such people,” said Essex in the same -tone. “Does she dislike the idea of going to Paris, -too?”</p> - -<p>“That seems to be it. We both wanted to send her -there, have her voice trained, and put her in the way -of becoming a singer. Lepine, when he was here, -heard her and thought she had the making of a prima -donna. But,” she suddenly looked at him with a half-puzzled -expression of inquiry, “I think you know her—Miss -Moreau?”</p> - -<p>Essex looked back at her for a moment with bafflingly -expressionless eyes.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know her. She’s a friend of Mrs. Willers’, -one of the Sunday edition people on <i>The Trumpet</i>. A -very handsome and charming girl.”</p> - -<p>“That’s the girl,” said Bessie, mentally admiring<span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[357]</span> -his perfect aplomb. “She’s a very fine girl, and, as -you say, handsome. But I don’t think she’s got much -common sense. Girls don’t, as a rule, have more than -enough to get along on. But when they’re poor, and -so alone in the world, they ought to pick up a little.</p> - -<p>“Certainly, to refuse an offer such as you speak of, -argues a lack of something. Have you any idea of -her reason for refusing?”</p> - -<p>He looked at Bessie as he propounded the question, -his eyelids lowered slightly. She, in her turn, let her -keen gray glance rest on him. The thought flashed -through her mind that it was only another evidence -of Mariposa’s peculiarity of disposition that she should -have refused so handsome and attractive a man.</p> - -<p>“No—” she said with unruffled placidity, “I don’t -understand it. She’s a proud girl and objects to being -under obligations. But then this wouldn’t be an obligation. -Apart from everything else, there’s no question -about obligations where singers and artists and -people like that are concerned. It’s all a matter of -art.”</p> - -<p>“Art levels all things,” said the young man glibly.</p> - -<p>“That’s what I always thought. But Miss Moreau -doesn’t seem to agree with me. The most curious -part of it all is that she was willing to go in the beginning. -That was before her mother died; then she suddenly -changed her mind, wouldn’t hear of it, and said -she’d prefer staying here in San Francisco, teaching -music at fifty cents a lesson. I must say I was annoyed. -I had her here and talked to her quite severely, -but it didn’t seem to make any impression. I -was puzzled to death to understand it. But after thinking<span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">[358]</span> -for a while, and wondering what could make a -girl prefer San Francisco and teaching music at fifty -cents a lesson, to Paris and being a prima donna, I -came to the conclusion there was only one thing could -influence a woman to that extent—there was a man in -the case.”</p> - -<p>She saw Essex, whose eyes were on the fire, raise -his brows by way of a polite commentary on her words.</p> - -<p>“That sounds a very plausible solution of the problem,” -he said. “Love’s a deadly enemy to common -sense.”</p> - -<p>“That’s the way it seemed to me. She had fallen in -love, and evidently the man had not enough money to -marry on, or was in a poor position, or something. -When I thought of that I was certain I’d found the -clue. The silly girl was going to give up everything -for love. I suppose I ought to have felt touched. But -I really felt sort of mad with her at first. Afterward, -thinking it over, I decided it was not so foolish, and -now I’ve veered round so far that I’m inclined to encourage -it.”</p> - -<p>“On general principles you think domesticity is better -for a woman than the glare of the footlights?”</p> - -<p>“No, not that way. I think a gift like Mariposa -Moreau’s should be cultivated and given to the public. -I never had any sympathy with that man in the Bible -who buried his talent in the ground. I think talents -were made to be used. What I thought, was, why -shouldn’t Mariposa marry the man she cared for and -go with him to Paris. It would be a much better arrangement -all round. She isn’t very smart or capable,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">[359]</span> -and she’s young and childish for her years. Don’t -you think she is, Mr. Essex?”</p> - -<p>Essex again raised his eyebrows and looked into -the fire.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he said in a dubious tone. “Yes, I suppose -she is. She is certainly not a sophisticated or worldly -person.”</p> - -<p>“That’s just it. She’s green—green about everything. -Some way or other I didn’t like the thought -of sending her off there by herself, where she didn’t -know a soul. And then she’s so handsome. If she -was ugly it wouldn’t matter so much. But she’s very -good-looking, and when you add that to her being so -inexperienced and green about everything you begin -to realize the responsibility of sending her alone to -a strange country, especially Paris.”</p> - -<p>“Paris is not a city,” commented her companion, -“where young, beautiful and unprotected females are -objects of public protection and solicitude.”</p> - -<p>“That’s the reason why I want, now, to encourage -this marriage. With a husband that she loves to take -care of her, everything would be smooth sailing. -She’d be happy and not homesick or strange. He’d -be there with her, to watch over her and probably -help her with her studies. Perhaps he could -get some position, just to occupy his time. Because, -so far as money went, I’d see to it that they were -well provided for during the time she was preparing. -Lepine said that he thought two or three years would -be sufficient for her to study. Well, I’d give them -fifteen thousand dollars to start on. And if that wasn’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">[360]</span> -enough, or she was not ready to appear at the expected -time, there would be more. There’d be no question -about means of living, anyway. They could just put -that out of their heads.”</p> - -<p>“I have always heard that Mrs. Shackleton was generous,” -said Essex, looking at her with a slight smile.</p> - -<p>“Oh, generous!” she said, with a little movement of -impatience, which was genuine. “This is no question -of generosity; I want the girl to go and be a singer, -and I don’t want her to go alone. Now, I’ve found out -a way for her to go that will be agreeable to her and -to me, and, I take for granted, to the man.”</p> - -<p>She looked at Essex with a smile that almost said -she knew him to be that favored person.</p> - -<p>“Of course,” she continued, “it would be better for -him to get some work. It’s bad for man or woman to -be idle. If he knows how to write, it would be an -easy matter to make him Paris correspondent of <i>The -Trumpet</i>. It was my husband’s intention to have a -correspondent, and he had some idea of offering it to -Mrs. Willers. But it’s not the work for her, nor she -the woman for it. It ought to be a man, and a man -that’s conversant with the country and the language. -There’ll be a good salary to go with it. Win was talking -about it only the other evening.”</p> - -<p>“What a showering of good fortune on one person,” -said Essex—“a position ready-made, a small fortune -and a beautiful wife! He must be a favorite of the -gods.”</p> - -<p>“You can call it what you like, Mr. Essex,” said -Bessie. “It’s been my experience that the gods take<span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">[361]</span> -for their favorites men and women who’ve got some -hustle. Everybody has a chance some time or other. -Miss Moreau and her young man have theirs now.”</p> - -<p>She rose to her feet, for at that moment, Pussy -Thurston appeared in the doorway to say good night.</p> - -<p>The pretty creature had cast more than one covertly -admiring look at Essex, during the dinner, and now, -as she held out her hand to him in farewell, she said -after the informal Western fashion:</p> - -<p>“Won’t you come to see me, Mr. Essex? I’m always -at home on Sunday afternoon. If you’re bashful, -Win will bring you. He comes sometimes when -he’s got nowhere else in the world to go to.”</p> - -<p>Win, who was just behind her, expressed his willingness -to act as escort, and laughing and jesting, the -party passed through the doorway into the drawing-room. -The little fires were burning low. By the light -of one, Maud and Count de Lamolle were looking at a -book of photographs of Swiss views. The count’s -expression was enigmatic, and as Bessie approached -them she heard Maud say:</p> - -<p>“Oh, that’s a mountain. What’s the name of it, -now? I can’t remember. It’s very high and pointed, -and people are always climbing it and falling into -holes.”</p> - -<p>“The Matterhorn, perhaps,” suggested the count, -politely.</p> - -<p>To which Maud gave a relieved assent. Her words -were commonplace enough, but there was a quality -of light-heartedness, of suppressed elation, in her voice, -that her mother’s quick ear instantly caught. As the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">[362]</span> -girl looked up at their approaching figures her face -showed the same newly-acquired sparkle that was almost -joyous.</p> - -<p>It had, in fact, been a critical evening for Maud, and -so miserable did she feel her situation to be, that she -had taken her courage in both hands and struck one -desperate blow for freedom.</p> - -<p>When her mother and Essex had begun their pictorial -migrations she had felt the cold dread of a tête-à-tête -with the count creeping over her heart. For a -space she had tried to remain attached to Win and -Pussy Thornton, but neither Win nor Pussy, who were -old friends and had many subjects of mutual interest -to discuss, encouraged her society. Maud was not the -person to develop diplomatic genius under the most -favorable circumstances. Half an hour after the men -had entered the drawing-room, she found herself alone -with the count, in front of the fire, Win and Pussy -having strayed away to the Bouguereau.</p> - -<p>The count had tried various subjects of conversation, -but they had drooped and died after a few minutes -of languishing existence. He stood with his back -to the mantelpiece, looking curiously at Maud, who -sat on the edge of an armchair just within reach of -the fluctuating light. Her hands were clasped on her -knee and she was looking down so that he could not -see her face.</p> - -<p>Suddenly she rose to her feet and faced him. She -was pale and her eyes looked miserable and terrified.</p> - -<p>“Count de Lamolle,” she breathed in a tremulous -voice.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">[363]</span>“Mademoiselle,” he said, moving toward her, very -much surprised by her appearance.</p> - -<p>“I’ve got to say something to you. It may sound -queer, but I’ve got to say it.”</p> - -<p>“Dear Miss,” said the Frenchman, really concerned -by her tragic demeanor, “say whatever pleases you. -I am only here to listen.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t really care for me. Oh, if you’d only tell -the truth!”</p> - -<p>“That is a strange remark,” he said, completely taken -by surprise, and wondering what this extraordinary -girl was going to say next.</p> - -<p>“If I thought you really cared it would be different. -Perhaps I couldn’t say it. I hate making people miserable, -and yet so many people make me miserable.”</p> - -<p>“Who makes you miserable, dear young lady?” he -said, honestly touched.</p> - -<p>“You,” she almost whispered. “You do. You don’t -mean to, I know, for I think you’re kinder than lots -of other men. But—but— Oh please, don’t keep on -asking me to marry you. Don’t do it any more; that -makes me miserable. Because I can’t do it. Truly, I -can’t.”</p> - -<p>Count de Lamolle became very grave. He drew -himself up with an odd, stiff air, like a soldier.</p> - -<p>“If a lady speaks this way to a man,” he said, “the -man can only obey.”</p> - -<p>Maud hung on his words. When she grasped their -import, she suddenly moved toward him. There was -something pathetic in her eagerness of gratitude.</p> - -<p>“Oh, thanks! thanks! I knew you’d do it. It’s not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">[364]</span> -you I object to. I like you better than any of the -others. But”—she glanced over her shoulder into the -lantern-lit brilliance of the Moorish room and dropped -her voice—“there’s some one I like more.”</p> - -<p>“Oh,” said the count, and his dark eyes turned from -her face, which had become very red.</p> - -<p>“He’s going to marry me some day. He’s just Jack -Latimer, the stenographer in the office. But I like -him, and that’s all there is to it. But mommer’s terribly -set on you. And she’s so determined. Oh, Count -de Lamolle, it’s very hard 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, that will have to end it.”</p> - -<p>She stopped, her lips trembling. The count took -her hand, cold and clammy, and lifting it pressed his -lips lightly on the back. Then, dropping it, he said, -quietly:</p> - -<p>“All is understood. You have honored me highly, -Mademoiselle, by giving me your confidence.”</p> - -<p>They stood silent for a moment. The kiss on her -hand, the something friendly and kind—so different -from the cold looks of unadmiring criticism she was -accustomed to—in the man’s eyes brought her uncomfortably -close to tears. Few people had been kind to -Maud Shackleton in the midst of her riches and splendor.</p> - -<p>The count saw her emotion and turned toward the -fire. He felt more drawn to her than he had ever -been during his courtship. From the tail of his eye he -saw her little handkerchief whisk out and then into -her pocket. As it disappeared he said:</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">[365]</span>“I see, Miss Shackleton, that you have some albums -of views on the table. Might we not look at them together?”</p> - -<p>Thus it was that Bessie and Essex found them. -They had worked through two volumes of Northern -Italy, and were in Switzerland. And over the stiffened -pages with their photographs, not one-half of which -Maud could remember though she had been to all the -places on her trip abroad, they had come nearer being -friends than ever before.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_366">[366]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XX<br /> - - -<small>THE WOMAN TALKS</small></h3> -</div> - - -<p class="quote">“My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire -burned; then I spake with my tongue.”—<span class="smcap">Psalms.</span></p> - - - -<p>The morning after her interview with Essex Mariposa -had appeared at breakfast white-cheeked and apathetic. -She had eaten nothing, and when questioned -as to her state of health had replied that she had -passed a sleepless night and had a headache. Mrs. -Garcia, the younger, in a dingy cotton wrapper belted -by a white apron, shook her head over the coffee-pot -and began to tell how the late Juan Garcia had been -the victim of headaches due to green wall-paper.</p> - -<p>“But,” said Mrs. Garcia, looking up from under the -lambrequin of blond curls that adorned her brow, -“there’s nothing green in your wall-paper. It’s white, -with gold wheat-ears on it. So I don’t see what gives -you headaches.”</p> - -<p>“Headaches <i>do</i> come from other things besides green -wall-paper,” said Pierpont; “I’ve had them from overwork. -I’d advise Miss Moreau to give her pupils a -week’s holiday. And then she can come down some -afternoon and sing for me.”</p> - -<p>This was an old subject of discourse at the Garcia<span class="pagenum" id="Page_367">[367]</span> -table, Mariposa continually refusing the young man’s -invitations to let him hear and pass judgment upon her -voice. Since he had met her he had heard further details -of the recital at the opera-house and the opinion -of Lepine, and was openly ambitious to have Mariposa -for a pupil. Now she looked up at him with a sudden -spark of animation in her eyes.</p> - -<p>“I will some day. I’ll come in some afternoon and -sing for you—some afternoon when I have no headache,” -she added hastily, seeing the prospect of urging -in his eyes.</p> - -<p>Barron, sitting opposite, had been watching her -covertly through the meal. He saw that she ate nothing, -and guessed that the headache she pleaded was the -result of a wakeful night. The evening before, when -he had gone in to see the little boys in bed, he had casually -asked them if they had been playing games that -afternoon in which shouting had been a prominent -feature.</p> - -<p>“Indians?” Benito had suggested, sitting up in his -cot and scratching the back of his neck; “that’s a hollering -game.”</p> - -<p>“Any game with screams. When I came in I -thought I heard shouts coming from somewhere.”</p> - -<p>“That wasn’t us,” said Miguel from his larger bed -in the corner. “We was playing burying soldiers in -the back yard, and that’s a game where you bury soldiers, -cut out of the papers, in the sandy place. There’s -no sorter hollering in it. Sometimes we play we’re -crying, but that’s quiet.”</p> - -<p>“P’raps,” said Benito sleepily, “it was Miss Moreau’s -gentleman in the parlor. I let him in. They might<span class="pagenum" id="Page_368">[368]</span> -have been singing. Now tell us the story about the -Indians and the pony express.”</p> - -<p>This was all 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 littered table, -thinking. The details of his entrance into the house -a few hours before were engraved on his mind’s eye. -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 its shield of reserve to the complexities beneath. -The healthily frank American saw in it the -intricate sophistication of older civilizations, of vast -communities where “God hath made man upright; but -they have sought out many inventions.”</p> - -<p>On his ear again fell the cold politeness of the voice. -Gamaliel Barron was too lacking in any form of self-consciousness, -was too indifferently confident of himself -as a Westerner, the equal of any and all human -creatures, to experience that sensation of <i>mauvaise -honte</i> 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 moment of encounter in the hall. Thoughtfully -smoking and tilting back in his chair, he mentally -summed him up in the two words, “bad egg.” He -would keep his eye 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.</p> - -<p>The next morning Mariposa’s appearance at the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_369">[369]</span> -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 ascending the -stairs, one hand on the balustrade, her long, black -dress sliding upward from stair to stair.</p> - -<p>He followed her noiselessly, and at the top of the -flight, turning to go to her room, she saw him and -paused, her hand still touching the rail.</p> - -<p>“Miss Moreau,” he said, “you’re tired out—too tired -to teach. Let me go and put off your pupils. I’ve a -lot of spare time this afternoon.”</p> - -<p>“How kind of you,” she said, looking faintly surprised; -“I haven’t any this afternoon, luckily. I don’t -work every day; that’s the point I’m trying to work up -to; that’s my highest ambition.”</p> - -<p>She looked down at his upturned face and gave a -slight smile.</p> - -<p>“<i>Is</i> it overwork that kept you awake last night and -makes you look so pale to-day?” he queried in a lowered -voice.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know,”—she turned away her face -rather impatiently,—“I’m worried, I suppose. Everybody -has to be worried, don’t they?”</p> - -<p>“I can’t bear to have you worried. There isn’t one -wild, crazy thing in the world I wouldn’t do to prevent -it.”</p> - -<p>He was looking up at her with his soul in his eyes.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_370">[370]</span> -Barron was not the man to hide or juggle with his -love. It possessed him now and shone on his face. -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.</p> - -<p>“You know that,” he said, his deep voice shaken.</p> - -<p>Her eyes dropped to the hands and she mechanically -noticed how white her fingers looked between his large, -brown ones. She drew them softly away, feeling his -glance keen, impassioned and unwavering on her face.</p> - -<p>“Something’s troubling you,” he continued 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?”</p> - -<p>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 uncertainty 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 -threatening her. Then she realized the impossibility -of such a thing and drew back from the railing.</p> - -<p>“You can’t help me,” she said; “no one can.”</p> - -<p>He mounted a step and stretched his hand over the -railing to try to detain her.</p> - -<p>“But I can do one thing: I can always be here, here -close to you, ready to come when you call me, either in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_371">[371]</span> -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.”</p> - -<p>She had half turned away toward her door as he -spoke, and now stood in profile, 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, her hair a coppery bronze, and -her lips a clear, pale red, being the brightest tones in -the composition.</p> - -<p>“Will you remember?” he said.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she murmured.</p> - -<p>“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.”</p> - -<p>She turned completely away without answering and, -opening her door, vanished into her room.</p> - -<p>For the next three or four days she looked much the -same. Mrs. Garcia, junior, talked about the green -wall-paper, and Mrs. Garcia, senior, cooked her Mexican -dainties, which were so hot with chilli peppers that -only a seasoned throat could swallow them. Mariposa -tried to eat and to talk, but both efforts were failures. -She was secretly distracted by apprehensions of Essex’s -next move. She thought of his face as he had raised -his hand to his smitten cheek, and shuddered at the -memory. She lived in daily dread of his reappearance. -The interview had shattered her nerves, never fully -restored from the series of miserable events that had -preceded and followed her mother’s death. When she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_372">[372]</span> -heard the bell ring her heart sprang from her breast -to her throat, and a desire to fly and hide from her -persecutor seized her and held her quivering and alert.</p> - -<p>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 by the man -he had seen in the hall. He did not like to question -her, or attempt an intrusion into her confidence, but -he remembered the few words she had dropped that -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 though he did not -see her frequently, had retained an agreeable memory -of her and her daughter.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Willers was hastening down to <i>The Trumpet</i> -office after a morning’s work in her own rooms. Her -rouge had been applied with the usual haste, and she -was conscious that three buttons on one of her boots -were hardly sufficient to retain that necessary article -in place. But she felt brisk and light-hearted, confident -that the article in her hand was smart and spicy -and would lend brightness to her column in <i>The -Trumpet</i>.</p> - -<p>She greeted Barron with a friendly hail, and they -paused for a moment’s chat in the middle of the plaza.</p> - -<p>“You’re looking fresh as a summer morning,” said -the mining man, whose life, spent searching for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_373">[373]</span> -mineral secrets of the Sierra, had not made him conversant -with those of complexions like Mrs. Willers’.</p> - -<p>“Oh, get out!” said she, greatly pleased; “I’m too old -for that sort of taffy. It’s almost Edna’s turn now.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll be afraid to see Edna soon. She’s going to be -such a beauty that the only safety’s in flight.”</p> - -<p>The mother was even more pleased at this.</p> - -<p>“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 -popper.”</p> - -<p>“There’s a man on your paper called Essex,” said -Barron, who was not one to beat about the bush; “what -sort of a fellow is he, Mrs. Willers?”</p> - -<p>“A bad sort, I’m inclined to think. Why do you -ask?”</p> - -<p>“He was at the house the other afternoon, 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 <i>The Trumpet</i>.”</p> - -<p>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, considering attention.</p> - -<p>“Why didn’t you like his looks?” she said.</p> - -<p>“Well, I’ve seen men like that before—at the mines. -Good-looking chaps, who are sort of imitation gentlemen, -and try to make you take the imitation for the -real thing by putting on dog. I didn’t like his style, -anyhow, and I don’t think she does, either.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_374">[374]</span>“You’re right about that,” said Mrs. Willers; “do -you know what he was there for?”</p> - -<p>“Something about music lessons, she said. I didn’t -like to ask her.”</p> - -<p>“Music lessons!” exclaimed Mrs. Willers, with a -strong inflection of surprise.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Barron, uneasy at her tone and the -strange look of almost 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 afternoon 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, leaning against the wall and -white as my cuffs.”</p> - -<p>He looked frowningly at Mrs. Willers. She had -listened without moving, her face rigidly attentive.</p> - -<p>“Mariposa didn’t tell you what they’d been talking -about?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“No; she told me nothing. And when I 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 come -to see her for, anyway? What’s he after?”</p> - -<p>“Her,” said Mrs. Willers, solemnly; “he wants to -marry her.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_375">[375]</span>“Wants to marry her! That foreign spider! Well, -he’s got a gall. Humph!—”</p> - -<p>Words of sufficient scorn seemed to fail him. That -he should be similarly aspiring did not at that moment -strike him as reason for moderation in his censure of a -rival.</p> - -<p>“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.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you go round breaking people’s necks,” said -Mrs. Willers, “but I’m glad you’re in that house. If -Barry Essex is going to try to make her marry him by -bullying and bulldozing her, I’m glad 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. I knew 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 paper. 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 marrying him is no good. -You can bank on that.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Barron, “I’m glad you’ve told me this. -I’ll keep my eye on Mr. Essex. I was going to the -mines next week, but guess I’ll put it off.”</p> - -<p>“Do. But don’t you let on to Mariposa what I’ve -told you. She wouldn’t like it. She’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 look!” glancing at an adjacent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_376">[376]</span> -clock with a start, “I must be traveling. This stuff’s -got to go in at once.”</p> - -<p>“Good by,” said Barron, holding out his hand; “it’s -a good thing we had this minute of talk.”</p> - -<p>“Good by,” she answered, returning the pressure -with a grip almost as manly; “it’s been awfully good to -see you again. I must get a move on. So long.”</p> - -<p>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 to <i>The Trumpet</i> office.</p> - -<p>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 indignation -it passed to a state of simmering passion. Her -conscience heated it still further, for it was she who -had introduced Essex to Mariposa, and in the first -stages of their acquaintance had in a careless way encouraged -the friendship, thinking it would be cheerful -for the solitary girl to have the occasional companionship -of this clever and interesting man of the world. -She had thoughtlessly kindled a fire that might burn -far past her power of control and lead to irreparable -disaster.</p> - -<p>She inferred from Barron’s story that Essex was -evidently attempting to frighten Mariposa into smiling -on his suit. The cowardice of the action enraged her, -for, though Mrs. Willers had known many men of -many faults, she had counted no cowards among her -friends. Her point of view was Western. A man -might do many things that offend Eastern conventions -and retain her consideration. But, as she expressed it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_377">[377]</span> -to herself in the walk down Third Street, “He’s got -to know that in this country they don’t drag women -shrieking to the altar.”</p> - -<p>She ran up the stairs of <i>The Trumpet</i> building 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 business woman,—had she not caught a -glimpse of Essex in his den as she passed the open -door.</p> - -<p>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 drooping -with their air of faintly bored insolence. Hearing the -rustle of her dress, he looked up and saw her making -a momentary pause by the doorway. He did not look -pleased at the sight of her.</p> - -<p>“Ah, Mrs. Willers,” he said, leaning forward to pick -up his pen and speaking with the crisp clearness of -utterance certain people employ when irritated, “what -is it that you want to see me about?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing,” said Mrs. Willers abruptly and with battle -in her tone; “why should I?”</p> - -<p>“I have not the least idea,” he answered, looking at -his pen, and then, dipping it in the ink, “unless perhaps -you want a few hints for your forthcoming article, -‘The Kind of Shoestrings Worn by the Crowned -Heads of Europe.’”</p> - -<p>Essex was out of temper himself. When Mrs. Willers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_378">[378]</span> -interrupted him he had been thinking over the -situation 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.</p> - -<p>“Well,” she said, and her rouge became quite unnecessary -in the flood of natural color that rose to her -face, “if I was going to tackle that subject I think -you’d be about the best person to come to for information. -For if you ever have had anything to do with -crowned heads it’s been as their bootblack.”</p> - -<p>Essex was startled by the stinging malice revealed -in this remark. He swung round on his swivel chair -and sat facing his antagonist, making no attempt to -rise, although she entered the room. 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 professional calm.</p> - -<p>As she entered she pushed the door to behind her, -and, taking the chair beside the desk, sat down.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Essex,” she said, “I want a word with you.”</p> - -<p>“Any number,” he answered with ironical politeness. -“Do you wish the history of my connection with the -crowned heads as court bootblack?”</p> - -<p>“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?”</p> - -<p>An instantaneous change passed over Essex’s face. -His eyes seemed suddenly to grow veiled as they narrowed -to a cold, non-committal slit. His mouth hardened.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_379">[379]</span> -Mrs. Willers saw the muscles of his cheeks -tighten.</p> - -<p>“Really,” he said, “this sudden interest in me is quite -flattering. I hardly know what to say.”</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>“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 don’t happen to have the good taste to -favor them. When a man gets the mitten he knows -enough to get out.”</p> - -<p>“Very clever of him, no doubt,” he murmured with -unshaken suavity.</p> - -<p>“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.”</p> - -<p>“No?” he answered with a blandly questioning inflection, -“these are interesting facts in local manners -and customs. I’m sure they’d be of value to some one -who was making a special study of the subject. Personally -I am not deeply interested in the California -aborigines. Even the original and charming 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, and my time is -valuable, my dear Mrs. Willers.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_380">[380]</span>Mrs. Willers rose to her feet, burning with rage.</p> - -<p>“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 persecuting -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 -marrying you in California in the nineteenth century.”</p> - -<p>Essex rose from his chair. He was pale.</p> - -<p>“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 acquaintance with -another lady?”</p> - -<p>“I’d dare more than that, Barry Essex,” 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’s up, and I’ll fight you on this point -till one or the other of us drops.”</p> - -<p>She saw Essex’s nostrils fan softly in and out. His -cheek-bones looked prominent.</p> - -<p>“Will you kindly leave this room?” he said in a suppressed -voice.</p> - -<p>“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 protégée -of his mother’s.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_381">[381]</span>She was at the door and had the handle in her hand. -Essex turned on her a face of livid malignity.</p> - -<p>“Really, Mrs. Willers,” he said, “I had no idea you -were entitled to speak for Winslow Shackleton. I -congratulate you.”</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>“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.”</p> - -<p>“Show him in,” said Essex, “and—oh—ah—Jack, -show Mrs. Willers out.”</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>“Did getting into a rage ever do any good?” she -thought desperately, as she sank into her desk chair.</p> - -<p>Her article lay unnoticed and forgotten by her -side, while she sat staring at her scattered papers, trying -to decide through the storm that still shook her -whether she had not done well in throwing down her -gage in defense of her friend.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_382">[382]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXI<br /> - - -<small>THE MEETING IN THE RAIN</small></h3> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“A time to love and a time to hate.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Ecclesiastes.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>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 was -living under an exhausting tension. She went out -with the fear of meeting him driving her into unfrequented -side streets, and returned, her eyes straining -through the foliage of the pepper-tree to watch for a -light in the parlor windows.</p> - -<p>This afternoon, standing at the window drumming -on the pane with her finger-tips, she looked at the -dun, low-hanging clouds, and thought with shrinking -of her walk to Sutter Street, at any turn of which she -might meet him.</p> - -<p>“Well, and if I do?” she said to herself, trying to -whip up her dwindling courage, “he can’t do any more -than threaten me with telling all he knows. He can’t -make a scene on the street proposing to me.”</p> - -<p>She felt somewhat cheered by these assurances and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_383">[383]</span> -began putting on her outdoor things. The day was -darkening curiously early, she thought, for, though it -was not yet four, the long mirror, with its top-heavy -gold ornaments, gave back but a dim reflection of her. -There had been fine weather for two weeks, and now -rain was coming. She put on her long cloak, the enveloping -“circular” of the mode which fastened at the -throat with a metal clasp, and took her umbrella, a -black cotton one, which seemed to her quite elegant -enough for a humble teacher of music. A small black -bonnet, trimmed with loops of ribbon, crowned her -head and showed her rich hair, rippling loosely back -from her forehead.</p> - -<p>The air on the outside was warm and at the same -time was softly and stilly humid. There was not a -breath of wind, and in this motionless, tepid atmosphere -the gardens exhaled moist earth-odors as if -breathing out their strength in panting expectation of -the rain. From the high places of the city one could -see the bay, flat and oily, with its surrounding hills -and its circular sweep of houses, a picture in shaded -grays. The smoke, trailing lazily upward, was the -palest tint in this study in monochrome, while the pall -of the sky, leaden and lowering, was the darkest. A -faint light diffused itself from the rim of sky, visible -round the edges of the pall, and cast an unearthly -yellowish gleam on people’s faces.</p> - -<p>Mariposa walked rapidly downward from street to -street. She kept a furtive lookout for the well-known -figure in its long overcoat and high hat, but saw no -one, and her troubled heart-beats began to moderate. -The damp air on her face refreshed her. She had been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_384">[384]</span> -keeping in the house too much of late, and did not -realize that this was still further irritating her already -jangled nerves. The angle of the building in -which Mrs. Willers housed herself broke on her view -just as the first sullen drops of rain began to spot the -pavement—slow, reluctant drops, falling far apart.</p> - -<p>The music lesson had hardly begun when the rain -was lashing the window and pouring down the panes -in fury. Darkness fell with it. The night seemed to -drop on the city in an instant, coming with a whirling -rush of wind and falling waters. The housewifely -little Edna drew the curtains and lit the gas, saying -as she settled back on her music-stool:</p> - -<p>“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.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I 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 forgot 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.”</p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_385">[385]</span> -to remain, Mariposa insisted on going. She was well -prepared for wet she said, folding her circular about -her and removing the elastic band that held together -her disreputable umbrella.</p> - -<p>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 upward.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>Pressing a quarter into Benito’s readily extended -palm, he had inquired if the boy knew where Miss -Moreau was.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_386">[386]</span>“Mariposa?” said Benito, with easy familiarity; -“she’s at Mrs. Willers’ giving Edna her lesson. This -is Wednesday, ain’t it? Well, Edna gets her lesson on -Wednesday from half-past four till half-past five, and -so that’s where Mariposa is. But she’s generally late -’cause she stays and talks to Mrs. Willers.”</p> - -<p>At five o’clock, sheltered by the dripping 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 officious -boarders. There was absolute seclusion in these black -and rain-swept streets.</p> - -<p>He had been prowling about for an hour when he -finally saw her. A dozen times he had cursed 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 uncurtained pane she saw his face, and shrank back -against the wall as if she had been struck. Then a second -impulse 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.</p> - -<p>Keeping his grip on her he said, trying to smile:</p> - -<p>“What are you afraid of? Don’t you know me?”</p> - -<p>“Let me go,” she said, struggling, “you’re hurting -me.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to hurt you,” he answered, “but I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_387">[387]</span> -mean to keep you for a moment. I want to talk to -you. And I’m going to talk to you.”</p> - -<p>“I won’t listen to you. Let me go at once. How -cowardly to hold me in this way against my will!”</p> - -<p>She tried again to wrench her arm out of his grasp, -but he held her like a vise. Her resistance of him and -the repugnance in face and voice maddened him. He -felt for a moment that he would like to batter her -against the wall.</p> - -<p>“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.”</p> - -<p>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 beneath it, and her mouth, with -the lips that all the anger in the world could not make -hard or unlovely.</p> - -<p>“You’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.”</p> - -<p>She suddenly seized her umbrella and, turning it -toward him, pressed it down between them. The action -was so quick and unexpected that the man did -not move back, and the ferrule striking him on the -cheek, furrowed a long scratch on the smooth skin. A -drop of blood rose to the surface.</p> - -<p>With an oath he seized the umbrella and, tearing it -from her grasp, sent it flying into the street. Here the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_388">[388]</span> -wind snatched it, and its inverted shape, like a large -black mushroom, went sweeping forward, tilted and -already half full of water, before the angry gusts.</p> - -<p>Essex tried to keep his own over her, still retaining -his hold on her arm.</p> - -<p>“Come, be reasonable,” he said; “there’s no use -angering me for nothing. 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?”</p> - -<p>“What’s the good of talking that way? You know -perfectly what I’ll say. It will always be the same.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not so sure of that. I’ve got something to say -that may make you change your mind.”</p> - -<p>He pushed the umbrella back that the light might -fall directly on her. It 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.</p> - -<p>“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?”</p> - -<p>She tried to eliminate dislike and fear from her -voice and spoke with a gentleness that she hoped would -soften him. He heard it with a thrill; but it had an -exactly contrary effect to what she had desired.</p> - -<p>“I would like never to let you go. Just to hold you -here and look at you. Mariposa, 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 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 to take all that -out of you? Is it because I made a foolish mistake?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_389">[389]</span> -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 revengeful. It’s not like you. Be -kind, be merciful to a man who, if he said what hurt -you, has repented it with all his soul ever since. I -am ready to give you my whole life to make amends. -Say you forgive me. Say you love me.”</p> - -<p>He was speaking the truth. Passion had outrun -cupidity. Mariposa, poor or rich, had become the end -and aim of his existence.</p> - -<p>“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 don’t like you.”</p> - -<p>“It’s not true—it’s not true,” he vociferated. “You -love me—say you do.”</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>“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.”</p> - -<p>Amid the rustling and the splashing of the rain they -again looked at each other for a fierce, pallid moment. -Another drop of blood on his cheek detached itself -and ran down. He had no free hand with which to -wipe it off.</p> - -<p>“Yet you’re going to marry me,” he said softly.</p> - -<p>“I’ve heard enough of this,” she cried. “I’m not going<span class="pagenum" id="Page_390">[390]</span> -to stand here talking to a madman. It’s early yet -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.”</p> - -<p>“Just wait one moment before you take such desperate -measures. I want to ask 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 <i>The Era</i>?”</p> - -<p>In the light of the window that fell across them both -he had the satisfaction of seeing her face freeze into -horrified amazement.</p> - -<p>“It will be the greatest scoop <i>The Era’s</i> had since -<i>The Trumpet</i> became Shackleton’s property. There’s -not a soul here that even suspects it. It will be a bombshell -to the city, involving people of the highest position, -like the Shackletons, and people of the most unquestioned -respectability, like the Moreaus. Oh—it -will be good reading!”</p> - -<p>Her eyes, fastened on him, were full of anguish, but -it had not bewildered her. In the stress of the moment -her mind remained clear and active.</p> - -<p>“Is the world interested in stories of the dead?” she -heard herself saying in a cold voice.</p> - -<p>“Everybody’s interested in scandals. And what a -scandal it is! How people will smack their lips over -it! Shackleton a Mormon, and you his only legitimate -child. Your mother 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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_391">[391]</span> -cabin in the Sierra for six months before they even -attempted to straighten things out by a bogus marriage -ceremony. Why, it’s a splendid story! <i>The Era’s</i> had -nothing with as much ginger as that for months!”</p> - -<p>“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 knows where, whose very name people doubt? -If Mrs. Shackleton and I deny the truth of your story, -who’d believe you then?”</p> - -<p>“You forget that I have under my hand the man -who was witness of the transaction whereby Moreau -bought your mother from Shackleton for a pair of -horses.”</p> - -<p>“A drunken thief! He stole all my father had and -ran away. Can his word carry the same weight as -mine to whose interest it would be to prove myself -Shackleton’s daughter? No. The only real proof in -existence is the marriage certificate. And I have that. -And so long as I have that any story you choose to -publish I can get up and deny.”</p> - -<p>He knew she was right. Even with Harney his -story would be discredited, unbacked by the one piece -of genuine evidence of the first marriage—the certificate -which she possessed. Her unexpected recognition -of the point staggered him. He had thought to break -her resistance by threats which even to him seemed -shameful, and only excusable because of the stress he -found himself in. Now he saw her as defiantly unconquered -as ever. In his rage he pushed her back against -the wall, crying at her:</p> - -<p>“Deny, deny all you like! Whether you deny or not,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_392">[392]</span> -the thing will have been said. Next Sunday the whole -city, the whole state will be reading it—how you’re -Shackleton’s daughter and your mother was Dan -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—not your -disgrace alone, but your father’s, your mother’s—”</p> - -<p>With a cry of rage and despair Mariposa tried to -tear herself from him. Nature aided her, for at the -same moment a savage gust of wind seized the umbrella -and wrenched it this way and that. Instinctively -he loosened his hold on her to grasp it, and in that one -moment she tore herself away from him. He gripped -at the flapping wing of her cloak, and caught it. But -the strain was too much for the cheap metal clasp, -which broke, and Mariposa slipped out of it and flew -into the fury of the rain, leaving the cloak in his hand.</p> - -<p>The roar of many waters and the shouting of the -wind obliterated the sound of her flying feet. The -darkness, shot through with the blurred faces of lamps -or the long rays from an occasional uncurtained pane, -in a moment absorbed her black figure. Essex stood -motionless, stunned at the suddenness of her escape, -the sodden cloak trailing from his hand. Then shaken -out of all reason by rage, not knowing what he intended -doing, he started in pursuit.</p> - -<p>She feared this and her burst of bravery was exhausted. -As she ran up the steep street having only -the darkness to hide her, her heart seemed shriveled -with the fear of him.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_393">[393]</span>Suddenly she heard the thud of his feet behind her. -An agony of fright seized her. The Garcia house was -at least two blocks farther on, and she knew he would -overtake her before then. A black doorway with a -huddle of little trees, formless and dark now, loomed -close by, and toward this she darted, crouching down -among the small wet trunks of the shrubs and parting -their foliage with shaking hands.</p> - -<p>There was a lamp not far off and in its rays she -saw him running up, still holding the cloak in a black -bunch over his arm. He stopped, just beyond where -she cowered, and looked irresolutely up and down. -The lamplight fell on his face, and in certain angles -she saw it plainly, pale and glistening with moisture, -all keen and alert with a look of attentive cunning. -He moved his head this way and that, evidently trusting -more to hearing than to sight. His eyes, no longer -half veiled in cold indifference, swept her hiding-place -with the preoccupation of one who listens intently. He -looked to her like some thwarted animal harkening for -the steps of his prey. Her terror grew with the sight -of him. She thought if he had approached the bushes -she would have swooned before he reached them.</p> - -<p>Presently he turned and went down the hill. In the -pause his reason had reasserted itself, and he felt that -to hound her down with more threats and reproaches -was useless folly.</p> - -<p>But, with her, reason and judgment were hopelessly -submerged by terror. She crept out from among the -shrubs with white face and trembling limbs, and fled -up the hill in a wild, breathless race, hearing Essex in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_394">[394]</span> -every sound. The rain had dripped on her through -the bushes, and these last two blocks under its unrestrained -fury soaked her to the skin.</p> - -<p>Her haunting terror did not leave her till she had -rushed up the stairs and opened the door of the glass -porch. She was fumbling in her pocket for the latch-key, -when the inner door was opened and Barron stood -in the aperture, the lighted hall behind him.</p> - -<p>“What on earth has delayed you?” he said sharply. -“They’re all at supper. I was just going down to Mrs. -Willers’ to see what was keeping you.”</p> - -<p>She stumbled in at the door, and stood in the revealing -light of the hall, for the moment unable to answer, -panting and drenched.</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter?” he said suddenly in a different -tone; and quickly stepping back he shut the door -into the dining-room. “Has anything happened?”</p> - -<p>“I’m—only—only—frightened,” she gasped between -broken breaths. “Something frightened me.”</p> - -<p>She reeled and caught against the door-post.</p> - -<p>“I’m all wet,” she whispered with white lips; “don’t -let them know. I don’t want any dinner.”</p> - -<p>He put his arm round her and drew her toward the -stairs. He could feel her trembling like a person with -an ague and her saturated clothes left rillets along the -stairs.</p> - -<p>When they were half-way up he said:</p> - -<p>“How did you get so wet? Have you been out in -this storm without an umbrella?”</p> - -<p>“I lost it,” she whispered.</p> - -<p>“Lost it?” he replied. “Where’s your cloak?”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_395">[395]</span>“Somewhere,” she said vaguely; “somewhere in the -street. I lost that, too.”</p> - -<p>They were at the top of the stairs. She suddenly -turned toward him and pressed her face into his shoulder, -trembling like a terrified animal.</p> - -<p>“I’m frightened,” she whispered. “Don’t tell them -downstairs. I’ll tell you to-morrow. Don’t ask me -anything to-night.”</p> - -<p>He took her into her room and placed her in an armchair -by the fireplace. He lit the gas and drew the -curtains, and then knelt by the hearth to kindle the -fire, saying nothing and apparently taking little notice -of her. She sat dully watching him, her hands in her -lap, the water running off her skirts along the carpet.</p> - -<p>When he had lit the fire he said:</p> - -<p>“Now, I’ll go, and you take off your things. I’ll -bring you up your supper in half an hour. Be quick, -you’re soaking. I’ll tell them downstairs you’re too -tired to come down.”</p> - -<p>He went out, softly closing the door. She sat on in -her wet clothes, feeling the growing warmth of the -flames on her face and hands. She seemed to fall into -a lethargy of exhaustion and sat thus motionless, the -water running unheeded on the carpet, <i>frissons</i> of cold -occasionally shaking her, till a knock at the door roused -her. Then she suddenly remembered Barron and his -command to take off her wet clothes. She had them -on still and he would be angry.</p> - -<p>“Put it down on the chair outside,” she called -through the door; “I’m not ready.”</p> - -<p>“Won’t you open the door and take this whisky and -drink it at once?” came his answer.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_396">[396]</span>She opened the door a crack and, putting her hand -through the aperture, took the glass with the whisky.</p> - -<p>“Are you warm and dry?” he said; all she could see -of him was his big hand clasped round the glass.</p> - -<p>“Yes, quite,” she answered, though she felt her skin -quivering with cold against the damp garments that -seemed glued to it.</p> - -<p>“Well, drink this now, right off. And listen—” as -the door began to close—“if you get nervous or anything -just come to your door and call me. I’ll leave -mine open, and I’m a very light sleeper.”</p> - -<p>Then before she could answer she felt the door-handle -pulled from the outside and the door was shut.</p> - -<p>She hastily took off her things and put on dry ones, -and then shrugged herself into the thick wrapper of -black and white that had been her mother’s. Even her -hair was wet, she found out as she undressed, and she -mechanically undid it and shook the damp locks loose -on her shoulders. She felt penetrated with cold, and -still overmastered by fear. Every gust that made the -long limb of the pepper-tree grate against the balcony -roof caused her heart to leap. When she opened the -door to get her supper, the glow of light that fell from -Barron’s room, across the hallway, came to her with a -hail of friendship and life. She stood listening, and -heard the creak of his rocking-chair, then smelt the -whiff of a cigar. He was close to her. She shut the -door, feeling her terrors allayed.</p> - -<p>She picked at her supper, but soon set the tray on -the center-table and took the easy-chair before the fire. -The sense of physical cold was passing off, but the indescribable -oppression and apprehension remained.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_397">[397]</span> -She did not know exactly what she dreaded, but she -felt in some vague way that she would be safer sitting -thus clad and wakeful before the fire than sleeping in -her bed. Once or twice, as the hours passed and her -fears strengthened in the silence and mystery of the -night, she crept to her door, and opening it, looked up -the hall. The square of light was still there, the scent -of the cigar pungent on the air. She shut the door -softly, each time feeling soothed as by the pressure of -a strong, loving hand.</p> - -<p>Sometime toward the middle of the night the heaviness -of sleep came on her, and though she fought -against it, feeling that the safety she was struggling to -maintain against mysterious menace was only to be -preserved by wakefulness, Nature overcame her. -Curled in her chair before the crumbling fire, she -finally slept—the deep, motionless sleep of physical -and mental exhaustion.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_398">[398]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXII<br /> - - -<small>A NIGHT’S WORK</small></h3> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Have is have, however men may catch.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Shakespeare.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>Under cover of the darkness Essex hurried down the -street toward where the city passed from a place of -homes to a business mart. He had at first no fixed idea -of a goal, but after a few moments’ rapid march, realized -that habit was taking him in the direction of Bertrand’s. -An illumined clock face shining on him over -the roofs told him it was some time past his dinner -hour. He obeyed his instinct and bent his steps -toward the restaurant, throwing the cloak over the -fence of a vacant lot and wiping the trickle of blood -from his cheek with his handkerchief.</p> - -<p>He was cool and master of himself once more. His -brain was cleared, as a sky by storm, and he knew that -to-night’s interview must be one of the last he would -have with the woman who had come to stand to him -for love, wealth, success and happiness. He must win -or lose all within the next few days.</p> - -<p>Bertrand’s looked invitingly bright after the tempestuous -blackness of the streets. Many of the white -draped tables were unoccupied. His accustomed eye -noted that the lady in the blue silk dress and black hat,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_399">[399]</span> -and her companion with the bald head and cross-eye, -who always sat at the right-hand corner table, were -absent. He had fallen into the habit of bowing to -them, and had more than once idly wondered what -their relations were.</p> - -<p>“Monsieur Esseex” to-night ate little and drank -much. Etienne, the waiter, a black-haired, pink-cheeked -garçon from Marseilles, noticed this and afterward -remarked upon it to Madame Bertrand. To the -few other habitués of the place, the thin-faced, handsome -man with an ugly furrow down his cheek, and his -hair tumbled on his forehead by the pressure of his hat, -presented the same suavely imperturbable demeanor as -usual. But Madame Bertrand, as a woman whose -business it was to observe people and faces, noticed -that monsieur was pale, and that when she spoke to -him on the way in he had given a distrait answer, not -the usual phrase of debonair, Gallic greeting she had -grown to expect.</p> - -<p>She looked at him from her cashier’s desk and reflected. -As Etienne afterward repeated, he ate little -and drank much. And how pale he looked, with the -lamp on the wall above him throwing out the high -lights on his face and deepening the shadows!</p> - -<p>“He is in love,” thought the sentimental Madame -Bertrand, “and to-night for the first time he knows -that she does not respond.”</p> - -<p>He sat longer than he had ever done before over his -dinner, blowing clouds of cigarette smoke about his -head, and watching the thin blue flame of the burning -lump of sugar in the spoon balanced on his coffee-cup.</p> - -<p>Everybody had left, and he still sat smoking, leaning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_400">[400]</span> -back against the wall, his eyes fixed on space in immovable, -concentrated thought. Bertrand came out of his -corner, and in his cap and apron stood cooling himself -in the open door watching the rain. Etienne and -Henri, the two waiters apportioned to that part of the -room, hung about restless and tired, eagerly watching -for the first symptoms of his departure. Even Madame -Bertrand began to burrow under the cashier’s desk for -her rubbers, and to struggle into them with much -creaking of corset bones and subdued French ejaculations. -It was after nine when the last guest finally -pushed back his chair. Etienne rushed to help him on -with his coat, and Madame Bertrand bobbed up from -her rubbers to give him a parting smile.</p> - -<p>A half-hour later he was lighting the gas in his own -room in Bush Street. The damp air of the night entered -through a crack of opened window, introducing -a breath of sweet, moist freshness into the smoke-saturated -chamber. He threw off his coat and lit the fire. -As soon as it had caught satisfactorily he left the room, -crossed the hall noiselessly, and with a slight preliminary -knock, opened Harney’s door. The man was sitting -there in a broken rocking-chair, reading the evening -paper by the light of a flaming gas-jet. He had -the air of one who was waiting, and as Essex’s head -was advanced round the edge of the door, he looked -up with alert, expectant eyes.</p> - -<p>“Come into my room,” said the younger man; -“there’s work for you to-night.”</p> - -<p>Harney threw down his paper and followed him -across the hall. It was evident that he was sober, and -beyond this some new sense of importance and power<span class="pagenum" id="Page_401">[401]</span> -had taken from his manner its old deprecation. They -were equals now, pals and partners. The drunken -typesetter and one-time thief was still under Barry -Essex’s thumb, but he was also deep in his confidence.</p> - -<p>He sat down in his old seat by the fire, his eyes on -Essex.</p> - -<p>“What’s up?” he said; “what work have you got -for me such a night as this?”</p> - -<p>“Big work, and with big money behind it,” said the -younger man; “and when it’s done we each get our -share and go our ways, George Harney.”</p> - -<p>He drew his chair to the other side of the fire and -began to talk—his voice low and quiet at first, growing -urgent and authoritative, as Harney shrank before -the dangers of the work expected of him. The -moments ticked by, the fire growing hotter and -brighter, the roaring of the storm sounding above the -voices of the master and his tool. The night was half -spent before Harney was conquered and instructed.</p> - -<p>Then the men, waiting for the hour of deepest sleep -and darkness, continued to sit, occasionally speaking, -the light of the leaping flames catching and losing -their anxious faces as the firelight in another room -was touching the face of the sleeping girl of whom -they talked.</p> - -<p>It was nearly three when a movement of life stirred -the blackness of the Garcia garden. The rushing of -the rain beat down all sound; in the moist soddenness -of the earth no trace lingered. The pepper-tree bent -and cracked to the gusts as it did to the additional -weight of the creeping figure in its boughs.</p> - -<p>This was merely a shapeless bulk of blackness amid<span class="pagenum" id="Page_402">[402]</span> -the fine and broken blackness of the swaying foliage. -It stole forward with noiseless caution, though it might -have shouted and all sound been lost in the angry -turmoil of the night. Creeping upward along the -great limb that stretched to the balcony roof, a perpendicular -knife-edge of light that gleamed from between -the curtains of a window, now and then crossed -its face, sometimes dividing it clearly in two, sometimes -illuminating one attentive eye, a small shining -point of life in the dead murk around it, one eye, -aglow with purpose, gleaming startlingly from blackness.</p> - -<p>The loud drumming of the rain on the balcony roof -drowned the crackle of the tin under a feeling foot. -To slide there from the limb only occupied a moment. -The branch had grown well up over the roof, grating -now and then against it when the wind was high. -The thin streak of light from between the curtains -made the man wary. Why was she burning a light at -this hour unless she was sleepless and up?</p> - -<p>Pressed close to the pane he applied his eye to the -crack which was the widest near the sill. He saw a -portion of the room, looking curiously vivid and distinct -in the narrow concentration of his view. It -seemed flooded with unsteady, warmly yellow light. -Straight before him he saw a table with a rifled tea-tray -on it, and back of that another table. The one -eye pressed to the crack grew absorbed as it focused -itself on the second table. Among a litter of books, -ornaments and feminine trifles, stood a small desk of -dark wood. It was as if it had been placed there to -catch his attention—the goal of his line of vision.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_403">[403]</span>Shifting his position he pressed his cheek against -the glass and squinted in sidewise to where a deepening -and quivering of the light spoke of a fire. Then -he saw the figure of the sleeping woman, lying in an -attitude of complete repose in the armchair. He gazed -at her striving to gage the depth of her sleep. One -of her hands hung over the arm of the chair, with the -gleam of the fire flickering on the white skin. The -same light touched a strand of loosened hair. Her -face was in profile toward him, the chin pressed down -on the shoulder. It looked like a picture in its suggestion -of profound unconsciousness.</p> - -<p>He pushed fearfully on the cross-bar of the pane, -and the window rose a hair’s-breadth. Then again, -and it was high enough up for him to insert his hand. -He did so, and drew forward the curtain of heavy -rep so as to hide from the sleeper the gradual stages -of his entrance. By degrees he raised it to a height -sufficient to permit the passage of his body. The curtain -shielded the girl from the current of cold air that -entered the room. He crept in softly on his hands -and knees, then rose to his feet.</p> - -<p>For a moment he made no further movement, but -stood, his gaze riveted on the sleeper, watching for -a symptom of roused consciousness. She slept on -peacefully, the light sound of her breathing faintly -audible.</p> - -<p>The silence of the hushed house seemed weirdly -terrifying after the tumult of the night outside. The -thief stole forward to the desk, his eye continually -turned toward her. When he reached the table she -was so far behind him that he could only see the sweep<span class="pagenum" id="Page_404">[404]</span> -of her wrapper on the floor, her shoulder, and the top -of her head over the chair-back.</p> - -<p>He tried the desk with an unsteady hand. It was -locked, but the insertion of a steel file he carried broke -the frail clasp. It gave with a sharp click and he -stood, his hair stirring, watching the top of her head. -It did not move, the silence resettled, he could again -hear her light, even breathing.</p> - -<p>There were many papers in the desk, bundles of -letters, souvenirs of old days of affluence. He tossed -them aside with tremulous quickness until, underneath -all, he came on a long, dirty envelope and a little -chamois leather bag. He lifted the latter. It was -heavy and emitted a faint chink. The old thief’s instincts -rose in him. But he first opened the envelope, -and softly drew out the two certificates, took the one -he wanted, and put the other back. Then he opened the -mouth of the bag. The gleam of gold shone from the -aperture. Stricken with temptation he stood hesitating.</p> - -<p>At that moment the fire, a heap of red ruins, fell -together with a small, clinking sound. It was no -louder noise than he had made when opening the desk, -but it contained some penetrating quality the former -had lacked. Still hesitating, with the sack of money -in his hand, he turned again to the chair. A face, -white and wide-eyed, was staring at him round the -side.</p> - -<p>He gave a smothered oath and the sack dropped -from his hand to the table. The money fell from it -in a clattering heap and rolled about, in golden zigzags -in every direction. The sound roused the still<span class="pagenum" id="Page_405">[405]</span> -unawakened intelligence of the girl. She saw the paper -in his hand, half-opened. Its familiarity broke -through her dazed senses. She rose and rushed at -him gasping:</p> - -<p>“The certificate! the certificate!”</p> - -<p>Harney made a dash for the open window, but she -caught him by the shoulder and arm, and with the -unimpaired strength of her healthy youth struggled -with him hand to hand, reaching out for the paper he -tried to keep out of her grasp. In the fury of the moment’s -conflict, neither made any sound, but fought -like two enraged animals, rocking to and fro, panting -and clutching at each other.</p> - -<p>He finally wrenched his arm free and struck her -a savage blow, aimed at her head but falling on her -shoulder, which sent her down on her knees and -then back against the fire. He thought he had stunned -her, and raised his arm again when she sprang up, -tore the paper out of his grasp and pressed it with -her hand down into the coals beside her. As she did -so, for the first time she raised her voice and shrieked:</p> - -<p>“Mr. Barron! Mr. Barron! Come, come! Oh -hurry!”</p> - -<p>From the hall Harney heard a movement and an -answering shout. With the cries echoing through -the room he beat her down against the grate, and tore -the paper, curling with fire on the edges, from her -hand. With it, he dashed through the open sash, a -shiver of glass following him.</p> - -<p>Almost simultaneously, Barron burst into the room. -He had been reading and had fallen asleep to be -waked by the shrieks of the girl’s voice, which were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_406">[406]</span> -still in his ears. The falling of broken glass and a rush -of cold air from the opened window greeted him. -Piled on the table and scattered about the floor were -gold pieces. Mariposa was kneeling on the rug.</p> - -<p>“He’s got it!” she cried wildly, and struggling to -her feet rushed to the window. “He’s got it! Oh go -after him! Stop him!”</p> - -<p>“Got what?” he said. “No, he hasn’t got the money. -It’s all there.”</p> - -<p>He seized her by the arm, for she seemed as if intending -to go through the broken window.</p> - -<p>“Not the money—not the money,” she shrieked, -wringing her hands; “the paper—the certificate! He’s -got it and gone, this way, through the window.”</p> - -<p>Barron grasped the fact that she had been robbed -of something other than the money, the loss of which -seemed to render her half distracted. With a hasty -word of reassurance, he turned and ran from the room, -springing down the stairs and across the hall. In the -instant’s pause by the window he had heard the sound -of feet on the steps below and judged that he could -get down more quickly by the stairs than by the limb -of the tree.</p> - -<p>But the few minutes’ start and the darkness of the -night were on the side of the thief. The roar of the -rain drowned his footsteps. Barron ran this way and -that, but neither sight nor sound of his quarry was -vouchsafed to him. The man had got away with his -booty, whatever it was.</p> - - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_406.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">“WITH THE STRENGTH OF HER HEALTHY YOUTH SHE -STRUGGLED WITH HIM”</p> - -<p>In fifteen minutes Barron was back and found the -Garcia ladies in Mariposa’s room, ministering to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_407">[407]</span> -girl who lay in a heavy swoon, stark and white on the -hearth-rug.</p> - -<p>The old lady, in some wondrous and intimate déshabille, -greeted him eagerly in Spanish, demanding what -had happened. He told her all he knew and knelt -down beside the younger Mrs. Garcia, who was attempting -with a shaking hand to pour brandy between -Mariposa’s set teeth.</p> - -<p>“We heard the most awful shrieks, and we rushed -up, and here she was standing and screaming: ‘He’s -got it! He’s got it!’ And then she fell flat, quite suddenly, -and has lain here this way ever since.”</p> - -<p>“It was a robber,” said the old woman, looking at -the scattered gold, “but he didn’t get her money. -What was it he took, I wonder?”</p> - -<p>“Some papers, I think,” said Barron, “that were -evidently of value to her. I’ll lift her up and put her -on the bed and then I’ll go. As soon as she’s conscious -ask her what the man took and come and tell -me, and I’ll go right to the police station.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t leave us,” implored Mrs. Garcia, junior—“if -there are burglars anywhere round. Oh, please -don’t go. Pierpont’s away and we’d have no man in -the house. Don’t go till morning. I’m just as scared -as I can be!”</p> - -<p>“There’s nothing to be scared about. The man’s -got what he wanted, and he’ll take precious good care -not to come back.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but don’t go till it gets light. The window’s -broken and any one can come in who wants.”</p> - -<p>“All right, I’ll wait till it gets light. I’ll lift her -up now, if you’ll get the bed ready.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_408">[408]</span>With the assistance of old Mrs. Garcia he lifted -her and carried her to the bed. One of her arms fell -limp against his shoulder as he laid her down, and -the old lady uttered an exclamation. She lifted it -up and showed him a curious red welt on the white -wrist.</p> - -<p>“It’s a burn,” she said. “How did she get that?”</p> - -<p>“She must have fallen against the grate,” he answered. -His eyes grew dark as they encountered the -scar. “As soon as she’s conscious tell me.”</p> - -<p>A few minutes later, the young widow found him -sitting on a chair under a lamp in the hall.</p> - -<p>“Well,” he said eagerly, “how is she?”</p> - -<p>“She’s come back to her senses all right. But she -doesn’t seem to want to tell what he took. She says -it was a paper, and that’s all, and that she never saw -him before. Mother doesn’t think we ought to worry -her. She says she’s got a fever, and she’s going to -give her medicine to make her sleep, and not to disturb -her till she wakes up. She’s all broken up and -sort of limp and trembly.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I suppose the señora knows best. It’ll be -light soon now, and I’ll go to the police station. The -señora and you will stay with her?”</p> - -<p>“O yes,” said Mrs. Garcia, the younger. “My goodness, -what a night it’s been! It’s lucky the man didn’t -get her money. There was quite a lot; about five hundred -dollars, I should think. Oh, my curl papers! I -forget them. Gracious, what a sight I must look!” -and she shuffled down the stairs.</p> - -<p>Barron sat on till the dawn broke gray through the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_409">[409]</span> -hall window. He was beginning to wonder if this -girl was the central figure of some drama, secret, intricate -and unsuspected, which was working out to -its conclusion.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_410">[410]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXIII<br /> - - -<small>THE LOST VOICE</small></h3> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="first">“There may be heaven; there must be hell;</div> -<div class="verse">Meantime there is our earth here—well!”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Browning.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>The fears of Mrs. Garcia held Barron to the house -till the morning light was fully established. This was -late, even for the winter season, as the rain still fell -heavily, retarding the coming of day with a leaden veil.</p> - -<p>He made his report at the police station, and then -went down town to his office where business detained -him till noon. It was his habit to lunch at the Lick -House, but to-day he hurried back to the Garcias’, -striding up the series of hills at top speed, urged on -by his desire to hear news of Mariposa. He burst -into the house to find it silent—the hall empty. As -he was hanging his hat on the rack, young Mrs. Garcia -appeared from the kitchen, her bang somewhat limp, -though it was still early in the day, her face looking -small and peaked after her exciting night’s vigil.</p> - -<p>Mariposa was still asleep, she said in answer to his -query. The señora had given her a powerful sleeping -draft and had said that the rest would be the best restorative -after such a shock. If, when she waked, she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_411">[411]</span> -showed symptoms of suffering or prostration, they -would send for the doctor.</p> - -<p>“Have you found her paper?” she asked anxiously. -“She seemed in such a way about it last night.”</p> - -<p>He muttered a preoccupied answer, mentioning his -visit to the police station.</p> - -<p>“What was it, anyway? Do <i>you</i> know?” inquired -the young woman who was not exempt from the weaknesses -of her sex.</p> - -<p>“Some legal document, I think, but I don’t know. -The police can’t do much till they know what it is.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps it was a will,” said the widow, whose sole -literature was that furnished by the daily press; -“though I should think if it was a will she’d have told -about it by now and not kept it hid away up there. -Anyway, she thought a lot of it, for when she came -to I told her her money was all right, and she said she -didn’t care about the money, she wanted the paper.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll see her when she wakes,” said Barron, “and -find out what it was. Our affair now is to see that she -is not frightened again and gets well.”</p> - -<p>“Well, mother says to let her sleep. So that’s what -we’re going to do. No one’s going to disturb her, and -Pierpont, who got back an hour ago, has promised -not to give any lessons all afternoon.”</p> - -<p>The conversation was here interrupted by the appearance -of the Chinaman, who loungingly issued -from the kitchen, shouted an unintelligible phrase at -his mistress, and disappeared into the dining-room. -His words seemed to have meaning to her, for she -pulled off her apron, saying briskly:</p> - -<p>“There, dinner’s ready and we’re going to have enchilados.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_412">[412]</span> -Don’t you smell them? The boys will be -crazy.”</p> - -<p>A cautious inspection made after dinner by young -Mrs. Garcia, resulted in the information that Mariposa -still slept. Barron, who was feverishly desirous to -know how she progressed and also anxious to learn -from her the nature of the lost document, was forced -to leave without seeing her. A business engagement -of the utmost importance claimed him at his office at -two or he would have awaited her awakening.</p> - -<p>It was nearly an hour later before this occurred. -The drug the señora had administered was a heroic -remedy, relic of the days when doctors were a rarity -and the medicine chest of the hardy Spaniard contained -few but powerful potions. The girl rose, feeling -weak and dizzy. For some time she found it difficult -to collect her thoughts and sat on the edge of her bed, -eying the disordered room with uncomprehending -glances. Bodily discomfort at first absorbed her mind. -A fever burned through her, her head ached, her limbs -felt leaden and stiff.</p> - -<p>The sight of the opened desk gave the fillip to her -befogged memory, and suddenly the events of the -night rushed back on her with stunning force. She -felt, at first, that it must be a dream. But the rifled -desk, with the money which the Garcias had gathered -up and laid in a glittering heap on the table, told her -of its truth. The man’s face, yellow and flabby, with -the dark line of the shaven beard clearly marked on -his jaws, and the frightened rat’s eyes, came back -to her as he had turned in the first paralyzed moment -of fear. With hot, unsteady hands she searched<span class="pagenum" id="Page_413">[413]</span> -through the scattered papers and then about the room, -in the hope that he had dropped the paper in the -struggle. But all search was fruitless. She remembered -his tearing it from her grasp as Barron’s shout -had sounded in the passage. He had escaped with it. -The irrefutable evidence of the marriage was in Essex’s -hands. He had her under his feet. It was the -end.</p> - -<p>She began to dress slowly and with constant pauses. -Every movement seemed an effort; every stage of her -toilet loomed colossal before her. The one horror of -the situation kept revolving in her brain, and she -found it impossible to detach her thoughts from it -and fix them on anything else. At the same time she -could think of no way to escape, or to fight against it.</p> - -<p>Next Sunday it would all be in <i>The Era</i>. Those -words seemed written in letters of fire on the walls, -and repeated themselves in maddening revolution in -her mind. It would all be there, sensationally displayed -as other old scandals had been. She saw the -tragic secret of the two lives that had sheltered hers, -the love that had been so sacred a thing written of -with all the defiling brutality of the common scribe -and his common reader, for all the world of the low -and ignoble to jeer at and spit upon.</p> - -<p>She stopped in her dressing and pressed her hands -to her face. How could she live till next Sunday, and -then, when Sunday came, live through it? There were -three days yet before Sunday. Might not something -be done in three days? But she could think of nothing. -Something had happened to her brain. If there -was only some one to help her!</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_414">[414]</span>And with that came the thought of Barron. A flash -of relief went through her. He would help her; he -would do something. She had no idea what, but something, -and, uplifted by the idea, she opened the door -and looked up the hall. She felt a sudden drop of -hope when she saw that his door was closed. But she -stole up the passage, watching it, not knowing what -she intended saying to him, only actuated by the desire -to throw her responsibilities on him and ask for his -help.</p> - -<p>The door was ajar and she listened outside it. -There was no sound from within and no scent of cigar-smoke. -She tapped softly and receiving no answer -pushed it open and peered fearfully in. The room was -empty. The man’s clothes were thrown about carelessly, -his table littered with papers and books. From -the crevice of the opened window came the smell and -the sound of the rain, with a chill, bleak suggestion.</p> - -<p>A sudden throttling sense of lonely helplessness -overwhelmed her. She stood looking blankly about, -at the ashes of cigars in a china saucer, at an old -valise gaping open in a corner. The room seemed to -her to have a vacated air, and she remembered hearing -Barron, a few days before, speak of going to the -mines again soon. Her mind leaped to the conclusion -that he had gone. Her hopes suddenly fell around -her in ruins, and in his looking-glass she saw a -blanched face that she hardly recognized as her own.</p> - -<p>Stealing back to her room she sat down on the bed -again. The house was curiously quiet and in this -silence her thoughts began once more to revolve round -the one topic. Then suddenly they broke into a burst<span class="pagenum" id="Page_415">[415]</span> -of rebellion. She could not bear it. She must go, -somewhere, anywhere to escape. She would flee away -like a hunted animal and hide, creeping into some -dark distant place and cowering there. But where -would she go, and what would she do? The world -outside seemed one vast menace waiting to spring on -her. If her head would stop aching and the fever -that burned her body and clouded her brain would -cease for a moment, she could think and come to some -conclusion. But now—</p> - -<p>And suddenly, as she thought, a whisper seemed to -come to her, clear and distinct like a revelation—“You -have your voice!”</p> - -<p>It lifted her to her feet. For a moment the pain -and confusion of developing illness left her, and she -felt a thrill of returning energy. She had it still, the -one great gift neither enemies nor misfortune could -take from her—her voice!</p> - -<p>The hope shook her out of the lethargy of fever, -and her mind sprang into excited action like a loosened -spring. She went to her desk and placed the -gold back in its bag. The five hundred dollars that -had seemed so meaningless had now a use. It would -take her away to Europe. With the three hundred -she still had in the bank, it would be enough to take her -to Paris and leave her something to live on. Money -went a long way over there, she had heard. She could -study and sing and become famous.</p> - -<p>It all seemed suddenly possible, almost easy. Only -leaving would be hard—fearfully. She thought of the -door up the passage and the voice that in those first -days of her feebleness had called a greeting to her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_416">[416]</span> -every morning; the man’s deep voice with its strong, -cheery note. And then like a peevish child, sick and -unreasonable, she found herself saying:</p> - -<p>“Why does he leave me now when I want him so?”</p> - -<p>No—her voice was all she had. She would live for -it and be famous, and the year of terror and anguish -she had spent in San Francisco would become a dim -memory upon which she could some day look back -with calm. But before she went she would sing for -Pierpont and hear what he said.</p> - -<p>The thought had hardly formed in her mind when -she was out in the hall and stealing noiselessly down -the stairs of the silent house. It struck her as odd -that the house should be so quiet, as these were the -hours in which Pierpont’s pupils usually made the -welkin resound with their efforts. Perhaps he was -out. But this was not so, for in the lower hall she -met the girl with the fair hair and prominent blue -eyes who possessed the fine soprano voice she had -so often listened to, and who in response to her query -told her that Mr. Pierpont was in, but not giving lessons -this afternoon.</p> - -<p>In answer to her knock she heard his “come in” -and opened the door. He was sitting on a divan idly -turning over some loose sheets of music. The large, -sparsely furnished room—it was in reality the back -drawing-room of the house—looked curiously gray -and cold in the drear afternoon light. It was only -slightly furnished—his bed and toilet articles being -in a curtained alcove. In the center of its unadorned, -occupied bareness, the grand piano, gleaming richly, -stood open, the stool in front of it.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_417">[417]</span>“Miss Moreau,” he said, starting to his feet, “I -thought you were sick in bed. How are you? You’ve -had a dreadful experience. I’ve been sending away -my pupils because I was told you were asleep.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’m quite well now,” she said, “only my head -aches a little. Yes, I was frightened last night—a -burglar came in, crept up the bough of the pepper-tree. -I was dreadfully frightened then, but I’m all -right now. I’ve come to sing for you.”</p> - -<p>“To sing for me!” he exclaimed; “but you’re not -well enough to sing. You’ve had a bad fright and -you look—excuse me”—he took her hand—“you’re -burning up with fever. Take my advice and go upstairs, -and as soon as Mrs. Garcia comes in we’ll get a -doctor.”</p> - -<p>“No—no!” she said almost violently; “I’m quite -well now. My hand’s hot and so is my head, but that’s -natural after the fright I had last night. I want to -sing for you now and see what you say about my -voice.”</p> - -<p>“But, you know, you can’t do yourself justice and -I can’t form a fair opinion. Why do you want to sing -this afternoon when you wouldn’t all winter?”</p> - -<p>“Well,” she said, “I don’t mind telling you. I’m -going to Europe to study. I’ve just made up my -mind.”</p> - -<p>“Going to Europe! Isn’t that very sudden? But -it will be splendid! When are you going?”</p> - -<p>“Soon—in a day or two—as soon as I can get my -things packed in my trunks.”</p> - -<p>He looked at her curiously. Her manner, which -was usually calm and deliberate, was marked by tremulous<span class="pagenum" id="Page_418">[418]</span> -restlessness. She spoke rapidly and like one -laboring under suppressed excitement.</p> - -<p>“Come,” she said, going to the piano stool and pushing -it nearer the keyboard, “I’ll be very busy now and -I don’t want to waste any time.”</p> - -<p>He moved reluctantly to the piano and seated himself.</p> - -<p>“Have you your music?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“No, but I can sing what some of your pupils do. -I can sing ‘Knowest thou the land?’ and Mrs. Burrell -sings that. Where is it?”</p> - -<p>Her feverish haste and nervousness impressed him -more than ever as her hands tossed aside the sheets -of piled-up music, throwing them about the piano and -snatching at them as they slipped to the floor. From -there he picked up the ‘Mignon’ aria which she had -overlooked and spreading it on the rack struck the -opening notes. She leaned over him to see the first -line and he felt that she was trembling violently. He -raised his hands and wheeled round on the stool.</p> - -<p>“Miss Moreau,” he said, “I truly don’t think you’re -well enough to sing. Don’t you think we’d better put -it off till to-morrow?”</p> - -<p>“No, no—I’m going to now. I’m ready. I’m anxious -to. I must. Begin again, please.”</p> - -<p>He turned obediently and began again to play the -chords of accompaniment. He had been for a long -time intensely anxious to hear her voice, of which he -had heard so much. It irritated him now to have her -determined to sing when she was obviously ill and -still suffering from the effects of her fright.</p> - -<p>The accompaniment reached the point where the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_419">[419]</span> -voice joins it. He played softly, alert for the first -rich notes. Mariposa’s chest rose with an inflation of -air and she began to sing.</p> - -<p>A sound, harsh, veiled and thin, filled the room. -There was no volume, nor resonance, nor beauty in it. -It was the ghost of a voice.</p> - -<p>The teacher was so shocked that for a moment he -stumbled in the familiar accompaniment. Then he -went on, bending his head low over the keys, fearful -of her seeing his face. Sounds unmusical, rasping, -and discordant came from her lips. Everything that -had once made it rich and splendid was gone, the very -volume of it had dwindled to a thin, muffled thread, -the color had flown from every tone.</p> - -<p>For a bar or two she went on, then she stopped. -Pierpont dared not turn at first. But he heard her -behind him say hoarsely:</p> - -<p>“What—what—is it?”</p> - -<p>Then he wheeled round and saw her with wild eyes -and white lips.</p> - -<p>For a moment he could say nothing. Her appearance -struck him with alarm, and he sat dumb on the -stool staring at her.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” she cried. “What has happened to it? -Where is my voice?”</p> - -<p>“It’s—it’s—certainly not in good condition,” he -stammered.</p> - -<p>“It’s gone,” she answered in a wail of agony; “it’s -gone. My voice has gone! What shall I do? It’s -gone!”</p> - -<p>“Your fright of last night has affected it,” he said, -speaking as kindly as he could, “and you’re not well.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_420">[420]</span> -I told you you were feverish and ought not to sing. -Rest will probably restore it.”</p> - -<p>“Let me try it again,” she said wildly. “It may be -better. Play again.”</p> - -<p>He played over the opening bars again, and once -more she drew the deep breath that in the past had always -brought with it so much of exultation and began -to sing. The same feeble sounds, obscured as though -passing through a thick, muffling medium, hoarse, flat, -unlovely, came with labor from her parted lips.</p> - -<p>They broke suddenly into a wild animal cry of -despair. Pierpont rose from the stool and went toward -her where she stood with her arms drooping by her -sides, pallid and terrible.</p> - -<p>“Don’t look like that,” he said, taking her hand; -“there’s no doubt the voice has been injured. But -rest does a great deal, and after a shock like last -night—”</p> - -<p>She tore herself away from him and ran to the door -crying:</p> - -<p>“Oh, my voice! My voice! It was all I had!”</p> - -<p>He followed her into the hall, not knowing what to -say in the face of such a calamity, only anxious to -offer her some consolation. But she ran from him, -up the stairs with a frantic speed. As he put his foot -on the lower step he heard her door.</p> - -<p>He turned round and went back slowly to his room. -He was shocked and amazed, and a little relieved that -he had failed to catch her for he had no words ready -for such a misfortune. Her voice was completely -gone. She was unquestionably ill and nervous—but—<span class="pagenum" id="Page_421">[421]</span> -He sat down on the divan, shaking his head. He -had never heard a voice more utterly lost and wrecked.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Barron’s business engagement detained him longer -than he had expected. The heavy rain was shortening -the already short February day with a premature -dusk when he opened the gate of the Garcia house -and mounted the steps.</p> - -<p>He had made a cursory investigation of the ground -under the pepper-tree when he went out in the early -morning. Now, before the light died, he again stepped -under its branches for a more thorough survey. The -foliage was so thick that no grass grew where the -tree’s shadow fell, and the rain sifted through it in -occasional dribbles or shaken showers. The bare -stretch of ground was now an expanse of mud, interspersed -with puddles. Here and there a footprint -still remained, full of water. He moved about the -base of the tree studying these, then looking up into -the branch along which the burglar had crept to the -balcony. What paper could the girl have possessed of -sufficient value to lure a man to such risks?</p> - -<p>With his mind full of this thought his glance -dropped to the root of the trunk. A piece of burnt paper, -half covered with the trampled mud, caught his -eye, and he picked it up and absently glanced at it. He -was about to throw it over the fence into the road, when -he saw the name of Jacob Shackleton. The next moment -his eyes were riveted on the printed lines here -and there filled in with writing. He moved so that the -full light fell on it through a break in the branches.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_422">[422]</span> -It was a minute or two before he grasped its real meaning. -But he knew the name of Lucy Fraser, too. -Mariposa had once told him it had been her mother’s -maiden name.</p> - -<p>For a space he stood motionless under the tree, staring -at the paper, focusing his mind on it, seizing on -waifs and strays from the past that surged to the surface -of his memory. It dazed him at first. Then he -began to understand. The mysterious drama that environed -the girl upstairs began to grow clear to him. -This was the document that had been stolen from her -last night, the loss of which had thrown her into a -frenzy of despair—the record of a marriage between -her mother and Jake Shackleton.</p> - -<p>Without stopping to think further he thrust it into -his pocket and ran to the house. As he mounted the -porch steps the scene of his first meeting with Mariposa -flashed suddenly like a magic-lantern picture across -his mind. He heard her hysterical cry of—“He was -my father!” Another veil of the mystery seemed lifted.</p> - -<p>And now he shrank from penetrating further, for -he began to see. If Mariposa had some sore secret -to hide let her keep it shut in her own breast. All he -had to do was to give the paper to her as soon as he -could. In the moment’s passage of the balcony and -the pause while he inserted his latch-key in the door -he tried to think how he could restore it to her without -letting her think he had read it. The key turned -and as the door gave he decided that it must be given -her at once without wasting time or bothering about -comforting lies.</p> - -<p>He burst into the hall and then stood still, the door-handle<span class="pagenum" id="Page_423">[423]</span> -in his hand. In the dim light, the two Garcia -ladies and the two boys met his eyes, standing in a -group at the foot of the stairs. There was something -in their faces and attitudes that bespoke uneasiness -and anxiety. Their four pairs of eyes were fastened on -him with curious alarmed gravity.</p> - -<p>He kicked the door shut and said:</p> - -<p>“How’s Miss Moreau?”</p> - -<p>The question seemed to increase their disquietude.</p> - -<p>“We don’t know where she is,” said young Mrs. -Garcia.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t she in her room?” he demanded.</p> - -<p>“No—that’s what’s so funny. I thought she was -sleeping an awful long time and I just peeked in and -she isn’t there. And Benito’s been all over the house -and can’t find her. It seems so crazy of her to go out -in all this rain, but her outside things are not in the -closet or anywhere.”</p> - -<p>They stood silent for a moment, eying one another -with faces of disturbed query.</p> - -<p>The opening of Pierpont’s door roused them. The -young man appeared in the aperture and then came -slowly forward.</p> - -<p>“Have you seen Miss Moreau?” he said to young -Mrs. Garcia.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Barron hurriedly; “but have you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, she was down in my room this afternoon -singing.”</p> - -<p>“Singing!” echoed the others in wide-eyed amazement.</p> - -<p>“Yes, and I’m rather anxious about her. That’s -why I came out when I heard your voices. She’s had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_424">[424]</span> -a pretty severe disappointment, I’m afraid. She seems -to have lost her voice.”</p> - -<p>“Lost her voice!” ejaculated Mrs. Garcia in a low -gasp of horror. “Good heavens!”</p> - -<p>The boys looked from one to the other with the -round eyes of growing fear and dread. The calamity, -as announced by Pierpont, did not seem adequate for -the consternation it caused, but an oppressive sense of -apprehension was in the air.</p> - -<p>“What made her want to sing?” said the widow; -“she was too sick to sing.”</p> - -<p>“That’s what I told her, but she insisted. She was -determined to. She said she was going to Europe to -study.”</p> - -<p>“Going to Europe!” It was Barron’s deep voice -that put the question this time, Mrs. Garcia being too -astonished by this last piece of intelligence to have -breath for speech. “When was she going to Europe?”</p> - -<p>“In a day or two—as soon as she could pack her -trunks, she said. I don’t really think she was quite -accountable for what she said. She was burning with -a fever and she seemed in a tremendously wrought-up -state. I think her fright of the night before had -quite upset her. I tried to cheer her up, but she ran -away as if she was frantic. Have any of you seen -her?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Mrs. Garcia, her voice curiously flat. -“She’s gone.”</p> - -<p>“Gone?” echoed Pierpont. “Gone where?”</p> - -<p>“We don’t any of us know. But she’s not in the -house anywhere. And now it’s getting dark and—”</p> - -<p>There was a pause, one of those pregnant pauses<span class="pagenum" id="Page_425">[425]</span> -of mute anxiety while each eyed the other with glances -full of an alarmed surmise.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps the robber came and took her away,” said -Benito in a voice of terror.</p> - -<p>No one paid any attention. As if by common consent -all present fastened questioning eyes on Barron. -He stood looking down, his brows knit. The silence -of dumb uneasiness was broken by the entrance of the -Chinaman from the kitchen. With the expressionless -phlegm of his race he lit the two hall gas-jets, gently -but firmly moving the señora out of his way, and paying -no attention to the silent group at the stair foot.</p> - -<p>“Ching,” said Barron suddenly, “have you seen Miss -Moreau this afternoon?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” returned the Celestial, carefully adjusting -the tap of the second gas, “she go out hap-past four. -She heap hurry. She look welly bad—heap sick I -guess; no umblella; get awful wet.”</p> - -<p>With his noiseless tread he retreated up the passage -to the kitchen.</p> - -<p>“Well, I’ll go,” said Barron suddenly. “She’s just -possibly gone out to see some one and will be back -soon. But no umbrella in this rain! Have her room -warm and everything ready.”</p> - -<p>He turned round and in an instant was gone. The -little group at the stairpost looked at one another with -pale faces. It was possible that Mariposa had gone -out to see some one. But the dread of disaster was at -every heart.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_426">[426]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXIV<br /> - - -<small>A BROKEN TOOL</small></h3> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="first">“A plague o’ both your houses!</div> -<div class="verse">They have made worms’ meat of me.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Shakespeare.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>It had been close upon half-past two when Harney -had left the house in Bush Street. Essex at the window -had heard the sound of his retreating feet soon -lost in the rush of the rain, and had then returned to -the fire. He had made a close calculation of the time -Harney should take. To go and come ought not to -occupy more than a half-hour. The theft, itself, if no -mischances occurred, should be accomplished in ten -or fifteen minutes.</p> - -<p>As the hands of the clock on the table drew near -three, the man rose from his post by the fire and began -to move restlessly about the room. The house was -wrapped in the dead stillness of sleep, round which the -turmoil of the storm circled and upon which it seemed -to press. Pausing to listen he could hear the creaks -and groan of the old walls, as the wind buffeted them. -Once, thinking he heard a furtive step, he went to -the door, opened it and peered out into the blackness -of the hall. The stairs still creaked as if to a light -ascending foot, but his eyes encountered nothing but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_427">[427]</span> -the impenetrable darkness, charged with the familiar -smell of stale smoke.</p> - -<p>Back in his room he went to the window and throwing -it wide, leaned out listening. The rain fell with -a continuous drumming rustle, through which the -chinks and gurgles of water caught in small channels -penetrated with a near-by clearness. Here and there -the darkness broke away in splinters from a sputtering -lamp, and where its light touched, everything -gleamed and glistened. Gusts of wind rose and fell, -tore the wet bushes in the garden below, and banged -a shutter on an adjacent house.</p> - -<p>Essex left the window, drawing the curtain to shut -its light from the street. It was a quarter past three. -If at four Harney had not returned he would go after -him. The thief might easily have missed his footing -in the tree and have fallen, and be lying beneath it, -stunned, dead perhaps, the papers in his hand.</p> - -<p>The clock hands moved on toward twenty—twenty-five -minutes past. The creaking came from the stairs -again, exactly, to the listening ear, like the soft sound -of a cautiously-mounting step. From the cupboard -came a curious loud tick and then a series of rending -cracks. It made Essex start guiltily, and swearing -under his breath, he again turned toward the window -and, as he did so, caught the sound of hurrying feet. -He drew the curtain and leaned out. Above the uproar -of the night he heard the quick, regular thud of -the feet of a runner, rushing onward through the -storm, and then, across the gleam of a lamp, a dark -figure shot, with head down, flying.</p> - -<p>He dropped the curtain and waited, immense relief<span class="pagenum" id="Page_428">[428]</span> -at his heart. In a moment he heard the footsteps stop -at the gate, furtively ascend the stairs of the two terraces, -and then the stealthy grating of the door. He -silently pushed his own door open that the light might -guide the ascending man, and he heard Harney’s loud -breathing as he crept up.</p> - -<p>The thief rose up out of the gulf of darkness like -an apparition of terror. He dropped into a chair, his -face gray, white and pinched, the sound of his rasping -breaths, drawn with pain from the bottom of his -lungs, filling the room. He was incapable of speech, -and Essex, pouring him out whisky, was forced to take -the glass from his shaking hand and hold it to his -lips. From his soaked clothes and the cap that -crowned his head, like a saturated woolen rag, water -streamed. But the rain had not been able to efface -from his coat a caking of mud that half-covered one -arm and shoulder, and there was blood on one of his -hands. He had evidently fallen.</p> - -<p>“Have you got it?” said Essex, putting the glass -down.</p> - -<p>The other nodded and let his head sink on the chair-back.</p> - -<p>“I’m dead,” he gasped, “but I done it.”</p> - -<p>“Where is it? Give it to me.”</p> - -<p>The man made a faint movement of assent, but -evidently had not force enough to produce the paper -and lay limp in the chair, Essex watching him impatiently. -Presently he put his feeble hand out for -the glass and drank again. The rattling loudness of -his breathing moderated. Without moving his head -he turned his eyes on Essex and said:</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_429">[429]</span>“I’m most killed—I’m all shook up. I fell coming -down the tree, some way—I don’t know how far—but -I got it all right. She fought like a wildcat, tried to -burn it—but I got it. Then she hollered and a man -answered. I knew it was a man’s voice, and I made -a dash for the winder only jest in time. I’m cut -somewheres—”</p> - -<p>He raised the hand with the blood on it and fumbled -at his coat-sleeve. The other hand was smeared with -blood from the contact.</p> - -<p>“Like a pig,” he said in a low voice, and pulled out -a rag of handkerchief which he tried to push up his -sleeve; “I’m cut somewheres all right, but I don’t know -where.”</p> - -<p>“Give me the paper and take your things off. You’re -dripping all over everything,” said Essex, extending -his hand.</p> - -<p>Harney sat up.</p> - -<p>“I dunno how I done it,” he said; “how I got down. -The man was right on my heels. When I fell I saw -him, pullin’ her up on her feet—I saw that through the -winder. Then I riz up and I went—God, how I went!”</p> - -<p>He had stuffed his handkerchief up his sleeve by this -time, and now put his bloody tremulous hand into the -outer breast-pocket of his coat. As the hand fumbled -about the opening he said:</p> - -<p>“I didn’t stop to look no more nor take no risks. I -wanted to git away from thar and I tell you I lit out, -and—”</p> - -<p>He stopped, his jaw dropped, his nerveless figure -stiffened, a look of animal terror came into his eyes.</p> - -<p>“Where is it?” he almost yelled, staring at Essex.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_430">[430]</span>“How the devil should I know! Where did you put -it? Isn’t it there?”</p> - -<p>Essex himself had suddenly paled. He stood erect -before the crouched and trembling figure of his partner, -his eyes fiercely intense.</p> - -<p>“It ain’t here,” cried Harney, his hand clawing about -in the pocket. “It ain’t there. Oh Lordy, Lordy! -I’ve lost it! It’s gone. It fell out when I came off -the tree. I fell. I told you I fell. Didn’t I tell you -I fell?” he shouted, as if he had been contradicted.</p> - -<p>He rose up, his face pasty white, wringing his hands -like a woman. There was something grotesque and -almost overdone in his terror, but his pallor and the -fear in his eyes were real.</p> - -<p>“Lost it!” cried Essex. “No more of those lies! -Give me the paper, you dog.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you hear me say I ain’t got it? Ain’t I told -you I fell? When I jumped for the tree I jest smashed -it down into my pocket. I had to have both hands to -climb. And I suppose I ain’t pressed it in tight enough. -God, man, it was ten years in San Quentin for me if -I’d lost two minutes.”</p> - -<p>Essex drew closer, his mouth tight, his eyes fixed -with a fiercely compelling gaze on the wretch before -him.</p> - -<p>“Don’t think you can make anything by stealing that -paper. Give it up; give it up now; I’ve got you here, -and I’ll know what you’ve done with it before you leave -or you’ll never leave at all.”</p> - -<p>“I lost it, and that’s what I done with it. If you -want it, come on with me now and look round under -that tree. Ain’t you understood I fell sideways from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_431">[431]</span> -the branch to the ground? Look at my hand—” he -held up his arm, pulling the muddy sleeve back from -the blood-stained wrist.</p> - -<p>“Where is it?” said Essex, without moving. “You -were gone nearly an hour. Where have you hidden -it?”</p> - -<p>“Nowheres. It took time. I had to clim’ up careful, -’cause she had a light burning, and I thought she -was awake. Why can’t you believe me? What can -I do with it alone?”</p> - -<p>“You can blackmail Mrs. Shackleton well enough -alone. Give me that paper, or tell me where you put it, -or, by God, I’ll kill you!”</p> - -<p>Fear of the man that owned him gave Harney the air -of guilt. He backed away in an access of pallid terror, -shouting:</p> - -<p>“I ain’t lying. Why can’t yer believe me? It took -time—it took time! Ain’t I told you I fell? Look at -the mud; and feel, feel in every pocket.” He seized -on them and tore the insides outward. “I’m tellin’ you -the whole truth. I ain’t got it.”</p> - -<p>“Where is it, then? You’ll tell me where you’ve -hidden it, or—”</p> - -<p>Essex made a sudden leap forward and caught the -man by his neck-cloth and collar. In his blind alarm -Harney was given fictitious strength, and he tore himself -loose and rushed for the door. Essex’s hat, coat and -stick lay on the table. Without thought or premeditation -their owner seized the cane—a heavy malacca—by -the end, flew round the table, and as Harney turned the -door-handle, brought the knob of the loaded cane down -on the crown of his head.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_432">[432]</span>It struck with a thud and sent the water squirting -from the saturated cap. The thief, without cry or -word, spun round, waving his hands in the air, and -then fell heavily face downward. For a moment he -quivered, and once or twice made a convulsive movement, -then lay still, the water running from his clothes -along the floor.</p> - -<p>With the cane still in his hand, Essex came around -the table and looked at him. For a space he stood -staring, his hand resting on the edge of the table, his -neck craned forward, his face set in a rigid intensity -of observation. The sudden silence that had succeeded -to the loud tones of Harney’s voice was singularly -deep and solemn. The room seemed held in a spell of -stillness, almost awful in its suddenness and isolation.</p> - -<p>“Get up,” he said in a low voice. “Harney, get up.”</p> - -<p>There was no response, and he leaned forward and -pushed at the motionless figure with the cane.</p> - -<p>“Damn!” he said under his breath, “he’s fainted.”</p> - -<p>And throwing the cane away, he approached the -man and bent over him. There was no sound of -breathing or pulse of life about the sodden figure with -its hidden face. Drops formed on Essex’s forehead -as he turned it over. Then, as it confronted him, livid -with fallen jaw and a gleam of white between the -wrinkled eyelid, the drops ran down his face.</p> - -<p>With a hand that shook as Harney’s had a few moments -before he felt the pulse and then tore the shirt -open and tried the heart. His face was white as the -man’s on the floor as he poured whisky down the -throat that refused to swallow. Finally, tearing off -his coat, he knelt beside his victim and tried every<span class="pagenum" id="Page_433">[433]</span> -means in his power to bring back life into the miserable -body in which he had only recognized a tool of his -own. But there was no response. The minutes ticked -on, and there was no glimmer of intelligence in the -cold indifference of the eyes, no warmth round the -stilled heart, no flutter of breath at the slack, gray lips.</p> - -<p>The night was still dark, the rain in his ears, when -he rose to his feet. A horror unlike anything he had -even imagined was on him. All the things in life he -had struggled for seemed shriveled to nothing. The -whole worth of his existence was contained in the unlovely -body on the floor. To bring life back to it -he would have given his dearest ambition—sacrificed -love, money, happiness—all for which he had -held life valuable, and thought himself blessed. What -a few hours before were ends to struggle and sin for -seemed now of no moment to him. Mariposa had -faded to a dim, undesired shadow; the millions she -stood for to dross he would have passed without a -thought. How readily would he have given it all to -bring back the breath to the creature he had held as a -worm beneath his foot!</p> - -<p>He seized the table-cloth and threw it over the face -whose solemn, tragic calm filled him with a sick dread. -Then with breathless haste he flung some clothes into -a valise and made the fire burn high with the letters -and papers he threw on it at intervals. The first carts -of the morning had begun their rattling course through -the stirred darkness when he crept out, a haggard, -hunted man.</p> - -<p>He had to hide himself in unfrequented corners, -cower beneath the shadow of trees on park benches<span class="pagenum" id="Page_434">[434]</span> -till the light strengthened and morning shook the city -into life. Then, as its reawakening tides began to -surge round him, he made a furtive way—for the -first time in his life fearful of his fellow men—to the -railway station, and there took the earliest south-bound -train for the Mexican border.</p> - -<p>The fire had died down, the leaden light of coming -day was filtering in through the crack between the -half-drawn curtains, when the shrouded shape on the -floor moved and a deep groan broke upon the stillness. -Another followed it, groans of physical anguish beating -on awakening consciousness. An early riser from -the floor above heard them as he stole downward, -stopped, listened, knocked, then receiving no reply, -opened the door and peered fearfully in. In the dim -room, cut with a sword of faint light, he saw the -covered shape, and, as he stood terrified, heard the -groan repeated and saw the drapery twitched. Shouting -his fears over the balustrade, he rushed in, flung -the curtains wide, tore off the table-cloth, and in the -rush of pallid light, saw Harney, leaden eyed, withered -to a waxen pallor, smeared with the blood of the cut -wrist which he feebly moved, struggling back to existence.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_435">[435]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXV<br /> - - -<small>HAVE YOU COME AT LAST</small></h3> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Yesterday this day’s madness did prepare.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Omar Khayyam.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>At ten o’clock Barron returned to the Garcia house. -His search for Mariposa in such accustomed haunts as -the Mercantile Library, the shops on Kearney Street, -and Mrs. Willers’, had been fruitless. Mrs. Willers -was again at <i>The Trumpet</i> office, where another and -more important portion of the Woman’s Page was going -to press, but Edna was at home, and told Barron -that neither she nor her mother had seen Mariposa -since the lesson of the day before.</p> - -<p>In returning to the house he had hopes of finding her -there. From the first his anxiety had been keen. -Now, as he put his key in the lock, it clutched his heart -with a suffocating force. The house was silent as he -entered, and then the sound of his step in the hall -called the head of young Mrs. Garcia to the opened -door of the kitchen. The first glimpse of her face -told him Mariposa had not returned.</p> - -<p>“Have you got her?” cried the young woman -eagerly.</p> - -<p>“No,” he answered, his voice sounding colorless and -flat. “I thought she might be back here.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_436">[436]</span>Mrs. Garcia shook her head and withdrew it. He -followed her into the kitchen, where she and the señora -were sitting by the stove. A large fire was burning, -the room was warm and bright—the trim, finically -neat kitchen of a clean Chinaman. To the señora’s -quick phrase of inquiry, the younger woman answered -with a sentence in Spanish. For a moment the silence -of sick anxiety held the trio.</p> - -<p>“Did you go to Mrs. Willers’?” said young Mrs. -Garcia, trying to speak with some lightness of tone.</p> - -<p>“Yes; she’s not been there since yesterday. I’ve -been everywhere I could think of where it was likely -she would be. I couldn’t find a trace of her.”</p> - -<p>“Then’s she’s gone to Europe, or is going to-morrow, -as she told Pierpont. She took her money. We -looked after you’d gone, and it wasn’t there.”</p> - -<p>“It’ll be too late to find out to-night if she’s gone. -The ticket offices are closed. I can’t think she’s done -that—without a word to any one. It’s not like her.”</p> - -<p>The señora here asked what they said. Barron, who -spoke Spanish indifferently, signaled to the young -woman to answer for him. She did so, the señora -listening intently. At the end of her daughter-in-law’s -speech she shook her head.</p> - -<p>“No, she has not gone,” she said slowly in Spanish. -“She could not take that journey. She was not able—she -was sick.”</p> - -<p>“Sick, and out on such a night with all that money!” -moaned her daughter-in-law.</p> - -<p>Barron got up with a smothered ejaculation. He -knew more than either of the women. The attempt at -robbery the night before had failed. To-night the girl<span class="pagenum" id="Page_437">[437]</span> -herself had disappeared. What might it all mean? -He was afraid to think.</p> - -<p>“I’m going out again,” he said. “I’ll be in probably -in four or five hours to see if, by any chance, she’s come -back. You have everything ready—fires and warm -clothes and things to eat in case I bring her with me. -The rain’s worse than ever. Ching says she had no -umbrella.”</p> - -<p>Without more conversation he left, the two women -bestirring themselves to make ready the supper he had -ordered. At three o’clock he returned again to find -the señora sitting alone, by the ruddy stove, Mrs. -Garcia, the younger, being asleep on a sofa in the -boys’ room. The old lady persuaded him to drink a -cup of coffee she had kept warm, and, as she gave it -him, looked with silent compassion into his haggard -face.</p> - -<p>When day broke he had not again appeared. By -this time the household was in a ferment of open -alarm. The boys were retained from school, as it was -felt they might be needed for messages. Pierpont undertook -to visit all Mariposa’s pupils, in the dim hope -of finding through them some clue to her movements, -though it was well known she was on intimate terms -with none of them. Soon after breakfast Mrs. Willers -appeared, uneasy, and by the time the now weeping -Mrs. Garcia had told her all, pale and deeply disturbed.</p> - -<p>She repaired to <i>The Trumpet</i> office without loss of -time, and there acquainted her chief with the story of -Miss Moreau’s disappearance, not neglecting to mention -the burglary of the night before, which even to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_438">[438]</span> -the women, having no knowledge of its real import, -seemed to indicate a sinister connection with subsequent -events. Winslow did not disappoint Mrs. Willers -by pooh-poohing the matter, as she had half imagined -he would; a young lady’s disappearance for -twelve hours not being a subject for such tragic consternation. -He seemed extremely worried—in fact, -showed an anxiety that struck the head of the Woman’s -Page as almost odd. He assured her that if Miss -Moreau was not heard from that day by midday he -would offer secretly to the police department the largest -reward ever given in San Francisco, for any trace or -tidings of her.</p> - -<p>Meantime Barron, having assured himself by visits -to all the ticket offices that she had not left the city on -any train, had finally taken his case to the police. It -had been in their hands only an hour or two, when -young Shackleton’s offer of what, in even those extravagant -days seemed an enormous reward, was communicated -to the department. It put life into the -somewhat dormant energies of the officers detailed on -the case. Mariposa had not been missing twenty-four -hours when the search for her was spreading over -the face of the city, where she had been so insignificant -a unit, in a thorough and secret network of investigation.</p> - -<p>The day wore away with maddening slowness to the -women in the house, whose duty it was to sit and wait. -To Barron, whose anxiety had been intensified by the -torture of his deeper knowledge of the girl’s strange -circumstances, existence seemed only bearable as it was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_439">[439]</span> -directed to finding her. He did not dare now to pause or -think. Without stopping to eat or rest he continued his -search, now with the detectives, now alone. Several -times in the course of the day he reappeared at the Garcia -house, drawn thither by the hope that she might -have returned. The señora, with the curious tranquillity -of the very old which seems not to need the repairing -processes of sleep or food, was always to be found sitting -by the kitchen stove, upon which some dish or -drink simmered for him. He rarely stopped to take -either. But returning in the early dusk, he was grateful -to find that she had a dry overcoat hanging before -the fire for him. The rain still fell in torrents, and -the long day spent at its mercy had soaked him.</p> - -<p>It was between ten and eleven at night that the old -lady and her daughter-in-law, sitting before the stove -as they had done the evening before, again heard his -step and his key. This time there was no pretense at -expectation on either side. His first glance inside the -room showed him the heavy dejection of the two faces -turned toward him. They, on their part, saw him -pale and drawn, as by a month’s illness. They had -heard nothing. No investigation of which they were -aware had brought in a crumb of comfort. He had -heard worse than nothing. There had been talk at the -police station that evening of the finding of George -Harney, suffering from concussion of the brain, and -the sudden departure of Barry Essex, believed to be -his assailant.</p> - -<p>This information added the last straw to Barron’s -agony of apprehension. It seemed as if a plot had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_440">[440]</span> -culminated in those two days, a plot dark and inexplicable, -in which the woman he loved was in some -mysterious way involved.</p> - -<p>He was standing by the stove responding to the -somber queries of the women, when the sound of feet -on the porch steps suddenly transfixed them all. -Young Mrs. Garcia screamed, while the old lady sat -with head bent sidewise listening. Before Barron -could get to the door a soft ring at the bell had drawn -another scream from the younger woman, who, nevertheless, -followed him and stood peeping into the hall, -clinging to the door-post.</p> - -<p>The opened door sent a flood of light over three -figures huddled in the glass porch—two men, a detective -and policeman, Barron already knew, and a third, -a stranger to him, whose face against the shadowy -background looked fresh and boyish.</p> - -<p>“Ah, Mr. Barron, we’re lucky to strike you this way -at the first shot,” said the detective. “We think we’ve -found the lady.”</p> - -<p>“Found her? Where? Have you got her there?”</p> - -<p>“No; we’re not certain yet if it’s the right one.”</p> - -<p>The man, as he spoke, entered the hall, the policeman -and the stranger following him. Under the flare -of the two gas-jets they looked big, ungainly figures -in their smoking rubber capes that ran rillets of water -on the floor. The third, revealed in the full light, was -a boy of some fourteen or fifteen years, well dressed -and with the air of a gentleman.</p> - -<p>“This gentleman came to the station a half-hour -ago,” said the policeman, indicating the stranger, “with -a story of finding a lady on his own grounds, and we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_441">[441]</span> -thought from his description it was the one you’re looking -for.”</p> - -<p>Barron directed on the youth a glance that would -have pried open the lips of the Sphinx.</p> - -<p>“What does she look like? Where is she?”</p> - -<p>“She’s in our garden,” said the boy, “under some -trees. She looks tall and has on black clothes, and has -dark red hair and a very white face.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Garcia gave a loud cry from the background.</p> - -<p>“It’s Mariposa sure,” she screamed. “Is she alive?”</p> - -<p>“Alive!” echoed the youth. “Oh, yes, she’s quite -alive, but I don’t know whether she’s exactly in her -right mind. She’s sort of queer.”</p> - -<p>Barron had brushed past him into the streaming -night.</p> - -<p>“Come on,” he shouted back. “Good Lord, come -quick!”</p> - -<p>At the foot of the zigzag stairs he saw the two gleaming -lights of a hack. With the other men clattering -at his heels, he dashed down the steps, and was in it, -chafing and swearing, while they were fumbling for -the latch of the gate.</p> - -<p>As the boy, after giving the coachman an address, -scrambled in beside him, he said peremptorily:</p> - -<p>“When did you find her? Tell me everything.”</p> - -<p>“About two hours ago. My dog found her. I live, -I and my mother, on the slope of Russian Hill. It’s -quite a big place with a lot of trees. I went down to -get Jack (that’s my dog) at the vet’s, where he’s been -for a week, and I was bringing him home. When we -got to the top of the steps he began sniffing round and -barking, and then he ran to a place where there’s a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_442">[442]</span> -little sort of bunch of fir-trees and barked and jumped -round, and went in among the trees. I followed him -to see what was up, and all of a sudden I heard some -one say from under the trees: ‘Oh, it’s only a dog.’ I was -scared and ran into the house and got a lamp, and when -I came out with my mother, and we went in among the -trees, there was a woman in there, who was lying on -the ground. When she saw us she sort of sat up, as -if she’d been asleep, and said: ‘Is it Sunday yet?’ -We saw her distinctly; she was staring right at us. -She didn’t look as if she was crazy, but we both thought -she was. She was terribly white. We knew she -couldn’t be drunk, because she was like a lady—she -spoke that way.”</p> - -<p>“And then—and then,” said Barron, “what did she -do?”</p> - -<p>“She said again, ‘It isn’t Sunday yet?’ and mother -said, ‘No, not yet,’ and we went away. I ran to the -police office, but we left one of the Chinamen to watch -so she wouldn’t get away, ’cause we didn’t know what -was the matter with her. We’ll be there in a minute -now. It isn’t far.”</p> - -<p>The hack, which had been rattling round corners at -top speed, now began to ascend. Barron could see -the gaunt flank of Russian Hill looming above them, -with here and there a house hanging to a ridge or -balanced on a slope. The lights of the town dropped -away on their right in a series of sparkling terraces.</p> - -<p>“Do you guess it’s the lady you’re hunting?” said -the policeman politely.</p> - -<p>“I’m almost certain it is,” answered Barron. “Can’t -you make this man go faster?”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_443">[443]</span>“The hill’s pretty steep here,” said the guardian of -the city’s peace. “I don’t seem to think he could -do it.”</p> - -<p>“We’re almost there,” said the boy; “it’s just that -house where the aloe is—there on the top of that high -wall.”</p> - -<p>Barron looked in the direction, and saw high above -them, on the top of a wall like the rampart of a fortress, -the faint outline of a house and the black masses of -trees etched against the only slightly paler sky.</p> - -<p>“I don’t see any aloe,” he growled; “is that the -house you mean?”</p> - -<p>“That’s it,” said the boy. “I guess it’s too dark for -the aloe to-night.”</p> - -<p>With a scrambling and jolting the horses began what -appeared an even steeper climb than that of the block -before. The beasts seemed to dig their hoofs into the -crevices between the cobbles and to clamber perilously -up. With an oath Barron kicked open the door and -sprang out.</p> - -<p>“Come on, boy,” he shouted. “I can’t stand this -snail of a carriage any longer.” And he set out running -up the hill.</p> - -<p>The boy, who was light of foot and young, kept up -with him, but the two heavier men, who had followed, -were left behind, puffing and blowing in the darkness.</p> - -<p>Suddenly the great wall, at the base of which they -ran, was crossed by a flight of stairs that made two -oblique stripes across its face.</p> - -<p>“Up the stairs,” said the boy.</p> - -<p>And Barron, without reply, turned and began the -ascent at the same breakneck speed.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_444">[444]</span>“You may as well let me go first,” gasped his conductor -from behind him. “You don’t know the way, -and you might scare the Chinaman. He said he had -a gun.”</p> - -<p>Barron stood aside for him to pass and then followed -the nimble figure as it darted up the second -flight. The boy was evidently nearing the top, when -he sang out:</p> - -<p>“Ah, there, Lee! It’s me coming back.”</p> - -<p>There was an unmistakable Chinese guttural from -somewhere, and then Barron himself rose above the -stair-top. A black mass of garden lay before him, -with the bulk of a large house a short distance back. -Many windows were lit, and in one he saw a woman -standing. Their light fell out over the garden, barring -it with long rectangular stripes of brilliance. The wild -bark of the dog rose from the house and on the unseen -walk the Chinaman’s footsteps could be heard crunching -the pebbles.</p> - -<p>“Is she there yet, Lee?” said the boy in a hissing -whisper.</p> - -<p>The Chinaman’s affirmative grunt rose from the -darkness of massed trees, into which his footsteps -continued to retreat.</p> - -<p>“This way,” said his conductor to Barron. “But -hang it all, it’s so dark we can’t see.”</p> - -<p>“Where is she?” said Barron. “Never mind the -light. Show me where she is. Mariposa!” he said -suddenly, in a voice which, though low, had a quality -so thrilling it might have penetrated the ear of death.</p> - -<p>The garden, rain-swept and rustling, grew quiet.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_445">[445]</span> -The sound of the Chinaman’s footsteps ceased, even -the panting breath of the boy was suddenly suspended.</p> - -<p>In this moment of pause, when nature seemed to -quell her riot to listen, a woman’s voice, sweet and soft, -rose out of impenetrable darkness:</p> - -<p>“Who called me?”</p> - -<p>The sound broke the agony that had congealed Barron’s -heart. With a shout he answered:</p> - -<p>“It’s I, dearest. Where are you? Come to me.”</p> - -<p>The voice rose again, faint, but with joy in it.</p> - -<p>“Oh, have you come—have you come, at last!”</p> - -<p>He made a rush forward into the blackness before -him. At the same moment the two men rose, spent -and breathless, from the stairs. The boy was behind -Barron, and they behind the boy.</p> - -<p>“Where are you? Where are you?” they heard him -cry, as he crashed forward through shrubs and flower -beds.</p> - -<p>Then suddenly the policeman drew the small lantern -he had carried from beneath his cape and shot the -slide. A cube of clear, steady light cut through the -inky wall in front of them. For a second they all -stopped, the man sending the cylinder of radiance over -the shrubs and trees in swift sweeps. In one of these -it crossed a white face, quivered and rested on it. -Barron gave a wild cry and rushed forward.</p> - -<p>She was, as the boy described, crouched under a -clump of small fir-trees, the lower limbs of which had -been removed. The place was sheltered from observation -from the house and the intrusion of the elements. -As the light fell on her she was kneeling, evidently<span class="pagenum" id="Page_446">[446]</span> -having been drawn to that posture by Barron’s voice. -The light revealed her as hatless, with loosened hair, -her face pinched, her eyes large and wild.</p> - -<p>As she saw Barron she shrieked and tried to move -forward, but was unable to and held out her arms. He -was at her side in a moment, his arms about her, straining -her to him, his lips, between frantic kisses, saying -words only for him and for her.</p> - -<p>The policeman, with a soft ejaculation, turned the -lantern, and its cube of light fell into the heart of a bed -of petunias; then the two men and the boy stood looking -at it silently for a space.</p> - -<p>Presently they heard Barron say: “Come, we must -go. I must take you home at once. Turn the light -this way, please.”</p> - -<p>The light came back upon her. She was on her feet, -holding to him.</p> - -<p>“Is it Sunday yet?” she said, looking at them with -an affrighted air.</p> - -<p>“That’s what she keeps asking all the time,” said the -boy in a whisper.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Barron, “it’s Friday. What do you expect -on Sunday?”</p> - -<p>“Only Friday,” she said, hanging back. “I thought -I’d hide here till Sunday was over.”</p> - -<p>Without answering, he put his arm about her and -drew her forward. At the steps she hesitated again, -and he lifted her and carried her down, the policeman -preceding with the lantern. The men helped him into -the carriage, not saying much, while the boy stood with -his now liberated dog at the top of the steps and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_447">[447]</span> -shouted, “Good night.” Barron hardly spoke to any -of them. A vague thought crossed his mind that he -would go to see the boy some day and thank him.</p> - -<p>She lay with her head on his shoulder, and as the -carriage passed the first lamp of the route he leaned -forward eagerly to scan her face. It was haggard, -white and thin, as by a long illness. He could not -speak for a moment, could only hold her in his arms -as if thus to wind her round with the symbol of his -love.</p> - -<p>Presently she groaned, and he said:</p> - -<p>“Are you suffering?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she murmured; “always now. I am sick. I -don’t breathe well any more. It hurts in my chest all -the time.”</p> - -<p>“Why did you hide under those trees?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“I was too sick to go any farther. I wanted to hide -somewhere, to get away from it all, and anyway, till -Sunday was over. It was all to be published on Sunday, -you know. Everything was ruined. My voice -was gone, too. I saw those steps in the dark and -climbed up and crept under the trees. I was terribly -tired, and it was very quiet up there. I don’t remember -much more.”</p> - -<p>As the light of another lamp flashed through the -window he could not bear to look at her, but tightened -his arms about her and bowed his face on her wet head.</p> - -<p>“Oh God, dearest,” he whispered, “there can’t be -any hell worse than what I’ve been in for the last two -days.”</p> - -<p>She made no response, but lay passively against him.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_448">[448]</span> -When the carriage stopped at the Garcia gate, and he -told her they were home, she made no attempt to move, -and he saw she was unconscious.</p> - -<p>He lifted her out and carried her up the steps. The -door opened as he ascended and revealed the Garcia -family in the aperture.</p> - -<p>“Is she dead?” screamed young Mrs. Garcia, as she -saw the limp figure in his arms.</p> - -<p>“No, but sick. You must get a doctor at once.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, how awful she looks!” cried the young woman -as she caught sight of the white face against his shoulder. -“What are you going to do with her?”</p> - -<p>“Take her upstairs now, and then get a doctor and -get her cured, and when she’s well, marry her.”</p> - - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_449">[449]</span> -<h2 class="nobreak">EPILOGUE</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_450">[450]</span></p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_451">[451]</span> -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER I<br /> - - -<small>THE PRIMA DONNA</small></h3> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent6">“And thou</div> -<div class="verse">Beside me singing in the wilderness.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">—<span class="smcap">Omar Khayyam.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p>The plant of the Silver Star Mine lay scattered along -the edge of a mountain river on the site of one of the -camps of forty-nine. Where the pioneers had scratched -the surface with their picks, their successors had torn -wounds in the Sierra’s mighty flank. Where once the -miners’ shouts had broken the quiet harmonies of -stirred pine boughs, and singing river, the throb of engines -now beat on the air, thick with the dust, noisy -with the strife of toiling men.</p> - -<p>It was a morning in the end of May. The mountain -wall was dark against the rising sun; tall fir and giant -pine stood along its crest in inky silhouette thrown out -by a background of gold leaf. Here and there, far and -aërial in the clear, cool dawn, a white peak of the high -Sierra floated above the shadows, a rosy pinnacle. The -air was chill and faintly touched with woodland odors. -The expectant hush of Nature awaiting the miracle of -sunrise, held this world of huge, primordial forms, -grouped in colossal indifference round the swarm of -men who delved in its rock-ribbed breast.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_452">[452]</span>In the stillness the camp’s awakening movements -rose upon the morning air with curious distinctness. -Through the blue shadows in which it swam the tall -chimneys soared aloft, sending their feathers of smoke -up to the new day. It lay in its hollow like a picture, -all transparent washes of amethyst and gray, overlaid -by clear mountain shadows. The world was in this -waiting stage of flushed sky and shaded earth when -the superintendent’s wife pushed open the door of her -house and with the cautious tread of one who fears to -wake a sleeper, stepped out on the balcony.</p> - -<p>With her hand on the rail she stood, deeply inhaling -the freshness of the hour. The superintendent’s house, -a one-story cottage, painted white, and skirted by a -broad balcony, stood on an eminence above the camp. -From its front steps she looked down on the slant of -many roofs, the car tracks, and the red wagon roads -that wound along the slopes. Raising her eyes, they -swept the ramparts of the everlasting hills, and looking -higher still, her face met the radiance of the dawn.</p> - -<p>She stepped off the balcony with the same cautious -tread, and along the beaten footpath that led through -the patch of garden in front of the house. Beyond -this the path wound through a growth of chaparral to -where the pines ascended the slopes in climbing files. -As she approached she saw the sky barred with their -trunks, arrow-straight and bare of branches to a great -height. Farther on she could see the long dim aisles, -held in the cloistral silence of the California forest, -shot through with the golden glimmer of sunrise.</p> - -<p>The joy of the morning was in her heart, and she -walked forward with a light step, humming to herself.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_453">[453]</span> -Two months before she had come here, a bride from -San Francisco, weak from illness, pale, hollow-eyed, a -shadow of her former self. She had only crept about -at first, swung for hours on the balcony in her hammock, -or sat under the trees looking down on the hive -of men, where her husband worked among his laborers. -As her mother had grown back to the fullness of -life in the healing breath of the mountains, so Mariposa -slowly regained her old beauty, with an added -touch of subtlety, and found her old beliefs returned to -her with a new significance.</p> - -<p>To-day she had awakened with the first glimmer of -dawn, and stirred by a sudden desire for the air of the -morning on her face and in her lungs, had stolen up -and out. Breathing in the resinous atmosphere a new -influx of life seemed to run like sap along her limbs, -and lend her step the buoyancy of a wood-nymph’s. -Her eye lingered with a look that was a caress on -flower and tree and shrub. The song she had been -humming passed from tune to words, and she sang -softly as she brushed through the chaparral, snipping -off a leaf, bending to pluck a wild flower, pausing to -admire the glossy green of a manzanita bush. Under -the shadow of the pines she halted by a rugged trunk, -a point of vantage she had early discovered, and leaning -her hand on the bark, surveyed the wild prospect.</p> - -<p>The sense of expectancy in the air seemed intensified. -The quivering radiance of pink and gold pulsed -up the sky from a point of concentration which every -moment brightened. The blue shadows in the camp -grew thinner, the little wisps of mist that hung over -the river more threadlike and phantasmal. A throwback<span class="pagenum" id="Page_454">[454]</span> -to unremembered days came suddenly upon her -with a mysterious sense of familiarity. She seemed to -be repeating a dear, long dead experience. The vision -and the dream of days of exquisite well-being, carefree, -cherished, were with her again. Faint recurring -glimpses of such mornings, strong of balsam of pine -and fir, musical with the sleepy murmur of a river, -serene and sweet with an enfolding passion of love in -which she rested secure, rose out of the dim places of -memory. The perfect content of her childhood spoke -to her across the gulf of years, finding itself repeated -in her womanhood. The old joy in living, the old thrill -of wonder and mystery, the old sense of safety in a -surrounding, watchful love, were hers once more.</p> - -<p>The song on her lips passed from its absent undertone -to notes gradually full and fuller. It was the aria -from “Mignon,” and, as she stood, her hand on the tree -trunk, looking down into the swimming shadows of the -camp, it swelled outward in tones strong and rich, vibrating -with their lost force.</p> - -<p>Pervaded by a sense of dreamy happiness, she at first -failed to notice the unexpected volume of sound. -Then, as note rose upon note, welling from her chest -with the old-time, vibrant facility, as she felt once -again the uplifting sense of triumph possess her, she -realized what it meant. Dropping her hand from the -tree trunk she stood upright, and facing the dawn, -with squared shoulders and raised chin, let her voice -roll out into the void before her.</p> - -<p>The song swelled triumphant like a hymn of some -pagan goddess to the rising sun. In the stillness of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_455">[455]</span> -the dawn-hush, with the columns of the monumental -pines behind her, the mountain wall and the glowing -sky in front, she might have been the spirit of youth -and love chanting her joy in a primeval world.</p> - -<p>When the last note had died away she stood for a -moment staring before her. Then suddenly she -wheeled, and, catching up her skirts with one hand, -ran back toward the house, brushing between the tree-trunks -and through the chaparral with breathless -haste. As she emerged from the thicket, she saw her -husband, in his rough mining clothes, standing on the -top step of the balcony.</p> - -<p>“Gam,” she cried, “Gam!”</p> - -<p>He started, saw her, and then waited smiling as she -came running up the garden path toward him, the -blaze of the sky behind her, her face alight with life -and color.</p> - -<p>“Why, dearest, I didn’t know what had happened to -you,” he cried. “Where did you go?”</p> - -<p>Her unslackened speed carried her up the stairs and -into his arms. Standing on the step below him she -flung hers round his shoulders, and holding him tight, -said breathlessly:</p> - -<p>“What do you think has happened?”</p> - -<p>“You met a bear in the wood.”</p> - -<p>“My voice has come back.”</p> - -<p>The two pairs of eyes, the woman’s looking up, the -man’s down, gazed deeply into each other. There was -a moment of silence, the silence of people who are still -unused to and a little overawed by their happiness.</p> - -<p>“I heard you,” he said.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_456">[456]</span>“You did? From here?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. I heard some one singing and stood here listening, -watching the light coming up.”</p> - -<p>“Was it good?” she asked, anxiously.</p> - -<p>“Very. I had never heard you sing before. You’re -a prima donna.”</p> - -<p>“That’s what I was going to be. You remember -hearing us talking about it at the Garcias’?”</p> - -<p>He nodded, looking down at the face where health -was coming back in delicate degrees of coral to lips -and cheeks.</p> - -<p>“And it really did sound good?” she queried again.</p> - -<p>“Lovely.”</p> - -<p>“Quite soft and full, not harsh and with all the sound -of music gone out of it?”</p> - -<p>“Not a bit. It was fine.”</p> - -<p>She continued to hold him around the shoulders, but -her eyes dropped away from his, which regarded her -with immovable earnestness, touched by a slight, tender -humor. She appeared to become suddenly thoughtful.</p> - -<p>“You can be a prima donna still,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she answered, nodding slightly. “I suppose -I can.”</p> - -<p>“And it’s a great career.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, a splendid career.”</p> - -<p>“You travel everywhere and make a fortune.”</p> - -<p>“If you’re a success.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’d be a success all right.”</p> - -<p>She drew away from him, letting one hand rest on -his shoulder. Her face had grown serious. She looked -disappointed.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_457">[457]</span>“Well, do you <i>want</i> me to be a prima donna?” she -asked, looking at her hand.</p> - -<p>He continued to regard her without answering, the -gleam of amusement dying out of his eyes.</p> - -<p>“Of course,” she added in a small voice, “if you’ve -set your heart on it, I will.”</p> - -<p>“What do you think about it yourself?” he asked.</p> - -<p>She gave him a swift, side look, just a raising and -dropping of the lashes.</p> - -<p>“Say what you think first,” she coaxed.</p> - -<p>“Well, then, I will.”</p> - -<p>He put his two hands suddenly on her shoulders, -big, bronzed hands, hard and muscular, that seemed -to seize upon her delicate flesh with a master’s grip.</p> - -<p>“Look at me,” he commanded.</p> - -<p>She obeyed. The gray eyes held hers like a magnet.</p> - -<p>“I think no. You don’t belong to the public, you -belong to me.”</p> - -<p>The color ran up into her face to the edge of her -hair.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Gam,” she whispered on a rising breath, “I’m -so relieved.”</p> - -<p>He dropped his hands from her shoulders and drew -her close to him. With his cheek against hers he -said softly:</p> - -<p>“You didn’t think I was that kind of a fool, did -you?”</p> - -<p>The sun had risen as they talked, at first slowly -peering with a radiant eye over the mountain’s shoulder, -then shaking itself free of tree-top and rock-point, -and swimming up into the blue. The top of the -range stood all glowing and golden, with here and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_458">[458]</span> -there a white peak, snowily enameled. The rows of -pines were overlaid with a rosy brilliance, their long -shadows slanting down the slopes as if scurrying away -from the flood of heat and light. The clear blues and -amethysts that veiled the hollow of the camp were dispersed; -the films of mist melted; a quivering silvery -sparkle played over the river shallows.</p> - -<p>In the clearing beams the life of the hive below -seemed to swarm and fill the air with the clamor of its -awakening. The man and woman, looking down, saw -the toiling world turning to its day’s work—the red -dust rising beneath grinding hoof and wheel, the cars -sliding swiftly on their narrow tracks, heard the shouts -of men, the hum of machinery, and through all and -over all, the regular throb of the engines like the heart -which animated this isolated world of labor.</p> - -<p>Barron looked at his domain for an attentive moment.</p> - -<p>“There,” he said, pointing down, “is where I belong. -That’s my life,—to work in wild places with men. And -yours is with me, my prima donna. We go together, -side by side, I working and you singing by the way.”</p> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="ph3">A LIST <i>of</i> IMPORTANT FICTION<br /> - - -THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="ph1">DIFFERENT AND DELIGHTFUL</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<p class="ph2">UNDER THE<br /> -ROSE</p> - -<p class="center">A Story of the Loves of a Duke and a Jester</p> - -<p class="center">By FREDERIC S. ISHAM</p> - -<p class="center">Author of The Strollers</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>In “Under the Rose” Mr. Isham has written a most -entertaining book—the plot is unique; the style is graceful and -clever; the whole story is pervaded by a spirit of sunshine and -good humor, and the ending is a happy one. Mr. Christy’s -pictures mark a distinct step forward in illustrative art. There -is only one way, and it is an entertaining one, to find out what -is “Under the Rose”—read it.</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<p>“No one will take up ‘Under the Rose’ and lay it down -before completion; many will even return to it for a repeated -reading.”—<i>Book News.</i></p> - -<p>“Mr. Isham tells all of his fanciful, romantic tale delightfully. -The reader who loves romance, intrigue and adventure, -love-seasoned, will find it here.”—<i>The Lamp.</i></p> -</div> - -<p class="center"> -With Illustrations in Six Colors by<br /> -Howard Chandler Christy<br /> -12mo, Cloth, Price, $1.50</p> -</div> - - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="ph1">A GOOD DETECTIVE STORY</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<p class="ph2"> -THE<br /> -FILIGREE BALL</p> - -<p class="center">By ANNA KATHERINE GREEN<br /> -Author of “The Leavenworth Case”</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>This is something more than a mere detective story; it is -a thrilling romance—a romance of mystery and crime where -a shrewd detective helps to solve the mystery. The plot is a -novel and intricate one, carefully worked out. There are constant -accessions to the main mystery, so that the reader can -not possibly imagine the conclusion. The story is clean-cut -and wholesome, with a quality that might be called manly. -The characters are depicted so as to make a living impression. -Cora Tuttle is a fine creation, and the flash of love which she -gives the hero is wonderfully well done. Unlike many mystery -stories The Filigree Ball is not disappointing at the end. The -characters most liked but longest suspected are proved not only -guiltless, but above suspicion. It is a story to be read with a -rush and at a sitting, for no one can put it down until the -mystery is solved.</p> - -</div> -<p class="center"> -Illustrated by C. M. Relyea.<br /> -12mo, Cloth, Price, $1.50</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="center"><i>It is fresh and spontaneous, having nothing of<br /> -that wooden quality which is becoming<br /> -associated with the term<br /> -“historical novel.”</i></p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<p class="ph2">HEARTS<br /> -COURAGEOUS</p> - -<p class="center">By HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>“Hearts Courageous” is made of new material, a picturesque -yet delicate style, good plot and very dramatic -situations. The best in the book are the defence of George -Washington by the Marquis; the duel between the English -officer and the Marquis; and Patrick Henry flinging the -brand of war into the assembly of the burgesses of Virginia.</p> - -<p>Williamsburg, Virginia, the country round about, and -the life led in that locality just before the Revolution, form -an attractive setting for the action of the story.</p> -</div> - -<p class="center"> -With six illustrations by A. B. Wenzell<br /> -12mo. Price, $1.50</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="ph1">THE GREAT NOVEL OF THE YEAR</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<p class="ph2">THE MISSISSIPPI<br /> -BUBBLE</p> - -<p class="center"><i>How the star of good fortune rose and set and rose<br /> -again, by a woman’s grace, for one<br /> -John Law, of Lauriston</i></p> - -<p class="center">A novel by EMERSON HOUGH</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>Emerson Hough has written one of the best novels that has -come out of America in many a day. It is an exciting story, -with the literary touch on every page.—<span class="smcap">Jeannette L. Gilder</span>, of <i>The Critic</i>.</p> - -<p>In “The Mississippi Bubble” Emerson Hough has taken -John Law and certain known events in his career, and about -them he has woven a web of romance full of brilliant coloring -and cunning work. It proves conclusively that Mr. Hough -is a novelist of no ordinary quality.—<i>The Brooklyn Eagle.</i></p> - - -<p>As a novel embodying a wonderful period in the growth of -America “The Mississippi Bubble” is of intense interest. As -a love story it is rarely and beautifully told. John Law, as -drawn in this novel, is a great character, cool, debonair, audacious, -he is an Admirable Crichton in his personality, and a -Napoleon in his far-reaching wisdom.—<i>The Chicago American.</i></p> -</div> - -<p class="center"> -The Illustrations by Henry Hutt<br /> -12mo, 452 pages, $1.50</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="ph1">A SPLENDIDLY VITAL NARRATION</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<p class="ph2">THE MASTER OF<br /> -APPLEBY</p> - -<p class="center"><i>A romance of the Carolinas</i></p> - -<p class="center">By FRANCIS LYNDE</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>Viewed either as a delightful entertainment or as -a skilful and finished piece of literary art, this is -easily one of the most important of recent novels. -One can not read a dozen pages without realizing -that the author has mastered the magic of the storyteller’s -art. After the dozen pages the author is -forgotten in his creations.</p> - -<p>It is rare, indeed, that characters in fiction live -and love, suffer and fight, grasp and renounce in -so human a fashion as in this splendidly vital narration.</p> -</div> - -<p class="center"> -With pictures by T. de Thulstrup<br /> -12mo, cloth. Price, $1.50</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="ph1">A VIVACIOUS ROMANCE OF REVOLUTIONARY -DAYS</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<p class="ph2">ALICE <i>of</i> OLD<br /> -VINCENNES</p> - -<p class="center">By MAURICE THOMPSON</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p><i>The Atlanta Constitution says</i>:</p> - -<div class="blockquot2"> - -<p>“Mr. Thompson, whose delightful writings in prose and -verse have made his reputation national, has achieved his -master stroke of genius in this historical novel of revolutionary -days in the West.”</p> -</div> - -<p><i>The Denver Daily News says</i>:</p> - -<div class="blockquot2"> - -<p>“There are three great chapters of fiction: Scott’s tournament -on Ashby field, General Wallace’s chariot race, and -now Maurice Thompson’s duel scene and the raising of -Alice’s flag over old Fort Vincennes.”</p> -</div> - -<p><i>The Chicago Record-Herald says</i>:</p> - -<div class="blockquot2"> - -<p>“More original than ‘Richard Carvel,’ more cohesive than -‘To Have and To Hold,’ more vital than ‘Janice Meredith,’ -such is Maurice Thompson’s superb American romance, -‘Alice of Old Vincennes.’ It is, in addition, -more artistic and spontaneous than any of its rivals.”</p> -</div> -</div> -<p class="center">VIRGINIA HARNED EDITION</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="center">12mo, with six Illustrations by F. C. Yohn, and a Frontispiece<br /> -in Color by Howard Chandler Christy. Price, $1.50</p> -</div> -</div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="ph1">“NOTHING BUT PRAISE”</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<p class="ph2">LAZARRE</p> - -<p class="center">By MARY HARTWELL CATHERWOOD</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>Glorified by a beautiful love story.—<i>Chicago Tribune.</i></p> - -<p>We feel quite justified in predicting a wide-spread and -prolonged popularity for this latest comer into the ranks of -historical fiction.—<i>The N. Y. Commercial Advertiser.</i></p> - -<p>After all the material for the story had been collected a -year was required for the writing of it. It is an historical -romance of the better sort, with stirring situations, good bits -of character drawing and a satisfactory knowledge of the -tone and atmosphere of the period involved.—<i>N. Y. Herald</i>.</p> - -<p>Lazarre, is no less a person than the Dauphin, Louis -XVII. of France, and a right royal hero he makes. A prince -who, for the sake of his lady, scorns perils in two hemispheres, -facing the wrath of kings in Europe and the bullets -of savages in America; who at the last spurns a kingdom that -he may wed her freely—here is one to redeem the sins of even -those who “never learn and never forget.”—<i>Philadelphia -North American.</i></p> -</div> - -<p class="center"> -With six Illustrations by André Castaigne<br /> -12 mo. Price, $1.50</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="ph1">YOUTH, SPLENDOR AND TRAGEDY</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<p class="ph2">FRANCEZKA</p> - -<p class="center">By MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>There is no character in fiction more lovable and appealing -than is Francezka. Miss Seawell has told a story of youth, -splendor and tragedy with an art which links it with summer -dreams, which drowns the somber in the picturesque, which -makes pain and vice a stage wonder.</p> - -<p>The book is marked by the same sparkle and cleverness of -the author’s earlier work, to which is added a dignity and force -which makes it most noteworthy.</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<p>“Here is a novel that not only provides the reader with a -succession of sprightly adventures, but furnishes a narrative -brilliant, witty and clever. The period is the first half of that -most fascinating, picturesque and epoch-making century, the -eighteenth. Francezka is a winsome heroine. The story has -light and shadow and high spirits, tempered with the gay, -mocking, debonair philosophy of the time.”—<i>Brooklyn Times.</i></p> -</div> - -<p class="center"> -Charmingly illustrated by Harrison Fisher<br /> -Bound in green and white and gold<br /> -12mo, cloth. Price, $1.50</p> -</div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="ph1">WHAT BOOK BY A NEW AUTHOR HAS<br /> -RECEIVED SUCH PRAISE?</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<p class="ph2">WHAT MANNER<br /> -OF MAN</p> - -<p class="center">By EDNA KENTON</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>The novel, “What Manner of Man,” is a study of what -is commonly known as the “artistic temperament,” and a -novel so far above the average level of merit as to cause even -tired reviewers to sit up and take hope once more.—<i>New -York Times.</i></p> - -<p>It will certainly stand out as one of the most notable novels -of the year.—<i>Philadelphia Press.</i></p> - -<p>It does not need a trained critical faculty to recognize that -this book is something more than clever.—<i>N. Y. Commercial.</i></p> - -<p>Note should be made of the literary charm and value of the -work, and likewise of its eminently readable quality, considered -purely as a romance.—<i>Philadelphia Record.</i></p> - -<p>Literary distinction is stamped on every page, and the author’s -insight into the human heart gives promise of a brilliant future.—<i>Chicago -Record-Herald.</i></p> - -<p>The whole book is full of dramatic force. The author is -an unusual thinker and observer, and has a rare gift for creative -literature.—<i>Philadelphia Evening Telegraph.</i></p> - -<p>“What Manner of Man” is a study and a creation.—<i>N. -Y. World.</i></p> -</div> - -<p class="center">12mo, Cloth, Gilt Top, $1.50</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<p class="ph1">The Bobbs-Merrill Company, <i>Indianapolis</i></p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="transnote"> -<p class="ph1">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:</p> - - -<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.</p> - -<p>Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.</p> - -<p>Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.</p> -</div></div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOMORROW’S TANGLE ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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