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An Oregon Girl: A Tale of American Life in the New West

by Alfred Ernest Rice · English · Gutenberg #38019 · 462,235 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: An Oregon Girl: A Tale of American Life in the New West

Author: Alfred Ernest Rice

Illustrator: Colista Murray Dowling


        
Release date: November 15, 2011 [eBook #38019]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38019

Credits: Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
        produced from images made available by the HathiTrust
        Digital Library.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN OREGON GIRL: A TALE OF AMERICAN LIFE IN THE NEW WEST ***




Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
produced from images made available by the HathiTrust
Digital Library.)





[Illustration: Virginia "cautiously pushed aside the portiere, then
entered the room."]




An Oregon Girl

Alfred Ernest Rice

1914




SCENES: Portland, Oregon, and environs.

TIME: Within the last fifteen years.

PERSONAE:

  John Thorpe: Director, Investment Co.
  Constance: His wife
  Virginia: His sister, An Oregon Girl
  Dorothy: His five-year-old daughter
  Hazel Brooke: His niece
  Smith: His Irish coachman
  Philip Rutley: Ex-president, Investment Co.
  Jack Shore: Ex-secretary Investment Co.
  James Harris: Retired merchant
  Mrs. Harris: His wife
  Sam Harris: His nephew, and hero
  Joe Corway: Secretly engaged to Virginia, but forsakes her for Hazel
  Mr. Williams: Attorney at Law
  Dr. Mackay: The Harris family physician
  Simms: A detective
  Wells: Harris' coachman
  Gene, Spike: Boys
  Ship's officers, and others




INTRODUCTORY


In the year 19-- a legend adorned with gold and bearing the significant
words, "The Securities Investment Association, Mr. Philip Rutley,
President, Mr. Jack Shore, Secretary-Treasurer," appeared on the glass
panel of a certain office door on Third street, in the city of
Portland, Oregon.

These two men were middle-aged bachelors, and moved in select society.
Through their social standing they had persuaded two wealthy men of
the city to lend their names as stockholders and directors in the
company; but the Investment Company's business failed to meet the
expenses which the social living of the two promoters felt were
demanded of them, and the inevitable happened, viz., a resort to
dishonest manipulations of sundry bond transactions by which the two
wealthy directors had to "make good."

It resulted, on discovery, in the immediate closing of the office and
prosecution of the offenders was ordered; but because of their social
standing and promise to leave the city at once, criminal proceedings
were suspended.

Three years elapsed. In the medium-sized room of a plainly furnished
flat, in a genteel suburb of the "Bay City," a man sat brooding over
the ill luck which had pursued him for the past few years. This man,
as he sat with elbows on his knees and chin resting on his hands, was
looking through the open window and out over the bay, out over that
far off rugged ridge of purple and gray and white that projected up in
the clear ethereal blue, northward, gazing with eyes fixed into
nothingness, for he was deeply absorbed in a review of his past career
and of the sunny time he had enjoyed while living in Portland.

His straw colored hair, verging to a sandy hue, framed a smooth shaven
face of marked strength and intelligence. His eyes of a bluish gray,
were bright when shielded by spectacles, worn more from fashion than
necessity, glittered with keenness and energy.

Jack Shore rarely allowed his naturally aggressive and buoyant spirits
to remain for long depressed by a gloomy retrospect; but the purpose
of his prolonged stare at vacancy on this occasion was attributable to
the necessity of another visit to Mr. Loan-on-personal-property.

His reverie was ended by the abrupt entry of his companion, Philip
Rutley, who drawled out in quiet tones: "Jack--Aw--I beg pardon. I see
you are engaged."

Jack looked at his visitor, noted his dignified bearing and unwonted
coolness as he removed his gloves; noted the smile of cunning pleasure
that played about his mouth and, from experience, concluded that some
deep scheme had been thought out and a line of action forming.

"Well, Phil," he replied, "what game is on now?"

"A well dressed lady and gentleman, strangers," began Phil, "halted me
on Market Street and addressed me as 'My Lord Beauchamp.' They warmly
shook my hand and gushingly insisted that I promise them the pleasure
of presenting our very dear friends,--Mr. and Mrs. Orthodox--to Lord
Beauchamp at the Palace tonight."

"Of course, you consented!" quietly laughed Jack.

"Ahem! Unfortunately I had instructed my secretary to 'clear' the
yacht for the north this evening, and as all arrangements were
complete, must beg, with profound regrets" (and he bent low with
courtly grace) "to decline the pleasure. Should you be visiting
England next summer, my cordial invitation to rest a month or so
at--a--Beauchamp, Isle of Wight."

"And you--"

"Beckoned a passing cab; bade them 'adieu' and drove on a few blocks."

"I congratulate you on your iron-clad nerve," laughingly remarked
Jack. "And you withdrew with your new title,--a--me Lord Beauchamp,
sitting jauntily, like a chip on your shoulder,--undisturbed."

"How could I do otherwise? You know I am opposed to shocks, but
seriously, Jack, the incident has suggested a way out of our
embarrassment."

"How?"

"By carrying the thing on and be a lord in fact, with you as my
secretary."

Jack laughed, low and yet with a heartiness that was rollicking in its
abandon, and then added by way of parenthesis:

"I shall announce 'Your Grace's' intention to visit Portland."

"Precisely! You are well aware of the great esteem in which Me Lord
Beauchamp is likely to be held there, particularly by our friends, The
Thorpes, Harrises, et al."

"A proper entry will create quite a stir among the fashionable set,"
remarked Jack reflectively.

"And give us opportunities to 'work' them some."

"Are you agreed?"

"Yes," responded Jack. "It will be a damn good joke, anyway," and
again he laughed, for as the horn of plenty flitted before his vision
his spirits soared once more, above the measly depths of want and
anxiety. "As an American," he continued, "you have as much right to
play the role of Lord, General or Judge as any other name by which
your friends may be pleased to 'dub' you."





CHAPTER I.


Within the perimeter of a great semi-circle window in a large
luxuriously furnished room of a fashionable residence not far from
6666 Hill, in the city of Portland, two women sat reading.

It was an autumn afternoon, just after a light shower, a little warm
but rarely matched for the unusual splendor of its soft, dreamy
atmosphere--calm and clear as infinite space.

The incessant roar of the city's commerce floated up and through the
screened windows in muffled echoes, but the readers being accustomed
to the sound, were undisturbed.

At length one of the readers, a girl who had not seen more than twenty
summers, closed the book she had just finished reading and broke the
silence with the remark: "Most interesting! A great story!"

"Yes," exclaimed her companion, looking up, "particularly in its
treatment of the bogus Count. Indeed, it is realistic enough to be
true."

"So it appears!" replied the maid, "but just imagine such a thing to
happen--as for instance a tramp to impersonate successfully Lord
Beauchamp!"

"My Lord is a gentleman 'to the manor born,' and impossible of
counterfeit."

"I understand the reception by Mrs. Harris is to be given in his
honor?"

"Yes," replied Mrs. Thorpe, and smiling she went on: "He has promised
to take tea with us today."

"And do you know," said Hazel in an awed tone, "he's a Knight of the
Order of the Garter? It is reported that he is to be married to a
beautiful San Francisco girl."

"I have heard it mentioned, but I hardly think his Lordship seeks a
wife in America, because he is very wealthy."

"But, Constance,--love is sometimes eccentric!"

"Quite true, when its underlying motive is mercenary. You remember
Philip Rutley."

"Constance!" exclaimed the girl, with a stamp of her foot. "You know
the wise proverb, 'Let sleeping dogs lie.'"

It was then that Philip Rutley, impersonating Lord Beauchamp, was
ushered in, accompanied by Mr. Joseph Corway.

"Ah! My Lord," greeted Constance arising from her seat. "This
delightful corner has lured us to forget to welcome you at the portal
of our home. Allow me the pleasure of introducing Miss Hazel Brooke,
and you, Mr. Corway,--well you know we are always 'at home' to you."

As Rutley deliberately placed a monocle to his eye, he said, "A corner
with such an entrancing vista," carelessly waving his hand toward the
open, "is a pardonable lure to dreamy forgetfulness."

Then he stared at the girl and, as he supposed, conveyed the desired
impression, muttered: "Charming!" and that word, uttered with quiet
and apparently involuntary emphasis, at once made Hazel Brooke his
friend, and, to add to the favorable impression which Rutley perceived
he had created, he bowed low and said suavely: "Miss Brooke will
permit me to say, I rejoice in her acquaintance."

"Your Lordship may find me a deceiver."

"I shall not believe so winsome a flower can be unreal." And he again
fixed the monocle to his eye and stared at her in pleased assurance.

"Art simulates many charming things of nature," remarked Mrs. Thorpe,
and she slyly glanced at Hazel.

The girl almost laughed; but her gentle breeding came to the rescue,
and she bore Rutley's stare with admirable nonchalance, until Mr.
Corway, feeling a little amused at Lord Beauchamp's monopoly of the
girl's attention answered Mrs. Thorpe: "Yet nature cannot be excelled
in anything that is beautiful in art."

For which he received from the girl a smile that thrilled him with a
conviction that no lord, no croesus, nor commoner, could dethrone him
from her heart.

The ordeal in which Hazel found herself under Rutley's disconcerting
stare, was terminated by Mrs. Thorpe.

"Your Lordship must be familiar with many beautiful things of nature.
By the way, I want you to visit our conservatory. We have some choice
exotics there from the Orinoco."

Rutley removed his monocle, and turned to Mrs. Thorpe. "My secretary
obtained some rare specimens in Bogota, nevertheless I shall consider
it a pleasure to visit your collection, for indeed it must be superb,
judging from such natural beauty already in evidence."

"You are coming, too," said Mrs. Thorpe, turning to Hazel and Mr.
Corway.

"Thanks!--that is,--we shall join you presently," stammered Mr. Corway,
looking at Hazel with a half smile.

Mrs. Thorpe looked amused as she said: "Oh, very well," and then,
halting on the threshold, turned again and added: "Hazel, dear, don't
forget the conservatory."

Rutley and Mrs. Thorpe had scarcely gone when Hazel exclaimed: "Well!
I'm waiting for you."

"Of course," Corway replied haltingly; then, after a pause, "Hazel!"

"Miss Brooke--please," she corrected, with a tantalizing smile.

"Oh--confound it. Hazel"--he began again.

"Are you coming?" she interrupted, moving away, but with an
aggravating smile playing fitfully about her face.

Whereupon he bowed low, with mock formality, approached her offering
his arm. "I crave the honor."

The girl placed her hand in his arm with a promptness that flushed his
face, but immediately blanched it with the teasing remark: "It's to be
only as far as the conservatory, you know."

"And from there around the grounds," he replied tenderly.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "You insist on going the rounds with me? Oh, very
well!" and they laughed together.

Shortly after they had gone, the portieres of an entrance to the left
were cautiously parted and a young girl peeped in, then entered the
room. She was the embodiment of youth, happiness and expectancy.

She was dressed in the whitest of white muslin. A narrow band of
magenta-colored silk encircled her slender waist, the long, loose ends
of the bow flowing almost to her feet, while her mass of raven black
hair drawn back from her fair white forehead, and coiled at the back
of her shapely head lent a queenly grace to a divinely moulded form.

The suppleness of her carriage, intensified by the simplicity of her
soft, faultless dress, was a poem of delight which needed no skill of
adornment to beautify; no touch of art to dignify.

Across the room she stole, as lightly as though her feet were winged,
and listened at the door.

"I am sure I heard his voice!" Then with a smile of joy, she tripped
to the open window overlooking the piazza, and looked out,
murmuring--"how I long to see him. My Joe! Handsome, manly Joe, I adore
you. And these, his flowers--his favorite flower, our beautiful rose,"
drawing from her hair two red roses, which she kissed again and again.

"I hurried home because I could not remain away from you, and now--oh,
the joy of a glad surprise--I hear footsteps!" and she listened
expectantly, then turned to behold Mrs. Harris, an elderly lady of
portly bearing and elegantly dressed, who was at that moment entering
from the piazza.

"Why, Virginia, I am delighted. You look the happiest girl in the
land," taking her hand and kissing her. "Oregon peach-bloom on your
cheeks, too; I'll wager you are just in from the farm, you hayseed."

"Yes, and I've had the most delightful time," replied the girl softly.
"Romped over the fields of sweet-smelling clover, and through the
orchards, and helped in the hay-field, too," she laughed joyously.

"Hands up! I mean the palms," said Mrs. Harris, in mock severity. "It
must have been a silver rake you handled in the hay-field," she
resumed, after scrutinizing the palms of Virginia's outstretched
hands, "for there isn't even a callous."

"It is harvest time," replied the girl, laughing, "and the harvest
moon is death to callouses, you know."

"We've missed you, dear, at Seaside," said Mrs. Harris. "But still you
look just as charming as though you had been there the entire season."

"You rude flatterer. The seaside is nice, but I love our dear old farm
home in the valley, best. Yet"--Virginia continued, demurely, with
downcast eyes, "it seemed a little dull this year, and, you see, I
have a reason for coming in before the harvest is over."

As the girl stood with downcast eyes, her countenance appeared
exquisitely regular, dignified and very beautiful.

"Ah, dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Harris, with admiration. "An affair of the
heart--a man in it, eh, dear?--I know him. He will be here in a few
moments--lucky fellow!"

"Will he?--are you sure?"

"Dear me! How joyful you are!" said Mrs. Harris, staring kindly at
her.

"Oh, if you had been away from your sweetheart for so long a time as I
have been from mine"--

"Ha! ha! ha! ha!" laughed Mrs. Harris. "Why, Virginia dear, only two
weeks! Really you carry me back to my own girlish days, just after I
met James--I remember well--my heart nearly fluttered out of its place."

"My heart fluttered out of its place weeks and weeks ago, and will not
flutter back, unless"--

"Unless what, dear?"

"Unless he despises it," she said, with a sigh.

"Well, the dear boy is pining to see you. That I know, so there is a
pair of you."

"Is he getting thin?" questioned Virginia, eagerly.

"Not exactly, but--listen!" And Mrs. Harris held up a warning finger as
she looked out over the piazza.

"He is coming!"

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Virginia, in an ecstacy of joy. "I shall hide
and surprise him. Oh! his favorites have wilted. I will pluck fresh
ones in the conservatory, and hasten back--don't tell!" and with that
she flew out of the room through the portieres.

As Mrs. Harris stood alone in a contemplative mood, she said aloud to
herself: "Oh, dear! These hearts of ours! How foolish they make us at
times--I have often thought our Sam was a 'lady killer,' now I am sure
of it."

Just then Sam Harris stepped across the piazza and entered the room.

Sam was a young man just having passed his twenty-fourth birthday. His
strong chin was indicative of fidelity to his friends, and his mass of
reddish, curly hair lent expression to a jovial expression of
countenance.

Sam was particularly joyous in anticipation of meeting Virginia
Thorpe. "Have you seen her, Auntie?" and he straightway opened a door
leading to the library and looked in; then he closed it.

Mrs. Harris quietly watched him and became disturbed with misgivings,
lest his zeal in his present frame of mind would impair the dignity
she considered so essential to his enterprise as well as to the
position the Harrises held in society.

It was therefore necessary to impress on him the importance of
"proper" form, which she immediately undertook, and addressed him with
calm stateliness.

"Now, Sam, I warn you to be careful how you greet Virginia. Remember,
though but twenty-two, she is an accomplished young lady."

"Don't I know it!" he replied, with a satisfied smile.

"Don't touch the portieres, Sam! Sam!" she exclaimed in alarm, but her
command was unheeded, and Sam spread them wide apart, much to his
aunt's consternation.

No one being behind the portiere, she appeared amazed, but quickly
recovering her composure, continued:

"Dear me! How very strange! Oh, yes, I forgot. She has gone to the
conservatory." Then she muttered in low tones:

"Now I have said it, and she told me not to tell."

"Well, I'm off to the conservatory, too--eh, Auntie! Don't follow me,"
and he strode toward the piazza.

"Sam! Sam! Remain here. I have something to say to you."

"Well, be quick, Auntie. You know I am crazy to see her. Eh! I guess
so."

"'Crazy!' Well, remember the least display of rudeness or unseemly
eagerness will be promptly met with a frown of displeasure."

"Auntie, she's finer than the petals of a rose."

"But, like a rose, too, she is just as sensitive," cautioned Mrs.
Harris, as she majestically moved over to the mantel--and then she
abruptly turned, at a fresh thought. "Sam, for the sake of our social
prestige--for my own hope that your affection shall be reciprocated"--

"Love, Auntie!" interrupted Sam. "That's the word. It's short and to
the point. Eh?"

Quite undisturbed by the interruption, she continued: "And for the
supreme pleasure it would afford me to see the house of Harris united
to the house of Thorpe, I desire that you give me an example of the
manner you intend to approach Virginia."

The idea appeared so grotesque to Sam that he gave a slight
inclination of his head, a habit he had somehow acquired in the
"Desert," and exclaimed in startled emphasis: "Ea-Ah! How?"

"By addressing me as you would her."

With a smile broadening his face and a roguish twinkle of the eye, he
exclaimed: "Can't be done, Auntie! You ain't the real thing. Can't
work up any excitement over a counterfeit."

"Sam! It grieves me to say that I fear for your success. Her rejection
of your suit would mean humiliation for us. Therefore I insist that
you remember what I have told you and address Virginia as I shall
instruct you."

Sam was too shrewd to oppose his aunt's determination--a previous
experience having taught him the desirability of quietly agreeing with
her notions, so with a smile of acquiescence he answered:

"All right, Auntie! Fire away."

Drawing herself up in a stately pose, she passed to the end of the
room, turned, and again faced him. "Now, Sam, I request you to impress
upon your memory every word I utter, so that you may salute your
lady-love in a similar manner. Do you comprehend?"

"I think so, Auntie," and thereupon thrust his hands in his trouser
pockets.

"Sam, remove your hands from your pockets. It is neither good form nor
in accordance with polite usage, for a gentleman to bury his hands in
his trouser pockets, when in the presence of a lady."

"All right, Auntie!" and he grinned broadly as he removed the
offending hands.

With a most affable smile, yet maintaining a dignified carriage, she
advanced down the room, halted midway, and gracefully bowed, then
continuing, extended her hand, which Sam took. She again bowed and
carried his hand to her lips; then taking both his hands in hers and
looking straight into his eyes, smiled and said:

"I am delighted to have the honor of congratulating Miss Thorpe on her
safe return." She then released his hands and proceeded across the
room.

"Is that all?" came from Sam, in a burst of dismay.

Mrs. Harris turned sharply and emphatically exclaimed: "Yes, Sam. In
your conversation with Virginia beware of gushing familiarity. Nothing
to my mind is more likely to jeopardize your suit than absurd
vulgarity." So saying, she again turned and proceeded toward the door.

"Auntie, I can do better than that. Why, you left out the best part."
And his eyes twinkled mischieviously, while a laugh on his face was
suppressed with difficulty.

She turned quickly, and in much surprise exclaimed: "Dear me! I didn't
know it. What is it?"

"I will show you." With that Sam passed to the end of the room and
turned. "Now, Auntie, I'll try to think that you are my sweetheart,
Virginia."

Smiling, he proceeded down the room, halted midway, bowed and then
continued toward his aunt, took her right hand, clasped it between his
two, and looked into her eyes. He then raised her hand to his left
shoulder and while he held it there, pressed her waist with his right
arm--"I am delighted to welcome you home again." Pressing her closer to
him--"Believe me--I--I can never forget--that I--I,"--then he became
absent-minded and, to save himself, suddenly blurted out--"I love
you--there!" And he kissed her lips and embraced her vigorously. Then,
with a whirl, he released her, laughing as he did so, and exclaimed:
"Ah ha! I guess so, eh, Auntie?"

Mrs. Harris recovered herself, in the middle of the room, and gasped
out: "Oh, dear! What a shock. I am sure I am twisted all out of
shape."

Sam stood with a satisfied grin on his face, and thrust his hands in
his trouser pockets, and watched her. "That was love! The real
thing--eh, Auntie!"

"Dear me," she exclaimed, between her labored breathing. "I was never
treated to anything so rude in my life. Your arm, Sam. Assist me to
the piazza. I must have more air."

"Auntie, you wait till I try it on Virginia. Oh, my! Eh!"

Meanwhile a little scene was being enacted in the conservatory,
destined to produce the gravest consequences to others than those
directly concerned. After examining the rare plants, Mrs. Thorpe and
My Lord had passed out to an attractive bed of massed chrysanthemums,
fringed with geraniums, then in full flower--leaving Hazel and Corway
alone.

Propitious fate again granted him the opportunity he so ardently
desired.

They were looking at some violet buds, concealed by giant Canna leaves
and a profusion of palms, when there passed through the girl's frame
one of those mysterious thrills--which man designates magnetic, but
which Providence has really made inscrutable to the human
understanding.

"I wonder," she faintly exclaimed, and slowly turning her head--their
lips met.

Though stolen, it was delicately done--one of those exquisite little
gems of cause and effect, which naturally happen to true sweethearts.

They stood looking at each other in surprised silence.

"I did not grant you that privilege," at length broke from Hazel, in a
faltering manner--her cheeks flushing and her soft blue eyes dancing.

"I could not resist the temptation," and taking her two hands in his,
added: "Hazel, I love you! Will you be mine?"

"Why, Mr. Corway!" replied the maid, disengaging herself.

She spoke and acted quietly, while a bewitching smile shone in her
eyes.

At that moment, unnoticed by them, a shadow suddenly darkened the
doorway. It did not tarry long, and swiftly disappeared.

Unseen herself, Virginia had entered the conservatory, her footfalls
as light as her joyous young heart, the happiest of the happy.

Hearing that voice, she had paused, then gently parted some leaves
and--the smile died on her lips.

She stood for a moment like one transfixed, listening in an amazed
wonder, then, undiscovered, she silently withdrew into deeper foliage.

"Why draw away from me, Hazel?" went on Corway.

"Because! You may not be sincere!" replied the girl, shyly.

"Not sincere? Hazel, from the first moment that I beheld you I felt
that I stood in the presence of my fate."

"But, Mr. Corway,"--she returned, with that provoking smile still
lurking about the corners of her pretty mouth--"don't you love any
other?"

"No," he softly replied.

"Are you sure?"

"Sure!"

"Not even Virginia?"

"I respect her, but do not love her--Oh, Hazel, do not keep me in
suspense. Tell me you requite my love--promise to be mine, to cherish
and protect forever"--and again he took her unresisting hand in his and
drew her near him.

"Well, this is so serious that--don't you think that I should have a
little time to consider it?"

Her face had taken on a half-serious look, but the little cloud was
quickly chased away by a happy smile.

Nor did it escape the eager eye of her sweet-heart. He saw that her
hesitation was not to be taken seriously, and as a test he said in
soft, tremulous accents: "Then the girl I would die for does not love
me, does not care for me--"

Turning half around to him, in a pleading and half-reproachful way,
she tenderly emphasized: "Oh, I do love you, Joe, with all my heart."
And throwing wide her arms, fell on his breast, with the joy of a
maiden's first love flushing her face.

And then their lips met--deep in the sweet intoxication of love's first
confiding trust.

"Thou perfect flower! To express the fullness of my heart would be
impossible," he joyfully exclaimed.

And thus, while pressing her hand on his shoulder and feeling a ring
on her finger, he gently removed it.

"Oh! that's Virginia's ring; that is, I got it from her," she
protested feebly, her head pillowed on his breast.

"It shall be a 'Mizpah' of trust, dearest, and shall come back to you
with an engagement ring," he softly replied, as he slipped it into his
vest pocket.

In one of Virginia's happy girlish moments, she had picked up the ring
from Constance's dressing table, and admiring its beauty, smilingly
slipped it upon her own finger, with the owner's permission to wear it
awhile, but with the injunction to "be careful not to lose it, dear,
for I value it very highly. It was John's gift to me before we were
married"--and then later, on that same day, with Hazel's arm clasping
her waist and her own arm clasping Hazel's, the two happy girls
strolling through the grounds--to have Hazel remove it in the same
admiring fashion and slip it on her own finger, Virginia yielding to
her young cousin, just as Constance, in perfect trust, yielded to her.
And then in the morning, all forgetful of the ring, she left for the
Valley farm.

And now, on her sudden return, she beheld that same ring taken by
Corway as a size for Hazel's engagement ring, and heard him declare
"it shall be a Mizpah of trust, dearest."

A sigh unconsciously escaped her; a sigh freighted with the blood of
fibers as love tore itself away from her heart.

Hazel heard it, and in alarm said to Corway: "What is that? Did you
hear it? So like a moan?"

He looked around. "You were mistaken, dearest; there is none here but
you and me."

"Oh, yes, I heard it"--and with a timidity in which a slight sense of
fear was discernible, said: "Let us go out in the open."

But he held her firm, loath to release the beautiful being clasped
close to his heart.

"This is for truest love"--and he kissed her again, as she looked up
through eyes of unswerving fidelity. "This for never-faltering
constancy"--and again their lips met--"And this, a sacred pledge of
life's devotion, God helping me, forever more"--and their lips met yet
once again.

Then they passed out to join Mrs. Thorpe and Rutley.

Virginia had witnessed the pledge that meant the blighting of her
life's fond hopes, and she had heard his passionate declaration.

With straining eyes and a very white face, she watched them depart,
till there welled up and gathered thick-falling tears that mercifully
shut him out from her sight. She sat down on a bench.

She thought of the honeyed words and eager attention with which he
wooed her, and made captive her young heart's deepest, most ardent
passion, and now his perfidy was laid bare.

With an effort she became more composed, and exclaimed aloud: "So, the
almighty dollar is the object of Joseph Corway's devotion." And as her
indignation increased, she sprang from her seat, and with quivering
voice, said: "Oh, God! and I did confide in him so fondly, trusted him
so guilelessly, and now our engagement is ended and all is over
between us--forever." And notwithstanding her effort to suppress them,
sob after sob burst forth.

Strong-minded and of powerful emotions, Virginia Thorpe was a queenly
woman, a woman whose friendship was prized by her acquaintances, and
whose wealth of intellect was a charm to a strikingly graceful figure;
and the love that was in her nature once awakened, grew and
intensified day by day till at last a steadfast blaze of trust and
confidence glorified her personality.

Such she bore for Corway--until she discovered he loved Hazel. Oh, what
a change then came over her, as her heart yielded up its dearest
desire in tears of scalding bitterness.

"Oh, Joe! tenderly I loved you, passionately I adored you, and you led
me to believe that you loved none but me, yet all the time your heart
had gone out to another, and this is no doubt the real reason you
wanted our engagement to be kept a secret, and my love, which no woman
had greater, was but a plaything!" she thought to herself.

She looked at the roses she had unconsciously held in her hand, with
infinite tenderness, then crushed them, and broke them.

"Farewell, sweet emblems of truth and love." And throwing the flowers,
which she had so fondly kissed but a few moments before, among dead
leaves on the ground, said in a voice that trembled with the pathos of
the death of love's young dream:

"Thus perish all my young life's happy hopes. Gone! Gone among the
things that are dead." Sobs of bitterest disappointment again burst
from her lips.

Suddenly she brushed her hand across her eyes--it was then that
Virginia's transformation took place.

From the guileless, joyful, winsome maid, emerged a woman--beautiful,
but alas, subtle, alert and avenging. With a stamp of her foot she
said, with sudden determination:

"Away with these tears. What have I to do with human feelings now? I
will conquer this weakness, though in the process my heart be changed
to stone.

"Now, Corway, beware of me, for you shall know that the love you have
toyed with has changed to hate, an unappeasable, undying hate, and you
shall learn, too, that a woman's revenge will pause at nothing that
will help to gratify it." Then she slipped out of the conservatory,
with the intention to get to her room, if possible, unobserved, but
was halted by hearing Constance say: "Virginia, dear! I wish to make
you acquainted with Lord Beauchamp."

There was no chance for evasion or escape. Virginia had not noticed
them as she passed, for they were hidden by the angle of the
conservatory, and she was quite close to them when addressed by
Constance.

Quick of wit, the girl realized that some excuse was necessary to
account for the appearance of her tear-stained face. Halting in her
flight, she drew her handkerchief and commenced to rub her eyes, and
speaking with faltering lips, for the wound in her heart was yet raw
and tender, she said: "Your Lordship finds me at an awkward
moment--something has gotten into my eye, and causes me acute pain, but
please believe, I esteem it an honor to number Your Grace among my
acquaintances."

"Dear heart!" exclaimed Constance, at once proceeding to examine the
girl's eye. "Let me try to relieve you!"

As Virginia felt the touch of loving fingers on her eyelids, she felt
powerless to restrain her emotion, and great tears welled up. Her
weary head fell forward upon her friend's shoulder, and she sobbed:
"Oh, Constance, dear, the world to me is one black charnel house."

The gentle nature of Constance leaped out in sympathy which, for the
moment, smothered her surprise. She threw her arms around Virginia and
kissed her on the temple.

That Virginia suffered was enough, she felt instinctively that such an
outburst of grief was from a far deeper source than that produced by
the mote in her eye.

Virginia always had confided in Constance. That desire to communicate,
so natural in youth, was strong in the girl. In Hazel, she had been
met with a sort of pity, till she ceased to touch upon girlish secrets
with her altogether, but in Constance she found one who would not
chide even folly, and so these two were, by the nature of things, very
close friends.

"There, dear heart," soothingly said Constance, "rest awhile, for I
know the pain must be severe."

Rutley was an involuntary witness to this bit of feminine sympathy,
and, no doubt, recalled it to memory in the events that were to come.
His immediate concern, however, expressed itself in a cold,
matter-of-fact manner. "Oftentimes," he said, "the protection supplied
by nature to the human eye seems insufficient, and consequent
suffering must be endured. I trust Miss Thorpe will soon find relief."

"Oh! I am sure the pain is only temporary," half rebelliously replied
Virginia, drawing away from Constance, and rapidly recovering her
self-possession, as she brushed the tears from her eyes. "There," she
said, "it is passing away now, and I can see quite distinctly already.
Why, how like your lordship resembles a past acquaintance," she
remarked, as she eyed him critically.

"Indeed, if the acquaintance you mention was not consigned to the
gallows, it might be no sin to resemble him," responded Rutley,
stroking his Vandyke beard.

"Oh! his offense was quite serious, poor fellow! Some shady bond
transaction with an investment association, in which he, and one Jack
Shore, were the officers. I have heard that the directors agreed not
to prosecute them on condition that they left the city and never
returned."

"In England, were it not for the color of my hair, I should have been
taken often for the Marquis of Revelstoke," and to the girl's dismay,
he stiffened up and directed on her a most austere and frigid look,
then deliberately fixed the monocle to his eye, and remarked, as his
frame faintly quivered, as with a slight chill--"It's deuced draughty,
don't-che-know!"

He then removed the monocle, and suddenly resumed his habitually suave
manner. Picking up a binocle, which lay on the table, he turned to
look toward Mt. Hood--"Sublime!" he exclaimed.

"It is very beautiful and white today," remarked Constance.

"Indeed," assured Rutley, "it seems close enough to touch with my
outstretched hand."

"My lord's arm would need to be thirty miles long," smiled Mrs.
Thorpe, who was then ascending the steps.

"A long reach," responded Rutley, lowering the glass.

"The illusion is due to our clear atmosphere," replied Mrs. Thorpe.

"I presume so," agreed Rutley.

"At times the air is phenomenally clear. One day this past Summer I
fancied I could make out the 'Mazamas,' who were then ascending the
mountain," quietly remarked Virginia.

"Aw, indeed, very likely; quite so," continued Rutley, handing the
glass to Constance, and then turning to Virginia with an alluring
smile, added: "And then, the ladies--are so bewitchingly entertaining."

"Presumably your idea of American girls has suggested the art of
flattery."

"No, no!" he replied. "It's no flattery, I assure you."

Just then Hazel and Mr. Corway approached the group standing on the
piazza.

Virginia saw them, and with an affected sigh, she turned to John
Thorpe, who was standing at the head of the piazza steps, and who also
was looking at the approaching couple, and taking him aside, said in a
low voice: "John, has it occurred to you that Corway is a handsome
man?"

"He certainly is good looking and well proportioned, too," replied
Thorpe, with a quizzical stare at his sister, and his stare developed
a smile, as he added, pleasantly: "But why?--are you, too, becoming
enamored of this handsome man?"

With downcast eyes, and sudden flushed cheeks, that betrayed the shame
she felt at the part she had elected to assume, her answer was given
in a low, serious voice: "I have reason to warn you as my cousin's
guardian, that his intentions are not of the best."

Thorpe felt a strange gripping sensation creep into his heart, and
then he, too, looked serious, but his seriousness quickly passed, as
he thoughtfully muttered: "No, no, 'tis impossible!" and then, in a
more unperturbed manner, said slowly: "His reputation for honor and
rectitude is above reproach."

Though his muttering was scarcely audible, Virginia heard him. "Are
you sure?" she replied, in a voice equally subdued, and with a flash
of anger in her meaning glance. "You may find that he will bear
watching. And you also may find that his attention to Hazel is an
insult to our family honor."

The possibility of Hazel, his guileless orphan niece, of whom he was
so proud, could be the victim of a base deception, had never entered
his mind, and so it happened that the first shadow that had darkened
the serenity of his trust, was, strangely enough, projected by his
sister.

As his eyes again fell upon Hazel's sweet, sensible face, then lifted
to the manly, honest countenance of her companion, he at once banished
the fear from his mind, and impatiently exclaimed: "Oh, this is
nonsense!" Then he turned on his heel, hesitated, and again turned,
and looked furtively at Corway, muttering: "Yet I cannot banish the
thought. I wonder what causes Virginia--no, I have never suspected him
of vice." Then he slowly disappeared through the vestibule.

As Corway and Hazel approached the steps, Virginia seemed to stiffen
and slightly shudder. She felt like ice, and disdained the slightest
recognition which he made to her. She turned away with a look of
ineffable contempt, and moved slowly over to Rutley and Constance.

Corway instinctively felt that she had been a witness to his scene
with Hazel, but he affected unconcern, and allowed the incident to
pass without comment.

During the brief time this significant episode was being enacted,
Hazel's attention was attracted to Sam and Dorothy approaching on the
drive, so she was unaware of the change that had come over her cousin.

"You must come in, Sam, 'cause I like you, and you haven't been to see
us for a long time--Oh, mamma, we have had such fine fun, Sam and
I"--and there appeared from around the corner of the piazza Dorothy
Thorpe pulling Sam Harris along by the sleeve.

"Well, Sam," said Mrs. Thorpe, overlooking him from the piazza, "we
thought you had forgotten us."

"No, indeed," replied Sam, and as he discovered Virginia, he added
under his breath: "At least not while that fair party is around."

"Of course, you have acted as Mrs. Harris' escort?"

"My aunt is on the lawn," he answered, and then as he ascended the
steps, greeted Virginia. "Miss Thorpe will permit me to congratulate
her upon her safe return."

"I have had quite a journey," replied Virginia coldly.

"Well, you have enjoyed it?" ventured Sam, and then he noted a swift
questioning glance of anger.

In his dilemma, he felt an awkwardness creeping over him and grinned
broadly, and then stupidly faltered: "That is, I guess so!"

"You guess wide of the mark."

"Aha," replied Sam, with a roguish twinkle of the eye, "my eyes do not
deceive me, eh?"

"Flattery is embarrassing to me. I beg of you to avoid it." And she
thereupon, with a look of weariness, turned and disappeared through
the vestibule.

"I guess so! I guess so!" exclaimed Sam, abashed, and a flush of
mortification overspread his face.

"Do you like auntie, Sam?" abruptly questioned the child.

She had softly stolen to his side, unperceived, and her voice sounded
so close as to startle him.

"Ea, ah!--well, I should think so," he unconsciously muttered.

"Mercy!" exclaimed Mrs. Thorpe, who could ill repress a
smile--"Dorothy, dear! I think the robins are calling for you out in
the sunshine."

"Come, little one," said Sam, glad of an opportunity to escape from an
awkward position. "And while you are listening to the feathered
songsters, I'll keep a sharp lookout for the fair party you call
auntie. Come," and he took the child's hand and the two ran down the
steps. Darting around the corner, they almost collided with John
Thorpe and Mrs. Harris, who were approaching to join the company on
the piazza.

"Ha--democratic Hazel in the role of 'noblesse oblige,' is something
new--congratulations, my lord, on the conquest!" said Mrs. Harris.

"I am proud of the acquaintance of so fair a a democrat," and
confronting Mrs. Harris, he continued: "England's nobility lays homage
at the feet of your fair democrats, for they are the golden links in
the chain of conquest."

"And it is my hope that soon one of the golden links will bear the
distinguished title, Lady Beauchamp," replied Mrs. Harris, while her
eyes flashed a merry twinkle in the direction of Hazel.

"Of course," remarked Mr. Corway, who, flushed with jealousy resented
the allusion. "His lordship doubtless since his arrival in the country
has been overwhelmed with offerings of the youth and beauty of
America."

"It seems to me that you are talking in mysteries," remarked Hazel.

Mr. Corway moved toward her. "I appeal to the shrine of beauteous Hebe
for vindication."

"Ha! ha! ha! ha!" laughed the girl. "Wouldn't it be a surprise if the
appeal should be negative?"

"But the shrine of Hebe is not often invincible," rejoined Constance.
"You must remember there is hope and there is perseverence--but this is
irrelevant," and, turning to Mrs. Harris, continued: "Have you left
Mr. Harris at Rosemont?"

"Oh, no! James is out in the flower garden, discussing rose culture
with Virginia."

"Then I propose that we join them," said Mrs. Thorpe.

"And I suggest a stroll through the lovely lawn, under the glory of
Autumn foliage," added Rutley, who immediately turned and offered
Constance his arm, and the two passed down the steps.

Hazel and Corway were following Rutley, when John Thorpe attracted the
girl's attention by quietly exclaiming: "Hazel!"

She at once turned to Corway: "I shall be with you directly--uncle has
something to say to me."

As Mr. Corway and Mrs. Harris passed down the steps, John Thorpe and
Hazel entered the house.

"You have something to say to me, Uncle?"

"Yes, Hazel," and as they passed into the drawing room he bit his lip
in an endeavor to appear unperturbed.

With a girl's intuition, she scented something unpleasant, and with a
timid and startled look, she faltered: "What--is it Uncle?"

"Hazel," he began, and his eyes rested on his beautiful niece--very
beautiful just then, her eyes bright and clear and "peach-bloom" of
health, the famed Oregon coloring so becoming to the sex, and as he
looked at her he became suddenly conscious of a struggle raging in his
breast. A struggle between doubt and confidence--but he stumbled on
slowly--"I think--you show more--concern for--a--the company of Mr. Corway
than prudence--I mean--Hazel!"

At that moment Virginia pushed aside the portiere and silently stepped
into the room.

John Thorpe paused, for he saw the girl's face whiten, and her eyes
look into his with an expression of wonderment, and then his heart
seemed to leap to his throat, and choke him with a sense of shame at
his implication.

He put his arm gently about her, looked into the depths of her blue
eyes, and said, kindly: "As you love the memory of your father and
your mother, Hazel, beware that you do not make too free in the
society of Corway. Let your conduct be hedged about with propriety"----

"Uncle!" she interrupted, drawing away from him like a startled fawn
hit from ambush.

Virginia saw her opportunity to sever the friendship between her
brother and Corway.

Before her transformation she would have been shocked beyond measure
at so wicked a falsehood, as she then decided to launch. Impelled by a
consuming desire for revenge, no blush of shame checked her mad
course, and "no still small voice" warned her of her sin.

She said: "John, if our family honor is to be protected from scandal,
you will prevent your niece from having further to do with Mr.
Corway."

Both John and Hazel turned toward her. A deep silence ensued.

Implicit trust and confidence, the confidence begotten in perfect
domestic peace and contentment, had followed John Thorpe--but now, for
the first time, he found a tinge of shame and indignation had crept
into his heart--and he could not banish it.

At last he gravely broke the silence--"Have you no answer to this,
Hazel?"

The girl's eyes flashed resentment, but she refrained from angry
expression, for to her uncle she always showed the greatest deference,
yet her voice trembled a little as she said, with girlish dignity: "I
decline to reply to such an absurdity."

"Hazel!" warned Virginia, "you are dangerously near ruin when in the
company of that man, for his reputation is anything but clean."

Again a painful silence followed, Hazel, appearing incapable of
clearly understanding just what it was all about, stood dumb with
astonishment, while John's varied emotions were seen plainly through
the thin veneer of tranquility he tried to maintain.

John Thorpe was jealous of the honor of his house. The mere thought of
its possible violation bruised and lacerated him.

Proud of his high position in society; proud of his high rectitude;
proud of his father's untarnished life; proud of the fact that not the
faintest shadow of scandal could ever attach to his house or name--the
hinted criminations of his his orphan niece, maintained in his home as
one of the family, beat upon him with much the same effect as the
horrifying wings of a bat upon the face of a frightened child.

Virginia saw and felt that the crisis of her ruse was near. Again a
flush of daring sprang into her eyes, ominous of deeper sin, but John
unconsciously spared her from further commitment. Doubt was master at
last, for he chose to lean toward Virginia.

"Hazel!" he exclaimed, his white, grave face betraying a keen sense of
his shame. "Your rash fondness for that man is a sacrifice of
affection, and I shall forbid him visiting our house."

"A wise precaution," commented Virginia.

At last Hazel's indignation broke through all restraint.

"I am astonished at your implications," she retorted, her voice
becoming pathetic with the sense of her wounded honor. "My 'rash
fondness'! Uncle!" and she drew her slight form up erect, her eyes
flashing defiance: "If to believe in Mr. Corway's preferment is a
sacrifice of affection, then that sacrifice is to me an exalted honor,
for I have consented to become his wife!"

"Hazel!" gasped John Thorpe, amazed and dismayed at her declaration.

"I have suspected such a calamity would happen--but even now it is not
too late to prevent it!" exclaimed Virginia, sharply.

"Why, Virginia," reproached Hazel, with a stamp of her foot. "You
insult me!" and she turned away to conceal the tears that arose.

During a short, impressive silence, Mrs. Harris abruptly entered the
room, followed by Corway and Sam. "Dear me!" she exclaimed, as she
smilingly surveyed the trio, "James has often gone into raptures over
the domestic cooing of the Thorpes, but I was quite unaware that it
made them careless of the wishes of their guests.

"Thorpe, your arm"--and she swept down the room and seized his arm.
"Hazel, I have brought you an escort," and with a smile at Virginia,
"I don't think that Sam is far away. You cannot refuse to come now."

Hazel proudly accepted Corway's arm. Then they turned to leave the
room. As they neared the door, Virginia exclaimed, with low but
startling irony: "Il. cavalier is careful to make it appear he is
delighted with the society of his affianced. No doubt feeling an
honorable justification for his mercenary felicity. Ho, ho," Virginia
laughed, her lips quivering with scorn. "The situation is charming.
Ha, ha, ha, ha."

The principals to this little drama understood its meaning perfectly,
but while Mrs. Harris paused for an instant in wonderment, her easy
nature forbade worry--and so the incident quickly passed out of her
memory, and Sam was too shrewd to show that he heard it, and with his
round face beaming with unquenchable admiration, bowed and offered his
arm to her, accompanied by the characteristic side movement of his
head--"Ea, ha, I guess so--eh, Auntie?"

The joyous manner of utterance was like a shaft of sunshine bursting
through the dark, tragic clouds of impending storm.

Virginia's first attack fell short of accomplishing the purpose
intended, yet the seed of doubt, of suspicion and fear of family
disgrace had been grounded in her brother's mind, and it would be
strange, indeed, if Corway's position proved invulnerable to more
carefully-planned attacks.

It must be remembered that an opportunity had come at an unexpected
moment, and she impulsively seized upon it. Through it all, however,
Virginia must be credited with a sincere belief that Corway's
intentions toward Hazel were as insincere and mercenary as they had
been to her.




CHAPTER II.


The night of the Harris reception at "Rosemont," in honor of Lord
Beauchamp, was beautiful. Dark, yet serene and tranquil as the
illimitable void through which the myriad of glittering stars swept
along on their steady course.

The long, gentle, sloping, velvety lawn, stretching away from the
broad steps of the great columned piazza, down to the placid waters of
the Willamette, was artistically beautified by clusters of magnolias
and chestnut trees and native oaks and firs, while the soft sway of
advanced Autumn was disclosed in the mellow, gorgeous tints of the oak
and maple leaf projected against the dark evergreen of the stately
fir; and afar off, to the north, through vistas in the foliage,
gleamed the steady electric arc lights of the city.

Marble statuary glistened in white repose, and groups of majestic
palms and ferns and holly stood illumined in the soft light of frosted
electric globes and quaint Oriental lanterns.

Out from the deep shadow of a wide-spreading oak, and remote from the
range of illumination, an old, decrepit and poorly clad man emerged,
peering cautiously about, as if afraid of discovery. As he approached
near the house and came under the gleams of light, it could be seen
that he was gray-haired and a cripple, for he hobbled slowly with the
aid of a stout stick. He proceeded to a clump of ferns and close to a
high-back, rustic seat, behind which he stood partially concealed.

Feeling satisfied that he had not been seen, and that he was alone,
that part of the grounds being temporarily deserted, he muttered
impatiently: "Where the devil does Rutley keep himself? I've been
dodging about these grounds for an hour trying to locate him, and to
get posted."

The words had scarcely escaped his lips when down behind the seat he
ducked.

Simultaneously, Virginia Thorpe and William Harris appeared,
descending the piazza steps.

"Congratulations, Mr. Harris, on your reception. It is a brilliant
affair, and the grounds are simply beautiful."

"I am delighted at receiving congratulations from a lady whose taste
is acknowledged without a peer."

"Now, Mr. Harris, you know I object to flattery," responded Virginia,
in a deprecating tone of voice. "Why, I have lost my fan. How
unfortunate! I fear I have dropped it in the ball-room."

"I shall try to find it immediately. No, no; no trouble whatever."

"Thanks, Mr. Harris. I shall await your return here."

As Mr. Harris hastened up the steps, Virginia leisurely moved a few
yards, and then sat down on a seat, quite unconscious of the figure
crouched in hiding behind it.

The proximity of Virginia did not suit the fellow, and he forthwith
endeavored to sneak away unseen, but the noise, faint as he made,
attracted her attention.

She sprang to her feet with a slight, terrified shriek, but quickly
recovering her self-possession, as she noted his aged and bent
condition, gently said: "Poor old man, your intrusion on these
premises may be unwelcome." After a pause, evidently for an answer,
she went on kindly: "Do you seek alms?"

Leaning on his stick he humbly removed his hat, and said in abject
tones: "Pitty da sorrar dees old-a da gray hairs. Eesa mak-a da bolda
to come a da here, so much-a da rich-a kind-a people to da poor old-a
men lik-a da me. Ten-a years eesa black-a da boot; saw da-ood, sella
da ba-nan, turnoppsis, carrotsis, ca-babbages; do any-ting for
mak-a-da mon, go back-a da sunny Italy. Look-a da lame! Canna da
work--mussa da beg, sweet-a da lady--kind-a charity."

"Dear me!" replied Virginia, regretfully. "I haven't a coin with me,
but let me advise you to begone, for you must know that if you are
discovered here your age will not protect you."

The old man bowed low. "Essa many tanks, kind-a lady. Essa da go."

"And mark me, sir," added Mr. Harris, who had quickly returned with
the fan. "Should I find you loitering around these grounds again
tonight, officers will take care of you."

"Oh, Signor! Dona tell a da po-lis. Da poor a da old a man essa much
da hunger. Begga do mon to buy a da bread. Eesa da all-a Signor. Eesa
da all."

"Oh, Mr. Harris, please lend me a coin for him. I fear he really is in
need," broke in Virginia.

"There!" responded Mr. Harris, throwing him a coin. "You can thank
this benevolent lady, whose presence affords you liberty. Not a word.
Off with you from these grounds. Begone."

The old fellow picked up the half-dollar piece, and hobbling away,
soon disappeared into the shadow.

"It is a pleasure to return your fan. I found it in the vestibule
uninjured."

"Thanks, Mr. Harris," said Virginia, receiving the fan. "I shall be
more careful of it hereafter."

"Ea-ah, I guess so, eh, Uncle!" broke in Sam, striding toward them.

"Oh, oh, Sam! Really!" laughed Mr. Harris, as he looked meaningly at
him. "Ah! You seem delighted."

"I think so, eh, Uncle," accompanied by the habitual side movement of
his head. "Congratulate me on having found Miss Thorpe after a long
search," and turning to Virginia, he added, with a smile broadening
his face--"you have promised to dance with me. May I indulge in the
pleasure now?"

"Yes, Sam," she replied, with an air of fatigue, "but I would rather
you defer the pleasure."

"Miss Thorpe is fatigued and Sam is too much of a gallant to deny her
a little rest," appealed Mr. Harris.

"Cert!" answered Sam, as a shade of disappointment flitted across his
face. "Anything I can do to serve Miss Thorpe shall be done."

"Thank you, Sam," replied Virginia, relieved.

"I will call upon Miss Thorpe to favor me with her company later, eh,
Uncle?" and Sam bowed and quickly disappeared.

"Sam is a noble-hearted fellow! Ranged the Texas plains a few years,
didn't he?"

"Yes," replied Mr. Harris. "When a lad he was threatened with
consumption, and physicians recommended a few years of out-door life
in Texas. It cured him, but he became a little fixed in the customs.
Sterling fellow, though--great heart--all heart. Be seated," pointing to
the seat which she had previously occupied.

At that moment there appeared descending the piazza steps Mr. Corway,
with Hazel and Constance on either side of him.

"Your reason, Corway, for doubting his title of lord?" interrogated
Constance.

"I possess no proofs," replied Corway. "I but express an opinion," and
he discreetly refrained from further utterance on the subject, though
his thoughts were insistent on his identity of Lord Beauchamp as
Philip Rutley.

"But you must have some grounds even for an opinion," persisted
Constance.

"Well, if he is not a lord," hazarded Hazel, who, purposely or
otherwise, by her joining the discussion, released Mr. Corway from an
embarrassing reply, which at that time he was loath to make, "he
certainly should be one, for he is such a dear, sweet man, so
eminently exact and proper."

"And so distinguished, don't-che-know," finished Mr. Corway, with such
peculiarly keen mimicry and smiling abandon as to draw from Hazel a
flash of admiration, and from Mrs. Thorpe a ripple of laughter with
the remark, "Satire unmasked by Cupid."

Further conversation was interrupted by Beauchamp himself, who
appeared alone, descending the broad piazza steps. "It's so warm in
there I decided to refresh a little in the cool air."

He halted a moment on one of the steps, fixed the monocle to his left
eye, and lordly surveyed the two groups.

After evidently satisfying himself as to their personnel, he
deliberately removed the monocle from his eye and resumed his passage
down the steps. "Miss Thorpe here, and Mr. Harris, and Mrs. Thorpe,
and the fair Hazel"--and ignoring Corway, he went on--"then I shall have
no need to commune alone with my thoughts."

"I am sure my Lord Beauchamp is too much of a devotee to the 'tripping
muse' to absent himself very long from the ball-room?" volunteered
Constance.

"Indeed it would be difficult for me to enjoy myself for any length of
time away from the place where, as Byron puts it, 'Youth and Beauty
meet, to chase the glowing hours with flying feet.'" And moving over
to Hazel, he said: "By the way, you have promised me the pleasure of
dancing with you the next waltz."

"Indeed!" replied the maid, eyeing him archly, "the honor of a waltz
with my lord is too rare a favor to be neglected."

The gracious and suave smile with which Rutley answered her was not at
all appreciated by Mr. Corway.

And as Rutley glanced his way, their eyes met. Virginia saw it. She
instantly grasped the full meaning of that glance--the deadly hatred of
rivals.

Rutley, with familiarity begotten of mutual esteem, as he fondly
hoped, linked Hazel's yielding arm in his and led her toward the
piazza. "By the way," and he spoke very confidently, "Mr. Corway seems
to have a warm attachment for Mrs. Thorpe"--

The girl halted and looked questioningly at him.

"I mean," continued Rutley, in a sort of apologetic tone, "he is
apparently quite the lion with her."

Passing a few feet near them were John Thorpe and Mrs. Harris, who had
appeared unnoticed from another part of the grounds.

John Thorpe plainly heard Rutley's allusion to Corway and his wife,
and became profoundly sensible of that same strange feeling infolding
him, as he experienced when Virginia first intimated Corway's
questionable character. "Is it possible that, after all, Constance,
and not Hazel, is the real object of his attention?"

He was conscious of a sense of jealousy arising within him, and so
strong and virulent as to be beyond control, and compelled him to turn
aside, to conceal the anger that must be depicted on his face. He
halted while Mrs. Harris joined Virginia and Mr. Harris.

"Mrs. Thorpe is most attractive," Hazel at length replied.

"I have heard that not long ago he was attached to Miss Thorpe, but
lately has transferred his affection to another," continued Rutley.

"Virginia was fond of his society, yet 'tis not always, you may
remember, that those who have won our love return it."

The strains of dreamy music drifted out upon the air.

"Well, at present, Corway seems persistent in his attentions to Mrs.
Thorpe."

Again John Thorpe winced at the connection of his wife's name with
Corway.

And then Rutley felt himself pushed aside, while Corway offered his
arm to Hazel.

"Will you accompany me to the ball-room?"

Hazel drew a step aside and exclaimed, half angrily, yet seemingly
rather pleased at Corway's audacity.

"Joe!"

"Hazel!" he responded with just the faintest suggestion of command in
his voice.

It was his first assumption of authority over his affianced, and he
won--for unlike the "feminine forwards" of the new school, she
appreciated his strong character and showed it by clinging to his arm.

Neither of these two men could be considered handsome, though Corway
had the advantage of being more youthful and taller of stature, with
large, bright eyes and dark curly hair, which with clear-cut, manly
features, seemed to charm the fancy and captivate the maiden's eye.

While Rutley's graceful and pliant frame carried more elegance, an
assumed superb superiority, a cold, ironical disdain and lofty ease,
bespoke an imperious nature, indifferent to that soft, beguilement so
charming to women.

Corway turned to Rutley, and, bowing low, exclaimed, with studied
politeness: "I beg my lord's pardon," and so saying, he passed up the
piazza steps with Hazel and disappeared within.

They were closely followed by Mr. Harris and Mrs. Thorpe.

Rutley fixed the monocle to his eye and stared at the retreating
Corway in blank amazement.

Meanwhile, John Thorpe was absorbed in profound thought, and oblivious
of his surroundings, said to himself: "What can his lordship mean?
Corway's persistent attention to my wife! Was that mere accidental
gossip? He shall explain!" And he looked fixedly at Rutley.

It was at that moment that Mrs. Harris, having reached his side, said:
"Your arm, Thorpe. Dear me!" And she started back at seeing his gloomy
face. "Why, I declare, the frowning 'Ajax' could not look more
unsociable."

For a moment Thorpe displayed confusion, but by a strong effort
subdued his agitation and offered his arm. "Of late," he explained,
"my nervous system has been subject to momentary shocks." Leading her
toward the piazza, "I beg your pardon."

"I am afraid that unless you provide yourself with a mask for such
occasions the shock is likely to become contagious," she remarked, as
they passed up the steps.

Meanwhile Rutley, having removed the monocle from his eye, allowed his
frigidity to dissolve, and, slowly stepping a few paces toward the
east end of the house, paused under the shadow of a magnolia, and at
once seemed to plunge in deep reflection, to be startled a few moments
later by hearing Virginia close to him, in a low tone, saying: "How
does my lord propose to resent that insult?"

Seeing him alone, she had noiselessly and unperceived, stolen to his
side, convinced by what she had just discovered, that he was
meditating some sort of revenge on Corway, and she determined to
ascertain its nature.

Her fertile brain had already conceived Rutley her ally, and it was
with no uncertain or wavering purpose that she approached him with a
question pregnant with sinister import.

Rutley looked at her steadily, as though trying to penetrate her
motive, then, without moving his eyes from hers, said deliberately:
"Well, if he doesn't apologize, my friend will call on him."

"You mean a shooting affair?"

"I do not say, but I understand that is a popular way in this country
to avenge an outrage."

"Yes, that is true," she said, "particularly in our West, but it is
fast going out of fashion. In fact, on the Coast, it is seldom
practiced now. Besides, my lord, I advise you not to try it. I've
heard he's a dead shot," and she abruptly stopped and looked furtively
about, and then, in a more discreet tone of voice, said: "Will you
walk?"

He instantly comprehended her desire to confide something of interest
to him, and as they slowly proceeded over the soft, velvety grass, and
without betraying haste to know what she was evidently anxious to
disclose, he replied, sneeringly:

"Ah, he is! Well, these affairs are settled in an honorable way in a
gentleman's country."

"I again warn you not to try it," she said. "If you do, you will
likely find yourself a subject for some hospital surgeon."

"Indeed!" laughed Rutley, with a sarcastic ring in his voice.

She halted, turned to him, and continued in a low tone. "Yes, there is
a better plan--that insult can be wiped out in a more effectual
manner."

"How?"

For one moment Virginia looked far off across the placid waters of the
Willamette, over and beyond the rugged hills shrouded in gloomy
repose. Was it the "still small voice within her crying in anguish
'beware, beware'," if so, it was unheeded, drowned in the impetuous
desire for revenge.

Shocked and enraged by the discovery of what she considered Corway's
perfidy, a strain of virulent passion possessed her, and subdued her
softer and otherwise most charming personality.

"Corway has done me a wrong I never will forget, and I shall not pause
at any opportunity to avenge it. My cousin, Hazel, is betrothed to
him. My brother has a rash, impetuous temper, and is exceedingly
jealous of our family honor. By insinuating Corway's insincere
attachment to Hazel, his money-mad impecuniosity, and so forth, you
will produce a coolness between John and Corway that may end in their
complete estrangement. We are watched," she whispered. "Let us move
on." Her alert eyes had discovered Sam standing alone on the piazza
steps, shading his eyes with his hand as he looked at them.

She guessed his purpose, but was too far away to hear him say angrily:
"If that lord attempts any fooling with that fair party, I'll give him
some eye-shutters, I guess so!"

Without heeding the episode, Rutley replied: "But you must know that
your brother has not insulted me, and you must also be aware that the
attempt to influence him may fail."

"If you will follow my directions John will consider you his friend.
If properly managed you need have no fear of its ultimate success. For
several months last year John was in China. During that time Corway
paid frequent visits to his home."

"But"--interposed Rutley, quickly.

"Do not misunderstand my meaning," responded Virginia, with an
involuntary flash of indignation. "Corway is a man of great moral
probity. But John may be brought to think him something the reverse.
Do you understand?"

"I will have satisfaction!" exclaimed Rutley.

"Somebody is following us," whispered Virginia.

"Where?" queried Rutley. "I fail to see anyone."

"It may have been the shadow of the swinging light," at length she
remarked, reassured, and, dismissing the thought from her mind,
continued: "I have already warned you of a duel. To prove how
insincere Corway's affection is for Hazel, you may call my brother's
attention to a ring that he wears on the little finger of his left
hand. I let Hazel have it for a short time because she admired it, and
begged it from me, and Corway took it from her."

"Has the ring any peculiar feature by which it may be distinguished
from others?"

"Yes, a single diamond set in a double heart of pearls."

"Is it yours?" he asked, softly.

"No," Virginia promptly answered, but she added in a hesitating
manner, as though weighing the propriety of further explanation--"that
is--well--it is mine for the purpose. I let Hazel have it unknown to
Constance."

And so it happened, a slip of the tongue, one inadvertent, indiscreet
admission, gave him his cue. A vision opened to his mind and he
immediately speculated on its possibilities.

"Then the ring belongs to Mrs. Thorpe?" he questioned, insidiously.

"Yes," Virginia affirmed, in a halting way. "John gave it to Constance
before they were married."

"Oh, indeed!" Rutley exclaimed, and he muttered low and meaningly,
while the whites of his eyes gleamed with sinister import. "Corway
wears a ring given by John Thorpe to his wife."

Soon as he had spoken Virginia heard and instinctively felt that she
had been indiscreet in admitting the ring belonged to Constance, and
said by way of caution: "Of course, I trust in the honor of your
lordship to refrain from connecting Mrs. Thorpe's name with the ring,
or to, in any manner, let it be known that you know it is not mine."

Evidently Rutley did not hear her, for he was absorbed in
thought--thought that produced an evil gleam in his eyes.

A slight pause followed, and taking it for granted my lord would not
betray the trust she reposed in him, she said, as looking in his eyes
with significant daring: "Draw John's notice to it as confirming
Corway's bold and deceitful attention to Hazel."

Virginia was aware that John would recognize the ring as his wife's,
but she under-rated the violence of the storm it would precipitate,
and she trusted too much in her own ability to control it in the
direction she desired. She likewise rated Beauchamp as a weak,
egotistical, effeminate sort of man. She was now to experience her
great mistake.

Rutley in his turn fixed his gaze steadfastly upon her, and which
became so intense, so mysteriously searching, as to cause her,
strong-minded woman as she was, to feel she was but a weak thing
beside him.

He spoke quietly and without the faintest tremor in his voice. "Do you
know to whom you suggested this?"

"Lord Beauchamp," she timidly responded. And then there suddenly
sprang into her eyes a new light, accompanied by a slight start.

"Why do you start?" asked Rutley, not for a moment removing his eyes
from hers.

"No, 'tis impossible. You cannot be Philip Rutley?" she gasped, as she
drew back amazed. "For you have already denied him once to me."

"Yes, I am he!" he exclaimed.

There followed a moment of profound silence. Rutley watching the
effect of his disclosure upon her.

And she, at first astounded by his audacious nerve, at length grasped
his position, and finally smiled, as though in admiration of his arch
achievement. "You are a master imposter," she broke in. "Be as clever
with the material I have given you, and Corway will not long stand in
your way."

"Did Hazel tell you of my proposal to her three years ago?"

"Yes," she answered promptly.

"I believe she rejected me at that time because of Corway," he
musingly added.

"Your opportunity is at hand," she affirmed.

"I accept it;" and then he cautioned in a low tone: "Be careful never
to breathe my real name."

"And you--you will continue to be?"--and she smiled quizically as she
put the question.

"My Lord Beauchamp."

"A most consummate scoundrel!" she added pleasantly.

"The scoundrel begs to share the compliment with his colleague, Miss
Virginia Thorpe," he ironically replied, again bowing low.

That accentuated remark by Rutley revealed to her with sudden
vividness the detestable character she was developing.

Acutely sensitive, the stigma smote her with a repugnance that stung
and smarted as quivering flesh under the sharp cut of a lash; and
being naturally of a fiery temper, she passionately retorted, "It's
false!"

The words had scarcely escaped her lips when she realized her
indiscretion, and faltered, "I--I--mean--" and then unable to recover
from her sudden flight of passion, or to completely subdue her
agitation, she burst out aloud, in utter disregard of her
surroundings, "Oh! It is awful, awful!"

Rutley was alarmed, and hastily gripped her wrist, and in low tones
cautioned, "For God's sake, hush! Don't shout it to the winds!
Remember, you urged this damnable business upon me. Do you want me to
give it to the world?"

His artifice succeeded, and under his influence she became quieter.
"No! No! No!" she whispered. "Don't, please!" Then again she stared at
the ground as though dazed with some vague terror. Suddenly she
covered her face with her hands and moaned, "What have I done?"

Then, arising from a place of concealment close by, the old Italian
Cripple previously mentioned doffed his hat and said, "Eesa da bet,
much-a keep-a do mon! Do poor old-a man, Eesa beg-a da mon, a da
charity Signora, Signor."

Tossing him a coin, Rutley said, "This is an unseasonable place for
your calling, old man." Then, turning to Virginia--"Permit me to escort
you to the house."

"I don't like that old man," she replied. "He is prying about
everywhere. Do you think he heard me?"

"I have no fear of that," replied Rutley, as they moved on toward the
house. "He appears quite old and no doubt is partially deaf."

"Very well," responded Virginia, "and now that we understand each
other, I think it time for me to mingle with the guests."

As they disappeared in the distance, the old cripple followed them,
flitting from shadow to shadow, with catlike agility, astonishing in
such an apparently old man.

Having arrived at the piazza steps, Rutley and Virginia parted.

Returning some distance into the shadow, he softly laughed. "A little
startled, eh? Didn't think I could impersonate a peer of England's
realm. Well, she knows the secret now and I can safely rely on her
assistance because Corway has cast her aside for Hazel. She has given
me material with which to strike at him and I will strike home--but not
as she suggests. Oh, no!" and again a sinister smile crept over his
face. "Dangerous, but Hazel's wealth is worth the risk.

"Meanwhile, I am getting short of funds, and cannot keep up the pace
much longer, unless my other plan succeeds. But should I fail
altogether----" and he became absorbed in deep study, silent and
motionless as the statue of Lincoln by which he stood, but only for a
moment. "Everybody here lionizes me, believing I am a genuine
nobleman." And then he looked up with a far-off, triumphant expression
in his eyes and a cunning smile on his lips, "My lord will borrow a
few thousand on his--name--just for a temporary accommodation, and then
he will vanish."

A slight noise behind startled him and caused him to look about; but,
discovering no one, he regained his composure. To make sure, however,
he called in a low voice, "Jack! Jack!"

Whereupon the old cripple again stood forth from his concealment, this
time from behind the trunk of the wide spreading oak and, leaning on
his stick, obsequiously doffed his hat. "I uncover to a prince of
villainy."

"Ha, ha, to my arms, you rascally imposter!" joyfully exclaimed
Rutley, as he embraced him.

Halting and drawing away in pretended surprise, Jack exclaimed with
dreamy reflection, "Naw, Eesa, not-a bees-a da imposeator. Eesa be
Ital-e-own!"

"Splendid, Jack!" exclaimed Rutley with admiration. "Your disguise is
perfect, but"--and Rutley laughed--"a little pale about the gills, eh?"

"Eesa look-a like-a ma fadder," and Jack proudly expanded himself.
"Make-a da great-a soldier. Note-a da pale here--Naw," touching his
ears. "Garibaldi geev-a ma fadder dees-s da Palestrino," and Jack
threw open his coat and proudly displayed a medal.

"Palestrino!" exclaimed Rutley gleefully. "Jack, things are coming our
way with a rush. Did you hear her--the maiden fair, with the blue black
hair, how she plays into our hands?"

Jack grinned and chuckled, "Ah, ah--a Portland rose, Phil!"

"Incomparably beautiful, Jack! But, oh, such devilish thorns!"

"Good for twenty thousand simoleons at any rate? Eh, Phil?"

"Twenty thousand or bust, Jack," grinned Rutley. "You watch me do the
trick. I'll make Thorpe wish he were dead. I shall connect his wife's
name instead of Hazel's with Corway."

"What!" gasped Jack, dismayed by Rutley's daring.

"By a little juggling of facts, as it were, I'll make Thorpe believe
Corway wears the ring given him as a love token by Constance. It was
Thorpe's gift to his wife. Do you comprehend? Now, do you understand
how simple a thing it will be to make Thorpe wish he were dead?
Remember how he and old Harris broke up our investment company?

"Maybe I don't," replied Jack dolefully, rubbing his stomach in a
significant manner.

"And, Jack!" and Rutley glinted at him meaningly and said very
seriously, "That fellow Corway suspects me."

"The devil he does! We must get him out of our way."

"Tomorrow!"--and for the space of perhaps five seconds they looked
meaningly at each other. Then Rutley broke the silence.

"The child is in the house," continued Rutley seriously and in a low
voice.

"Good!" responded Jack. "I was afraid your tableau scheme had failed
and Dorothy remained at home."

"Not at all. They jumped at the idea," laughed Rutley, "and on my
suggestion Mrs. Harris begged for Dorothy's presence at the 'Fete'."

"Fate!" corrected Jack.

"Too pointed," calmly remarked Rutley.

"Well, the tableau was a great success, 'Hebe' attended by 'Circe' and
'Cupid'."

"Dorothy as 'Circe' posed splendidly; she is the pet of the
guests"--and, lowering his voice, Rutley continued gravely:

"I have persuaded her indulgent mother to let the child remain up and
enjoy her honors a little longer; she may be out and around now at any
moment."

"She wears a white dress and with a light brown sash about her waist.
Long golden hair--oh, you know her."

"I shall keep a sharp lookout and take her the first opportunity."

"Skip!" suddenly cautioned Rutley. "Somebody's coming. Keep in the
deep shadow."

"Trust me." And as Jack turned to move away he said to himself,
"Tonight there'll be things doing, for the devil is at work and hell's
a-brewing."

Rutley watched Jack vanish in the gloom, then muttered to himself,
"Why this fear? Out with it and to my purpose."

Some readers would call it fate, others would probably have construed
it as accidental, while yet again others of a more scientific turn of
mind would have reasoned it a result of that strange magnetic
attraction whereby two minds, simultaneously engaged in deep absorbing
thought on the same subject, are mysteriously drawn toward each other.

That John Thorpe was alone at that moment descending the steps of the
piazza, was proof of the phenomenon, there could be no question, and
that he was deeply thinking of a subject very near and dear to him was
also evident, for he paused on one of the steps and clapped his hand
to his forehead as though to draw out some evil thing that lay leaden
within.

Once he shivered as if shaken with a cold of the shadow of some
indefinable disaster about to overwhelm him, and then he passed on
down the steps muttering to himself in an abstracted manner, "Doubt;
terrible, torturing doubt; I cannot endure it!"

"Welcome, Mr. Thorpe," came from Rutley in the mild regularly
moderated voice of a man content with his surroundings. "It only needs
the quiet tones of a gifted conversationalist to make this beautiful
spot supremely pleasant. All honor to Mrs. Harris and her companion."

Mrs. Harris, accompanied by Virginia, had just then appeared from
around the east side of the house--"Ah, my lord, your absence from the
ballroom occasions much inquiry," said Mrs. Harris.

"Mrs. Harris will confer a favor by satisfying the inquirers with the
excuse that his lordship is enjoying a smoke with a friend. Does my
lord approve the answer?" replied John Thorpe, eyeing Rutley
furtively.

"Most decidedly!" he affirmed.

"Then Virginia and myself will be spectators of the next waltz. Your
lordship will favor us with your company soon? Mr. Thorpe, you will
not forget your promise to Constance for the Newport?"

"Just in time, eh, auntie, I guess so!" cut in the cheerful voice of
strenuous Sam, who had bounded down the steps and stood in front of
them before they could turn around.

"Oh, horrors!" gasped Virginia under her breath.

"Why, Sam!" laughed Mrs. Harris, "you want me to dance with you again
and Virginia here?"

"Oh, no, not you! I mean her, auntie. If you please," and he bowed to
Virginia as he offered her his arm.

Without an instant's hesitation she accepted his arm and at the same
time so artfully masked her real feelings that the hot blood raced
with joyous glee to the very roots of his hair and caused him to say
proudly, "Ha, ha! at last, eh, auntie!"

"I shall be a witness, Sam," replied his aunt in a tone which conveyed
a warning.

On ascending the steps Virginia paused to gather up her skirt, turned
half around and looked very significantly at Rutley.

He met her glance and bowed. The action brought Mrs. Harris also to a
stop.

Observing the halt, Mr. Thorpe exclaimed, "His Grace and myself will
be along presently. Au revoir."

And as the party moved on, Sam rejoined under his breath, "I guess so,
but not with his fair party, not if Sam knows it."

In the silence that followed for both men, now being alone, were
alert, instinctively apprehending danger, John Thorpe drew from the
inside pocket of his coat a small cigar case and tendered it to
Rutley.

Silently and with studied poise, Rutley took therefrom a cigar and
returned the case.

Thorpe then took from the case a match, lighted and offered it to
Rutley, who, having meanwhile clipped the end of the cigar with a
penknife, accepted the light and then broke the silence with, "Are you
not going to smoke, Thorpe?"

"Not at present. A stroll through the grounds is more to my fancy."

"Agreed!" promptly responded Rutley, who added, "and may the exercise
lighten your spirits, which appear heavy tonight."

"Yes, unfortunately I have never been able to conceal my emotions,
hence the correctness of your conjecture. My spirits are heavy
tonight," replied Thorpe in a low voice and with a deep, long drawn
sigh.

It was plain to Rutley that Thorpe was evading an abrupt approach to
some potent question in his mind, feverishly eager, yet dreading the
kind of information it might elicit.

"Bad digestion, Thorpe. Headaches, troubled dreams and the like
fellow," suggested Rutley in his jerky manner.

"Deeper!" added Thorpe in a low voice.

"Ha!" exclaimed Rutley significantly, as he eyed his companion
askance. "Family!"

"Oh, God! what shall I do?" suddenly broke from Thorpe in a stifled
cry of anguish. "I cannot carry the load!" And then he did that which
some readers might term a cowardly thing. No doubt he was actuated by
motives irresistibly impelling in a man of his peculiarly sensitive
nature.

With head bent low, much as a culprit condoning his infamy, humbled as
was his pride, to thus confide his misgivings to a stranger, he began
in a low voice:

"My Lord, a few moments since I casually heard you drop a remark
suggesting a knowledge of my domestic affairs. I speak to you in
confidence, and I am sure Your Grace will spare me the humiliation of
feeling that confidence is misplaced. Your position gives you at times
the advantage of hearing--a--things said of others that is of no moment
or concern to you."

Rutley's first thought was, "My opportunity to strike at Corway has
come," and if Thorpe at that moment could have seen the cunning leer
play about the corners of Rutley's mouth and the flash of exultation
that sprang into his eyes, he might have hesitated, nay, ceased to
have conversed with him further on such a grave subject.

But the fleeting smile went unseen, the exultant flash as quickly
disappeared, and in its place a very serious look came over Rutley's
face, as in a low voice he replied, slowly but very distinctly.
"Really, Thorpe, I am at a loss to understand your motives in
questioning me on matters relative to your domestic affairs, and
though I may possess information in which I am not particularly
interested, still to asperse the character of any person on mere rumor
is not compatible with the dignity or honor of my house; however, if
you will be explicit on the subject of your singular request, I shall,
through sympathy, communicate all I have heard to relieve or confirm
your mind of a--I fancy--a terrible suspicion."

For a few moments Thorpe could not control his agitation. Overpowered
by a sense of shame, his imagination at once conjured up dreadful
thoughts.

"Sympathy! a--a--to relieve or confirm a terrible suspicion! My God!
what does he mean?" And he placed his left hand tightly over his
breast as if something hurt him there, while a cold sweat stood out on
his brow. Then with a forced calmness, said:

"A--a--have you heard any disparaging remarks about--a--Mr. Corway?"

"Well, Thorpe, you know 'tis not honorable to repeat the 'chic'
scandals one hears, though to satisfy you I will say that if you will
look at the little finger of Corway's left hand, you will see a gold
ring with a single diamond set in a double heart, which he at
times--a--carelessly displays."

"A ring with a single diamond! What of it?" impatiently questioned
Thorpe.

"Oh!" replied Rutley, with an imperturbable stare, "it was a love
token from Mrs. John Thorpe."

"You lie!" exclaimed Thorpe, the nails of his fingers imprinting
deeply in the flesh of his tightly clenched fists, with the fierceness
of the passion that had flamed within him.

"I do not lie!" Rutley calmly and slowly replied, as he looked
steadily into Thorpe's eyes.

"You confound my wife with Hazel," hoarsely accused Thorpe.

"I reiterate," responded Rutley, in the same even tone of voice, "the
particular ring in question was a gift from Constance, John Thorpe's
wife, and not from Hazel."

Gasping for breath, Thorpe turned his head aside and groaned as he
remembered it was his gift to Constance before they were married.

Suddenly he gripped Rutley by the sleeve. They halted and confronted
each other. And the dark formless shadow that had followed them also
halted.

"From whom have you your information?" queried Thorpe, looking into
Rutley's eyes.

"I do not feel at liberty to mention, but it can be substantiated."

"By whom?" demanded Thorpe.

"Well, I don't know of any person more capable than a--a--Mr. Thorpe's
wife!" replied Rutley in a most nonchalant and matter-of-fact manner.

And even through the depth of the gloom that surrounded them he saw
the scarlet flush of rage and shame flame across Thorpe's white brow
as he bowed his head, humbled to the dust.

For a moment not a word was spoken by either of the men. Suddenly
Thorpe looked up and hoarsely said:

"My wife! Give me two or three, one which she can substantiate."

"My dear Thorpe," deprecatingly pleaded Rutley. "You have called upon
me to undertake a very unpleasant task."

"Your Lordship has gone too far to recede. I must know all"--and there
was imminent danger in Thorpe's quivering voice, which Rutley felt was
not to be trifled with.

"Well--one thing--Corway's close and steady attention to her during your
absence in China."

"You mean to Hazel?" said Thorpe, with a look so deeply concentrated
that the movement of a single hair of Rutley's eyelash would have
meant an instant blow on the mouth.

"No, I mean--to your wife," accentuated Rutley. "Their secret and
protracted wanderings offended your sister. Reproofs, reproaches and
warnings were unavailing and ended in Corway being refused admittance
to your house, which resulted in frequent quarrels between your wife
and your sister."

Thorpe here recalled Virginia's warning, "Corway will bear watching,"
and he moaned, "Oh, God!"

"He tried many pretenses to regain communication with your wife,"
resumed Rutley, "one being to visit Hazel Brooke, for whom, except for
her money, he has no regard whatever. At length on the discovery of
secret correspondence, Virginia became aghast at his boldness and
contemplated seeking legal aid when you returned. Of course, she
retired and left the matter in your hands and she was unwilling at
that time to shock your home-coming with a knowledge of the truth."

"Enough! Enough! Oh, God, what a vile thing has nestled here!" And
John Thorpe pressed both hands tightly over his heart in a vain
endeavor to suppress the emotion that filled his throat and choked his
utterances, and tears of shame gathered in his eyes as he continued
slowly:

"When--I--wedded Constance--I took to myself the purest angel out of
heaven. But now--! Farewell happiness--farewell peace--forever! Oh,
Corway, I want to clutch you by the throat!"

Turning to Rutley, he added tensely, "Follow me."

"Now for satisfaction," muttered Rutley exultantly, and with a
sinister smile on his lips he followed John Thorpe up the broad steps
and into the blaze of the brilliantly lighted ballroom.

A shadow straightened itself up behind a bed of massed asters,
deepened, grew thicker and resolved itself into the solid form of a
man. It was Jack Shore. He had dodged them unseen and overheard their
conversation.

Perhaps it was through hearing the conspiracy and its masterly
execution that shocked him into moralizing on man's inhumanity to man.

At any rate, he exclaimed half aloud, "As cold-blooded a bit of
villainy as possible to conceive. I didn't think Phil had it in him."
Suddenly he shrugged his shoulders.

"I say, old man," cut in Sam, appearing from the east side of the
piazza, "you want to look alive there. You are getting too near the
front. First thing you know uncle will have you sent up as a vag."

Though taken by surprise, Jack, having just turned to move off into
the deeper shadow, halted and, removing his hat, faced Sam in an
assumed most humble and abject terror, "Signor, I don-a mean to come-a
da close. Jess-a tried to get-a da peep ov-a da grand-a fete of-a
much-a da rich people. Eesa da all, Signor."

"It's all right, old man, but take my advice and keep off the grounds.
'Twill be better for your health."

In the meantime Dorothy had fluttered down the great steps and ran
toward Sam.

"Hello, little one! Having lots of fun, eh!"

And with the same, he caught Dorothy's hands and he commenced to dance
her about as he sang the words, "Little Bo-peep had lost her sheep and
couldn't tell where to find them."

"Oh, don't Sam; I want to find papa!" replied the child, impatiently.

"You do, eh? Now, don't you want me to be your escort?"

"Come, I'll tell you how to find him. You shall sit on my shoulder and
be the tallest queen of the party, while I be the horse to 'lope about
in search of your papa."

"Thank you, Sam, but I can't stay for a ride now. I'm in such a hurry;
some other time," and the child turned from him and ran toward the
slowly retreating form of Jack.

"You are, eh? All right, and while you are looking for papa, I'm going
to look for the fair party you call auntie. I guess so!" Whereupon Sam
quickly sprang up the steps. Arriving on the piazza he halted, turned
around and looked toward the child as though the premonition of
something wrong--something associated with the child's insecurity,
being alone--had suddenly darted into his brain; but seeing others of
the guests at that moment emerging from the east front of the house on
the well lighted grounds, he dismissed the "still small voice" of
warning from his mind and passed in among the dancers.

"Papa, papa! Where is my papa?" called Dorothy.

Jack, while pretending to leave the grounds, had kept a sly eye on
Sam, and upon that individual's disappearance, at once turned and
answered the child in a voice soft and gentle, and soothing as that of
dreamy Italy.

"Yous-a tink-a your-a papa was-a da here-a. What eesa da name?"

"Thorpe!" replied Dorothy, without the faintest fear or hesitation.
"That is my name, too. I want to find him right away. Can you tell me
where he is? Mama sent me to ask him to come and dance."

"Yes-a da child-a. Eesa da know where eesa papa be. Eef-a youse-a be
note-a fraid and will-a come wid-a me, Eesa take-a youse-a da papa,"
and the sly old man looked into her eyes with such beaming kindness
that at once won her confidence.

"I'm not afraid of you. I like old men. Mama says we should respect
old men. But I'm in such a hurry, you know. Mama is waiting for me."

"Well, geeve-a me youse-a da hand and Eesa take-a you straight-a da
heem."

Without the least suspicion or timidity, she instantly placed her
little hand in his and the two proceeded toward the river, much faster
than his supposed crippled condition would lead an older person to
expect.

"Youse-a love-a da papa and da mama much-a, donn-a youse?" he
continued.

"Oh, yes! Ever so much."

"Eesa good-a girl. We'll soon-a da fine eem," and he added to himself,
"when the horn of plenty pours its golden stream into Jack's pocket."

While they were crossing a depression, or rather a long hollow
formation in the contour of the grassy slope, and close to some locust
trees, the thick foliage of which threw a deep shadow on the spot,
Jack thrust his free hand into his pocket and removed the stopper from
a bottle of chloroform which he had provided for this occasion, and
saturated a colored handkerchief with it. Some of it passed through
the lining of his pocket and immediately impregnated the air with its
odor.

Dorothy got a whiff of it and drew away with the remark, "Dear me,
what a funny smell!"

"Naw, eesa--nicey da smell, jes like-a da poppy, so beautiful-a da
flower," replied Jack, reassuringly.

"Well, I don't like it, anyway," she said.

At that moment she was standing a couple of yards from him, they had
come to a halt, and it was necessary for him to act adroitly and with
promptness, to reassure her and avoid arousing her suspicion, so he
pretended to stumble and then fell to the ground.

Arising to his knees, he groaned as though in seeming pain, and
gripped his right wrist with his left hand.

"Oh, oh! Eesa da hurt-a bad. Break-a da arm; oh, oh!" And in order to
get her close to him, he said, "Get-a da bot' in-a da pock'."

The cunning fellow knew well how to touch the chord of sympathy that
is ever present in the guileless heart of innocent childhood.

The response came in a wondering look of infinite tenderness and
compassion, for the child did not clearly comprehend Jack's request
and she asked:

"Did you break your arm?"

"Eesa da hurt-a bad. Oh, oh!" he groaned, "get-a da bot', da bot'-a,
child; get-a da bot'."

"Poor man! Shall I run for the doctor?"

"No, no, no, note-a da dock! Help-a me get-a da bot' in-a da pock!
Quick-a, deeze-a side. Put in-a da hand. Take eem out--oh, oh!"

Perceiving that he meant her to take something out of his pocket, on
the right side of his coat, and not understanding the significance of
the word "bot," she drew near to thrust in her hand.

That instant Jack's left arm encircled her form and his right hand
clapped the saturated handkerchief over her mouth and nostrils and
held her to him.

She struggled in his arms to free herself, but without avail.

As a feeling of stupor stole over her senses, Jack, still on his
knees, watched her with the keenest of eyes, and muttered soothingly,
"Eesa nice-a da girl. Nice-a da smell lak-a da dreamy Italy."

Some rascals would have made short work of the matter, but Jack was by
nature very tender and considerate of children, which accounted for
his slow application of the powerful drug. It soon had her under its
influence, and when she became limp and nerveless he laid her on the
grass. Again he saturated the handkerchief and held it to her
nostrils, and with distended, tragic eyes watched her doze into
unconsciousness.

Feeling satisfied that she would not speedily recover, he let the
handkerchief lie loose on her nostrils and mouth, then he arose to his
feet and with the stealthy, catlike tread of an Indian, skulked from
shadow to shadow until he had made a complete circuit of the spot.

Having assured himself that no one was in the vicinity, he swiftly
turned and again fell on his knees beside the child.

He looked intently in her face and noted the sweet expression of
childish innocence and trust in the repose. "She sleeps, beautiful
child! As sweetly innocent and confiding as God ever inspired with the
breath of life."

Then from under his coat, where a hump appeared in the back, he drew
out a grey woolen cloth about four feet square and folded it about the
child, gathered her in his arms and arose to his feet.

"Mine, mine, though no harm shall come to you, pretty one! Twenty
thousand dollars shall be the price of your liberty."

And, keeping in the shadows and away from the lights as much as
possible, he wended his way toward the river and soon became obscured
in the distant gloom.




When John Thorpe, closely followed by Rutley, entered the great
ballroom in search of Corway, the guests who saw him were struck with
the pallor of his face and the strangely piercing yet lustreless dark
eyes that shone out from beneath his shaggy, frowning eyebrows. His
cold, stony look repelled all smiles and discouraged all questions.
Through the room he strode, regardless alike of the timid whisperings
of women and offended stare of men. He cared not what they thought,
for every sentiment of rudeness or discourtesy, every tender feeling
of grief or pain, was drowned by his one great mad, overpowering
passion to wreak summary vengeance on the author of his bitter shame.

Not for a moment had he suspected "My Lord's" integrity and utter
disinterestedness, and the maddening fire of his disgrace kindled
within him and fanned to a crucible heat by Rutley burned with
unquenchable fury.

Men of the temperament of John Thorpe are not blessed with a stoical
mind in moments of great excitement, nor are they apt to pause and
tranquilly reason out the pros and cons of this most prolific source
of human tragedies.

He had loved his wife too fondly and too well to go and openly charge
her with unfaithfulness.

His life heretofore had been very happy, but now the first "damned
spot" in the clear blue of his domestic horizon would not out, the
feeling of suspicion would not smother. And it grew and enlarged with
amazing rapidity, and haunted him till the very thought of Corway
aroused his latent jealousy to a pitch that became unbearable. Rutley
had developed the demon within him.

The love that had become a fixed part of his being, flooding him with
its radiance, had been violently wrenched from his heart, and his
only, all-absorbing, insatiable desire was to confront the man who was
responsible for it.

Oh, for the frailty of human happiness!

Out near the steps of the east piazza a group of ladies and gentlemen,
composed of Mr. and Mrs. Harris, Mr. Corway and Hazel were chatting
merrily about the new waltz and incidentally they had referred to the
prolonged absence of "My Lord" and John Thorpe from the ballroom. Mrs.
Harris discovered them on the piazza approaching the steps and
exclaimed, "Ah, here come the truants."

Without a moment's hesitation, John Thorpe descended the steps alone,
Rutley remaining on the piazza.

"Mr. Harris," said John Thorpe in a husky voice, "in the name of the
society whom he contaminates, I demand that you eject that man from
this place."

This peremptory and extraordinary demand, coupled with its
insinuation, stunned the hearers, who looked from one to the other in
startled amazement.

The dead silence that followed was broken by Mr. Harris, who answered
in a grave, dazed way, as thoughts of Thorpe's sanity flitted through
his brain, "But, Thorpe! I--what--I don't think--my hearing is not
exactly right of late. I did not understand--"

Without removing his steady gaze from Corway, Mr. Thorpe reiterated
his words slowly and with stinging accentuation, "I demand that you
eject that man from this place," and he pointed his finger
dramatically at Corway, while glints of merciless intent shot from his
eyes.

The red flushed into Mr. Harris's face as he realized the indignity
his guests and himself were being subjected to.

"Thorpe--John--you are insulting all of us. Mr. Corway is my guest. What
is the meaning of this affront to my hospitality?"

"To defend my honor!" cried the distracted man, lost to all sense of
propriety or decorum, "or to add my blood to the other crimes that
disgrace him."

"In the name of all that's astounding, what do you mean, Thorpe?"
exclaimed Corway.

"I mean that I intend to avenge the irreparable wrong I have
suffered," replied Mr. Thorpe, fairly hissing the words from between
his teeth.

"Irreparable wrong! To whom do you refer?"

"To you, scoundrel! Tell how you came by that ring!"

Mr. Harris had listened to the two men with ill-concealed impatience,
but when Mr. Thorpe called Mr. Corway, one of his guests, a scoundrel,
and dangerous business appearing imminent, he could control his
indignation no longer and shouted, "Mr. Thorpe's carriage immediately!
Here, Sam, your assistance. Wells, get some more help to maintain
order."

The words had scarcely been uttered, when Sam, who had appeared with
Virginia on the piazza, sprang down the steps to his uncle's
assistance. They were quickly joined by the coachman and gardener who,
having chanced to meet in a nearby secluded angle of the porch, had
heard the loud, passionate words and were at once available for duty.

"Hold, Mr. Harris!" spoke up Corway, who seemed to be less disturbed
than either Thorpe or his host, "don't be hasty in this matter! Mr.
Thorpe is certainly laboring under some delusion."

"I will not listen to you," replied Mr. Harris, now worked up to a
fury. "Mr. Thorpe's conduct is outrageous. Away with him to his
carriage."

"I guess so!" responded Sam, pulling off his coat and looking at his
uncle sideways, "stampede the corral, eh, uncle? That's what you
want!"

"Away with him!" repeated Mr. Harris, gesticulating with his arms
wildly.

The two lackeys advanced, encouraged no doubt by the assurance of
Sam's assistance.

They were brought to an abrupt halt by Corway, who stepped in front of
them and declared with heat, "Stand back! I demand an explanation!"

In a low, hoarse voice that quivered with the intensity of his
passion, with ghastly white face, and glittering eyes that flashed the
lie to his forced calmness, Thorpe replied: "You shall have
it--blackguard, liar, and coward!" With which he struck Corway on the
mouth with the back of his closed hand.

Corway passionately rushed at him and attempted to strike, but Mr.
Harris sprang between them and caught his upraised arm, and with the
help of Sam, separated them.

When Sam sprang down the steps to his uncle's assistance, Virginia was
left standing on the piazza watching the progress of the quarrel with
intense interest and also evidently alarmed at the violent passion her
brother displayed.

With a woman's intuition, she surmised that Rutley had worked on
John's jealous susceptibilities with merciless finesse.

Rutley, who was watching her, noted her alarmed expression, and
feeling it to be a sign of weakening purpose, stepped over and stood
beside her, so silently that she was quite unaware of his presence.

"It's a horrible wrong," she muttered.

The words were caught by Rutley, and he whispered, so close as to
startle her, "Remember the wrong Corway has done you."

The excited men barely had been separated when Corway spoke with
passionate emphasis, "You shall hear from me."

"Quite soon enough for your courage," sneered Thorpe.

"No, no, my brother shall not fight with him!" exclaimed Virginia,
appalled at the magnitude the quarrel had assumed.

Swiftly she glanced at Rutley and said with tremulous lips: "What have
you told him to cause such fearful passion?"

"What you bade me," he coolly replied, and with a gloating smile on
his lips, added: "The result is what you wanted, isn't it?"

"Not so terrible," she gasped. "There must be some awful mistake."

And Rutley's smile deepened, but as he looked into her horrified eyes
and blanched face, and noted the change from vengeance to anxiety and
consternation fast coming over her, he knew but too well when the
change was complete, in a moment of frenzied zeal to explain and save
her brother, she, womanlike, was likely to undo and wreck all his
work.

He realized that the moment was fraught with the gravest danger to his
plans and person, and he acted quickly, but with the utmost coolness.

Her hand held straight down by her side was closed tightly, expressive
of immediate and determined action.

He gripped her wrist. It hurt her. The action concealed from others by
the folds of her dress, succeeded in diverting her attention, and he
followed it up by whispering, so that she alone heard him,
"Remember--the material you gave me; Corway has met his deserts and you
are avenged!"

And then the voice of Constance cleft the air, in a wild, terrifying
scream. "John, John! Save Dorothy! She's adrift on the water."

Her piercing cry freighted with a mother's anguish, at once filled all
who heard it with consternation, in the midst of which Mrs. Harris
exclaimed, "Dear me, how dreadful it all is!"

All turned in the direction of the cry and almost immediately
Constance, in an agony of despair, and deathly white, frantically
rushed among them.

She looked appealingly from one to the other, her heart in her throat
and pathos in her voice. "I heard her cry, 'Mama! Papa! Help! Save
me!' Oh, will no one rescue my darling?"

"I'm off," said Sam, in his short, sententious way, and rushed toward
the river.

The sudden strain on her nerves was greater than Constance could bear.

Naturally of a weak constitution, the ordeal was overpowering; the
mother's affection, forming a magnetic part of her heart, leapt out to
her child and left her numb and cold almost unto death, and then her
limbs trembled, and with Sam's words ringing in her ears, down she
sank, a senseless being.

Virginia's consternation was complete. She rushed down the steps,
knelt beside her prostrate form, thrust her arm lovingly under her
head and sobbed: "Constance! Dear Constance! Don't give way so.
Dorothy will be found."




CHAPTER III.


When Constance revived, she found herself in a quiet room remote from
noise or intrusion, whither she had been tenderly carried. Virginia
was with her, and with the aid of a professional nurse, who lived near
by and was called in by Mrs. Harris, had been successful in restoring
her to consciousness.

The reception was still swinging along at its full height, and while a
few of the guests had heard in an indifferent way of some trouble on
the lawn, the reports were so varied and coupled with the fact that no
names were obtainable to give the reports zest, the incident was soon
forgotten, and by the great mass of the guests was not even heard of.

It was a sore spot in her breast that throbbed and beat heavily upon
the door of its prison as later she was being driven home in her
carriage. Not a word from John to soothe the aching void. She did not
even inquire about him, contenting herself with the simple assurance
that he was doing his best to find Dorothy.

For two days the strain was upon her, breaking down by its heart
violence her constitution, already frail to the declining point.
Scarcely more than a year had passed since Constance had been stricken
down with typhoid fever of a malignant type.

She had never regained her usual health and strength, and though the
family physician had pronounced her recovery complete, there were
those of her friends who, with bated breath, questioned his conclusion
and predicted an after effect which in time would develop some strange
and serious ailment.

Telephone inquiries regarding the lost child began to come in the
second day, but none of any comfort to the distracted mother.

Not one intimation of her husband's quarrel with Corway had reached
her. Mrs. Harris had been careful, upon Constance's recovery at the
reception, not to breathe a word, or to allow, where she could control
it, the faintest whisper likely to arouse her suspicion.

And as for Hazel, she had not clearly understood Mr. Thorpe's drift
when he assaulted Corway. Nevertheless, she somehow had a vague idea
that Constance was the cause; but being a discreet young woman, she
had refrained from mentioning anything about it to her, thus leaving
Constance completely ignorant of the true cause of John Thorpe's
absence from home.

Perhaps if she had not been so absorbed in the recovery of Dorothy,
her attention would have been arrested on perusing one of the daily
papers by an ambiguous paragraph referring to a choice morsel of
scandal on the "tapis" in a prominent family, and which was likely to
terminate in a tragedy. It was a society paragraph separate from the
report of the probable drowning of the child, Dorothy Thorpe. Several
personal acquaintances had become aware, through the crafty Rutley, of
a serious difference having arisen between John Thorpe and his
beautiful wife, and some of these personal acquaintances, with
significant looks, at once connected it with the mysterious
disappearance of the child.

The fact that none of the fashionable set had visited her since the
reception did not suggest a thought of being shunned. And so she
waited for news of her child--waited with heart leaden with the chill
of hope deferred--waited in momentary expectation of the home-coming of
John.

She watched for him through the window, foreshadowing by his
appearance on the walk gladness or sorrow.

"It is now the second day," she muttered, "since that eventful night,
and yet no relief from this awful suspense. No word to cheer, or lead
me to hope that Dorothy lives."

"It is no use grieving so much, Constance," broke in Hazel, who had
just entered the room. "Dorothy may be safe with her father,
somewhere. Try, dear, to think so, anyway. It is much the best."

"I cannot put away that winsome face from my mind, Hazel. Something
tells me that I shall see her no more," and tears came into her eyes,
despite her efforts to restrain them.

"There, yees be at it again, sure mam, yees do be makin' us all feel
miserable."

It was Smith who spoke, in a soft, appealing voice, full of sympathy
and tenderness, the common heritage of his race. He had entered the
room by the parlor door, and stood with his hat in his hand--a short,
thick-set man, with a full, smooth-shaven, ruddy face, strong in its
lines of "true to a trust." His thin hair was tinged with gray. He
wore a black frock coat that had seen considerable wear; in fact, that
style of a coat was worn by him for the double purpose of partly
concealing the "humiliating" curves of his short bent legs, and also
the dignity he fancied it lent to his stature. He had been the family
coachman for some years, and was familiarly called "Smith."

As Constance turned to him, he continued with a look suggestive of
tearful sympathy.

"Will yees try to forget the trouble, and be the token av it, may it
plaise ye mam, just wipe away that tear, do, dear."

"You have always been a good soul, Smith," and Constance tried to
smile through her tears.

"Of course, but we are anxious to know the result of your search,"
remarked Hazel.

He was silent for a moment, and nervously commenced to fidget with his
hat.

"Sure, ave yees'l wait till I think ave all the places I whint to, and
all the people I sphoke to"--and he dolefully muttered under his
breath--"Sure I dunno what I'll rayport at all, at all--"

"You are very thoughtful and persistent, Smith," responded Constance.

"Yis, indade, mam, I try to be that very same. Sure, wasn't I up at
Rose-a-mant and walked the bache there and watched the boats, but
niver a sight did I git ave Mr. Thorpe."

"I know John is leaving no stone unturned to find Dorothy," assured
Constance, "but you, poor man, you must be tired with your long walk."

"The walk was long, but me heart was warrum for yees, and I didn't
moind it at all, at all. Sure, the child may not be in the water at
all. Will yees try to think so, dear?" And again the beseeching look
came over his expressive face.

"Do you think so, Smith?" interrogated Hazel.

"Well, I 'ave me own ideas, Miss, and to be plain, and not hurtin'
yees failin's, I think she was kidnapped."

"You do?" questioned Hazel, surprised, for such a possibility had
never crossed her mind.

"I do," he replied.

"Sure, I have no rason to think so, Miss, at all, at all; but says I
to myself, says I, 'I'll just flim-flam around the 'dago' quarters in
South Portland, on me own account, keeping a sharp lookout betimes.'"

"What did you find there?" again asked the girl.

"Nothin' I wanted, Miss, unless it war a sassy fellow wid a big black
moustache, and a skin full ave greenbile."

"But you were not looking for him," replied Hazel.

"Not wan bit, Miss, though I do belave now he do be lookin' for me.
Indade, Miss, I was not failin' well at all, at all. Sure, wasn't the
little darlint missin', and between the sorrow at home and the failin'
in me heart, and the long walk, and the cowld mornin', and the sassy
look the fellow gave me--"

"What were you doing that so offended him?" interrupted Hazel.

"Indade, I was just walkin' around Carbut Strate and Hood Strate for a
little divarsion--not wan bit more or less, Miss--an' he axed me what I
wanted. Says I to him, says I, respectful-like, 'Maybe yees can tell
me did yees see a little girl strayin' about widout a home. A lady
sint me to inquire.'

"He immejetly made some raymark, quick an' sharp-like, about the dam
desavin' wimmen--"

"Oh!" Hazel exclaimed, interrupting him.

"Shocking!" exclaimed Constance.

[Illustration: Smith--"Indade Miss, Oi followed wid wan on the soule
ave his plexus."]

"Sure--and I beg yees pardon fir sayin' it, darlints, but that's just
what he towld me and niver a wink whint wid it, the blackguard!

"I up and axed him who he'd be refarrin' to, because I had in my moind
a sartin lady wid trouble ave her own.

"He says, says he, wid a snarl, 'None ave yees business.'

"Widout thinkin' whether he meant anything by it or not, I tould him
he was a gintleman and a liar, too. So I did."

"You insulted him!" exclaimed Hazel, astounded.

"Indade I did, Miss, in foine style, sure"--and he spoke softly to
Hazel--"he got it right betwix the two eyes, and I followed it wid wan
on the soule ave his plexis."

"You did!" Hazel exclaimed, amazed, yet with an irrepressible smile
that flickered about her pretty mouth.

"I did!" he replied gravely.

"Is the soul of one's plexus in his eyes, Smith?" interrogated Hazel.

"Sure, some say it do be the cramps; but I think it do be trouble ave
the bowels, Miss," he answered.

"Poor man!" exclaimed Constance, and she looked at Smith
reproachfully.

He quickly turned to her with a disgusted look on his face, and slowly
exclaimed, "Yis mam!"

During the silence that followed Smith realized that he had spoken
hastily and rude, and the disgust so palpably in evidence quickly
merged into a look of grave concern.

His native wit, however, came to his aid in a singular apology.

"While the fellow hunted for a soft spot on the pavement, I called up
a nearby doctor to help him," he said.

"You shall be repaid," Constance assured him in an absent manner.

"Plaise God, it will not be the 'dago' who'll do it!" he solemnly
replied, and then he softly asked.

"Be there any more arders, mam?"

"No, Smith, you must be in need of rest. Thank you for all your
kindness," and Constance turned from him with grief, unaffected, still
on her face. "God bless yees!" he replied, and then as he turned to
leave the room, said to himself, "I shud loike to see the wan--bad luck
to him--who brought all this trouble on the poor missus," and he shut
his teeth tight in silent rage.

After he had gone Constance pressed her hand down on the top of her
head and said distractedly, "Still no word of encouragement; no relief
to this strain that seems to be tearing my brain asunder!"

Under the circumstances, inaction, to one of Hazel's temperament, was
anything but pleasant, and the young girl was to be condoned rather
than censured for desiring to get away from the distress that pervaded
the house. Moreover, she felt that something must be done to relieve
the strain that weighed so heavily upon Constance.

"Don't you think I had better see Mrs. Harris, dear?" she said, with a
wistful look of sympathy at Constance. "Perhaps she may have something
to tell."

"Very well," replied Constance. "Do, dear, if you think some good may
come from your visit. Virginia may be home soon and I shall not be
alone."

"I shall get my wraps."

After Hazel had left the room, Constance, dispirited and sadly out of
harmony with Smith's simple recital of his search for Dorothy, stepped
out on the piazza, as though the air of the close room oppressed her.

The sky was cloudy, the air raw and cold.

Dorothy's pet canary, with its bill thrust under its wing, rested on
the perch of its cage, glum and inert, immediately before her.

"Poor thing!" she exclaimed tenderly. "Sweet, sweet! Look up, pet!"

The dainty little beauty, with a throat of silky mellowness, looked
curiously about, gave a "cheep" of recognition and then again buried
its bill under its wing.

"Even my darling's pet will not be comforted." And tears stole into
her eyes as she turned away from the bird. "Oh, Sam, I've been so
anxious to hear from you! Have you found my darling?"

Sam had approached the steps unseen by her, and when she turned away
from the bird he stood directly in front of her, though at a little
distance.

Her mind at once recalled his words, which rang in her ears as she
sank to the ground on that fateful night of the reception, and it was
therefore the first and most natural question uppermost in her mind
when she saw him.

He started back in evident surprise and answered confusedly:

"Well--I--I am sure, Mrs. Thorpe, if I had found her, I should only be
too glad to--to tell you."

"And you have no tidings of her? But--come in, I am sure something
important brought you here."

She entered the house, followed by Sam, who muttered to himself,
"She's conjuring tears already, but I'm proof, were they to fall like
rain. I guess so!"

Upon entering the room he looked at her steadfastly and quizically.

There was something in his look, too, that bore the imprint of
effrontery.

She stared at him and asked timidly with alarm in her voice. "Oh, what
do you know of her?"

"I--I--beg your pardon, Mrs. Thorpe, but--well, the truth is, I called to
know if you have any information of her."

"How can you ask that question of me?" replied Constance brokenly,
while again the tears welled up in her eyes.

"You see, madam--ahem! You won't be offended with me, for God knows I
do not mean any offense to you, but--ahem--you see, madam, you are the
unhappy cause of as fine a hearted gentleman as was ever born being a
broken-spirited, a--a--blighted man!"

"Sam!" she affrightedly exclaimed. "What are you saying?"

"This," continued he, with dauntless determination, "and I'll tell you
the truth. You are the talk of the town, and they say you--you--you've
secured the child from your husband."

Her face became ashy white as the meaning of John's absence from home
dawned on her mind. She staggered, then sank into a chair. Presently
she looked up with a sort of dazed, wandering expression and tried to
smile through watery eyes. "My cup of woe is very full, Sam! Please
don't jest with me!"

He wiped the perspiration from his brow, for he felt his resolution to
accomplish what he had set out to do was fast crumbling.

He rushed on, "I am not jesting. No, I guess not! I know I am paining
you, but I have a duty to do which I shall do, as I have always done
through my life. And as this affair occurred at my uncle's place, they
say he knows more about it than he cares to tell, which he doesn't.
And I have come to see if you really don't know something of the
whereabouts of Dorothy, as that would relieve my uncle and aunt of
much embarrassment--at least--I guess so!"

Her lips trembled with the pathos of her reply: "Did I know of the
fate of my child, heaven could not bless me with a more joyful
desire--to let you know, to let your aunt know, that Dorothy is--is
safe. As it is, I would to heaven that I were dead and with my
darling." And her head fell forward on the table as a burst of
heart-rending agony shook her frame.

It was evident Sam was uneasy and much affected by her distress. He
coughed and tried to clear his throat again and again. "Ahem!--you must
excuse me, Mrs. Thorpe--ahem! But--but, Lord--Lord! I can't bear to hear
you take on that way. Ahem! Ahem! I'm rough and thoughtless in my way,
and it seems harsh and brutal to speak to you as I have done--I guess
so!--and if any man in my hearing says you have hidden your child--why,
by Heavens, I'll knock the lie back through his teeth."

Sam had forgotten his resolution to resist the influence of a woman's
tears; moreover, he felt convinced he was standing in the presence of
a true, atrociously wronged and much slandered woman, and in his
eagerness to undo the wrong he had done her by practically charging
her with the wrecking of her husband's happiness and connivance at the
child's disappearance, had lost control of that gentleness he felt due
to the weaker sex, especially this bereaved woman. He stammered an
apology in a soft regretful tone of voice.

"I--I--beg your pardon. I--I could not help it. These expressions will
slip out now and again, won't they? I guess so. I am satisfied you are
deeply grieved about Dorothy, and I'm interested in her, too. The fact
is, I was so anxious on my aunt's account that I have behaved like a
brute. Now please understand me, you are not friendless, for I shall
do my best for you, and if Dorothy is out of water I'm going to find
her. I'm off now, so good-bye!"

And he was gone--glad to get away from the distress that raised a lump
in his throat which all his labored coughing could not dislodge.

Sam had entered her presence a scoffer. He had made up his mind that
her grief was as deceitful as her reputed double life. He departed,
her firm friend and almost choked with disgust at his own readiness to
believe the foul reports, magnified by gossiping busybodies.

Gradually Constances' emotion subsided. She sat upright in the chair.
A significant dryness had come into her eyes as she stared at the wall
with profound abstraction. Out of the haze John Thorpe's picture
gradually emerged.

Suddenly she exclaimed in strangely low tones, almost a whisper--tones
in which a woman's life was projected on the horoscope of
faithfulness, immutable as the "Rock of Ages":

"John! John! You are breaking my heart!"

Then her mind began to settle upon one object--to see her husband, John
Thorpe.

"It must be some mistake!" she muttered. "It cannot be so. John would
never treat me thus. I will have Smith seek him and deliver a message
at once."

She went to her desk and wrote a hasty note, requesting John to come
home to her immediately. With the sealed note in her hand, she hurried
out to find Smith. She found him fast asleep on an old couch just
inside the coach-house door, and remembering his tired look, softly
said: "Poor man! How fatigued he must be! After all, what matters it
for a few hours?" And then, instead of arousing him, she took his coat
off the rack and gently covered him, murmuring in a broken voice that
betrayed the pathos of her trouble: "Asleep, with the peace of God
resting on his face. Heaven bless and reward your faithful heart.
Sleep on."

Returning to the house, she sat down at the table to think of a
possible something she had done to cause John's unkind behavior.

A shadow darkened the doorway. She turned mechanically. A tall, grave
and elderly gentleman, with stooping shoulders and bared head, stood
in the entrance.

Constance arose. He approached her and said softly: "I beg to
apologize for the intrusion. The door being open, and seeing you
within, I entered unannounced."

"Oh, Mr. Williams! Have you any tidings of Dorothy?"

"I regret not being able to bring any tidings of your child. The river
has been carefully dragged for a considerable distance in front of
'Rosemont.' I fear she is drowned and the body carried down to the
Columbia."

"My poor darling!"

"There is yet hope, however, that your child lives. An old cripple--a
disreputable looking vagabond--was seen lurking about the grounds the
night she was lost. He has not been seen since. Detectives are baffled
in tracing him. He may have abducted your child. It's the only hope
that she is alive, though I admit, a frail one."

"Heaven give me strength to hope it is so. But who could be so cruel
as to steal away my little darling? No, no, she is drowned!"

"I have to announce a disagreeable errand," and he paused, not quite
satisfied of the propriety of the moment for so serious a declaration
as he was about to make; but he at length continued hesitatingly:

"As--as your--legal adviser--." Again he paused.

Constance looked at him timidly. A cold, creepy fear of something
dreadful about to happen chilled her. Her blanched face and beseeching
eyes warned him of very grave consequences.

"What is it, Judge?" she whispered with parched lips, "speak out; tell
me what you have come for."

"Are you strong enough?--I think--perhaps--I had better defer--"

"Oh, yes, my strength is not great--but--the suspense--I cannot bear. Let
me hear--what it is." He hesitated no longer.

"As your attorney, I have been served with a notice of an application
for a divorce, by John Thorpe, from his wife, Constance."

With bowed head he laid the document on the table.

She clasped her hand to her head, clutched the back of a chair for
support, for the suddenness and weight of the blow staggered her. She,
however, managed to bear herself bravely up.

"And--could--he really believe this of me?" she said distractedly.

"He has, at the same time, placed at your disposal in the National
Bank a sum of money for your immediate wants." He paused. A solemn
quietness pervaded the room.

At length he continued in a low, grave tone: "I am prepared to receive
instructions. Shall I give notice of your intention to resist his
application for divorce?"

Still leaning on the chair for support, and without lifting her bowed
head, or raising her downcast eyes, she said in a voice barely
articulate with the huskiness and tremor of threatened physical
collapse, "Please leave me for awhile. Providence has seen fit to
afflict me so sorely that I must beg a little time to try to think.
But, stay!" And her voice gathered a little strength in an effort to
keep from breaking down altogether:

"I desire to receive nothing from John. I shall not reply to his
complaint, and you will return the money he has placed to my credit in
the bank. Now, please leave me; I desire to be alone."

During his professional experience, the "Judge" had been a witness to
many painful scenes, and familiarity had calloused somewhat his sense
of sympathy. But as he gazed upon the white, spiritually chaste face
of this frail woman, a conviction that a great wrong was being done to
her forced and crowded itself upon his brain.

"Someone must answer for it before a higher than human court," he
thought, and then with bent head he left her, feeling that he would
value beyond price the power to effect a little gleam of sunshine to
heal her broken heart.

"Dorothy! Dorothy!" he muttered, and he passed out from her presence
with words of Tennyson on his lips:

  "Oh, for the touch of a vanished hand,
  The sound of a voice that is still!"

After he had gone, Constance remained motionless. She was strangely
quiet, yet wrapt in thoughts of bitterest shame and grief, the world
had little left for her to care for.

A sense of gloom enveloped her. Its shadow bore heavily upon her
oppressed spirits, smothering by its weight the stifled cry of her
heart's anguish.

It was therefore with a wondrously calm voice, pregnant with tragic
pathos, that she at length broke the stillness: "I am sure of the
cause of John's absence now, and the very worst has come to me. What
now can compensate me for the humiliation of being thought by him so
shameless and debased? Oh, how wretched I am!" and with a moan, she
placed her hand on the top of her head.

"Oh, heaven spare my reason--yet--what is reason to me now? Or--life? My
darling is drowned. John has left me, and with them hope and happiness
are gone forever."

It was then a strange, uncanny, desperate flash leapt into her eyes.
Suddenly she withdrew her hand from the top of her head, but instantly
pressed it to her brow.

In a moment her appearance underwent a great change. Under the
continuous strain, the strands of grief and despair had at last
snapped asunder and up rushed an exultation that instantly overwhelmed
all opposition to a suddenly conceived and terrible purpose. She
whispered with an earnestness intense as it was significant: "There is
a way out." Then she suddenly burst into a frenzy of pathetic joy as
she thought of the phial of laudanum in the medicine chest in her
room.

"A passage to my darling beyond!"

She did not see Virginia standing in the doorway, nor did she pause as
some do to take a last farewell look at earth and sky. Her mind was
set upon the swift accomplishment of an object.

Upon reaching her room, she took up the phial of laudanum and then, as
she fell on her knees, locked her hands together, and her voice
softened into tenderness--softened in inexpressibly sweet and plaintive
tones, as she cried out in a whisper of her soul's anguish:

"Rock of Ages, cleft for me!"

She was standing in the shadow of the valley of death.

Strangely coincident, the inspiring notes of the "Star Spangled
Banner" softly broke upon the air from a piano in the music room
below. As the grand strains swelled upward, they were met with a break
in the clouds through which the sun poured down a flood of dazzling
glory.

At that moment Dorothy's pet canary began to sing. The delicate little
feathered thing, that had nestled its bill under its wing in the raw
cold of the morning, felt the warm influence of the sunshine that fell
upon it, and looked up, twittered, lifted its voice in surprised
gladness, and then in response to the soft strains that were pealing
forth from the music room, broke into song.

Higher and higher it swelled, cleaving the air with its exultant
melody.

Oh! the wild soaring flight of that joyous song!

Through the partly closed window it burst and flooded the room with
its gladness and cheer. Death stayed his hand.

The little silken feathered throat of her darling's pet had turned
aside the "Grim Sickle."

She heard it. Out over the entrancing beauty of Autumn-dyed
vegetation, her sad eyes wandered--wandered wistfully over nature
bathed in the splendor of the sun's radiance. She heeded the call, and
then, appalled at her contemplated sin, she cowered--bowed down--lower,
lower. In tones of resignation--tones tremulous with awe of the
Omnipotent, she said: "Have pity upon me, Merciful Heaven!"

And then very softly Virginia knelt beside her, gently encircling her
waist with her arm, and looked into her spiritual face with eyes
overflowing with tears. In a broken voice, scarcely articulate through
a great sob, she said: "Oh, Constance! Constance, dear, I am punished
enough already!"




After Hazel had completed her attire for a visit to Mrs. Harris, she
descended the stairs with the same feeling of gloom and depression
upon her.

Slow and hesitating as was her action--as though undecided as to the
propriety of leaving Constance, and while drawing on her gloves, she
aimlessly wandered into the music room and listlessly sat on the piano
stool. Then, with her head turned looking out of the window, she let
her fingers ramble over the keys of the instrument. Then she saw
Virginia pass up the walk and enter the house, but after the lapse of
a few moments and her cousin not appearing, Hazel entered the drawing
room to greet her--but too late. Through the open door she heard a step
on the main stairs above. Hazel followed. On passing the table the
divorce bill caught her eye. For a moment she paused and picked it up;
then laid it down, her breath coming in gasps, for she instantly
realized a crisis of a very grave moment had appeared. She ran
upstairs, surmising that Virginia was connected with the "divorce
bill," for she had not seen Mr. Williams.

And then she heard Virginia's voice. Softly she stole to the door and
looked in. There, kneeling on the floor, were Constance and Virginia,
looking into each other's eyes, Constance drawn back in timid alarm,
and Virginia blinded with tears, clasping the hand that held the
laudanum phial, her free arm thrown lovingly around Constance's waist.

Hazel silently drew back, an overpowering emotion suffusing her eyes
with tears. "Poor Constance! Her trouble thickens fast. What will the
end be?"




CHAPTER IV.


Rutley had found time during the frantic appearance of Constance at
the "fete," to threaten Virginia with public exposure if she failed to
keep their secret. It was that threat that induced her to pause in a
momentary conceived intention to demand an explanation from her
brother. The passionate earnestness--the uncontrollable fury she
discovered in her brother--produced an awe, and aroused her to a sense
of some terrible mistake, and of the far-reaching effect her
conspiracy with Rutley was likely to have. Each moment, instead of
exultation, increased her sorrow at the course she had pursued.

Between fear of publicity of the part she had played, coupled with her
hatred of Corway, and consequent satisfaction in her triumph at his
discomfiture--at the same time alarmed at her brother's imminent danger
in a probably tragic affair--all contributed to indecision, and she
realized to her dismay that she had placed herself in the power of a
man who had proved himself a master "Iago."

Her intuition caused her to shrink from him. He comprehended and
pressed closer. Despite her powerful will and keen perception, and
possession of those womanly attributes of sympathy and kindness to
suffering humanity, she felt herself incapable, just then, of defying
him.

The cry of Constance that Dorothy was in the water scattered the
quarreling party, which rushed to the river's edge.

Virginia and Mrs. Harris remained with Constance, but Rutley made it
his business to keep his eyes on her and under pretense of searching
the grounds, remained near by, in order to restrain her from
approaching her brother.

Her opportunity to undo all, which under a more prompt determination
would have succeeded--was lost, simply because it had taken her some
time to care for Constance, and also to arrive at a fixed conclusion,
irrespective of the threats or cajoling of Rutley--and then John Thorpe
disappeared. Two days she diligently searched for him, surmising that
he was searching for Dorothy, but all her efforts to locate him were
fruitless. She had just returned from a stubborn search of the hotels,
when she heard the frenzied cry of, "A passage to my darling beyond."
She recognized the voice and stole through the doorway, just in time
to see Constance pass upstairs.

As Virginia entered the room, she passed the table on which lay the
divorce paper. The printed word attracted her attention, and at once
arrested her onward course. She picked it up. "John Thorpe, from his
wife, Constance." Horror and dismay swept across her face with
lightning rapidity. Here, then, was the key to Rutley's horrible
revenge. Now she knew that Constance was made to stand for Hazel.

The document dropped from her nerveless hand, and with wildly beating
heart she flew up the stairs after Constance. Noiselessly she opened
the door. Before her--on her knees, with bowed head, the phial of
laudanum between her clasped hands, was the woman who had received the
terrible blow intended for Corway.

Virginia's heart seemed to still its beating. Her blood seemed to be
congealing to ice as she stood incapable of motion, and listened to
the piteous appeal from that pure, broken heart.

In a moment she understood it all--the intent--the arresting hand of
fate--the startled submission of a meek and contrite spirit to the
Divine will, and below--the divorce paper.

Satisfied that Constance would not again attempt an act of
self-destruction, and unequal, in her present frame of mind, to the
task of ministering comfort to the woman whose grief must be partially
laid to her door--for it must be remembered that Virginia had not in
any manner contributed to the abduction of Dorothy, and was as much at
a loss to account for the child's disappearance as her mother--she
withdrew, her mission unfilled--her atonement inconceivably harder to
accomplish. She seemed overcome with a suffocating sensation. She must
have air. Out of the house she mechanically passed. Down the steps and
around the grounds--under the silent falling vine and russet and
golden-colored leaves she hurried, neither looking to the right nor to
the left.

Born on her father's Willamette Valley farm, yet this city home, of
her childhood and of her womanhood, now so enchantingly beautiful in
its Autumn glory, its fragrant coying whisper had no charm to impede
her onward flight, no power to lift her bowed head.

She was thinking of the one within. "And it is all my fault. I feel
sure of that, for it would have been impossible for Rutley to have
angered John so much with any other name. I must have been mad ever to
have confided in him that it was Constance's ring.

"Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do? God forgive me!" she moaned, as
she sought solace under a maple. But there was no rest for her. She
returned to the house. Mechanically she opened the door and with one
longing heartsore purpose--to seek the seclusion of her apartment--to
throw herself on the couch and bury her face in her hands in a vain
hope to get relief in tears. But there, just inside the door, on the
hall table, she saw through moist-swollen eyes, something white.

She picked it up. It was a letter addressed to her, in a coarse
scrawl. She fled to her room, there she sat on a chair near the window
and opened the letter. The characters were bold, but slovenly written,
and almost illegible, and then somehow the light did not appear strong
or bright as it should be. She bent over close to the window--no
better, save that she could make out the word "Virginia."

Becoming more interested, she turned on the electric light, and even
then her eyes seemed weak, and the letters so run together as to
appear blurred. She took up a magnifying glass that lay on the table,
and by its aid was at last able to decipher the note.

  Virginia, ther party as sends er this kin tell yer somethink about
  er party yer wud lie ter knows, perwiden yer meets me nere the top
  of the long steps at or eleven ternight--alone, mind yer--alone in
  ther city park. Yerl be safe if alone.

She was at once convinced that the note had a deep significance. She
turned it over and over and read and re-read it again and again.

It was clearly meant for a clandestine meeting--with whom? Ha!

The handwriting was evidently disguised, for it was quite different
from that on the envelop, and the illiteracy plainly intended to
deceive. Nevertheless the information might be of inestimable
value--perhaps John, maybe of Dorothy.

Her mind was almost in a state of frenzy at her impotent efforts to
undo the mischief she had wrought, and even this "straw" gave a
certain measure of relief, by offering work for solution.

"I will go!" she said aloud. Having made up her mind to take the risk,
her spirits lightened perceptibly.

As the envelop bore no postmark, she at once plied the housemaid with
questions. Who delivered the letter? How had it come on the hall
table? The questions were put in a quiet, indifferent manner, so as
not to excite curiosity.

At the usual time the maid had taken it from the private mail box,
which was of iron and old-fashioned, and fastened to the porch
buttress, and she guessed that the mail carrier had brought it with
the other mail. Virginia spoke kindly to the girl, and after casually
commenting on the beautiful sunshine, returned to her room and
prepared for the adventure. She utterly disregarded in her mind that
the mail carrier had brought the letter. Since it was not postmarked,
it could not have passed through the postoffice.

Some one had sneaked in some time during the night or early in the
morning and placed it in the box. That was her decision.




CHAPTER V.


That night, heavily veiled, she entered the park, alone. She was
familiar with the contour and walks and knew the location of the long
steps, but in her agitation, she thoughtlessly took to the walk on the
left of the main entrance.

The darkness was not deep. Above could be seen stray fleecy clouds,
flitting athwart the vast realms of space, while the atmosphere near
the earth's surface was laden with a thin vapor. Down low on the
horizon, above the line of hills, swung the half-moon, aglow with soft
pale light, while the nearby electric arcs were scarcely affected by
the haze that enveloped them. Every element seemed to have conspired
to make the night a fit one in its baneful purpose.

As she proceeded, endeavoring to control her fears, though her heart
beat wildly with misgivings, the stillness of the night was broken
only by the sound of her own footfalls on the cement pavement, and
ever and anon were mingled with the distant attenuated sounds of
belated cosmopolitan life. At times her walk would be rapid, then slow
and hesitating, almost a halt, as she approached some indefinite
object, and as the clouds sped hurriedly across the face of the moon,
grotesque shadows loomed up suddenly, shying her into moments of
terror until discovered to be fantastic bushes or other odd-shaped
growths.

Her sustained, keen, alert watchfulness preyed severely upon her tense
nerves. At length she arrived at the place she thought designated in
the note. She stepped off the walk onto the grass, and stood under the
deeper darkness of a cedar. The stillness was profound; so much so
that she fancied she could hear the throb of her own tumultuous heart.

And to add to the unseasonable moment, the weird, uncanny howl of a
jackal, confined in the park menagerie, pierced the night air and
caused cold shivers to race up and down her frame.

"It's a lonely spot," she whispered to herself. "And this is the top
of the long walk. Now the time--yet! I can see no one. I do not feel
safe."

Just then a man moved slowly from the shadows near the fountain. He
leisurely walked toward the reservoir. She watched him for a moment,
until the pale moonlight again faded away, and darkness shut him from
view. Then, as if by inspiration, she suddenly remembered that the
note directed her to the top of the "long steps." In her excitement,
she had taken the wrong direction, and was then at the top of the long
walk.

Cautiously as possible, she crept down the bank, crossed the bridge,
that spanned the park's main artery, and though confusing in the
darkness, she at last found her way to the appointed place without
meeting or seeing anyone, but with nerves almost snapping asunder, and
so fatigued that her limbs trembled.

She sat on a bench near a clump of small firs to get a little rest,
and while peering through the darkness, which at that point was
faintly illumined by the mass of distant lights spread over the city
before and beneath her, she made out the figure of a man walking
leisurely on the drive below where she was sitting.

She arose to her feet, and silently stepped in the deep shadow of a
clump of trees, and watched him. She took him to be the same man she
had seen a little while before near the fountain. As she watched him,
another man, who had been concealed in the grove of trees, recently
trimmed out to make way for the traditional group of Indians in
bronze, "The Coming of the White Man," and which now graces the
spot--stole up with cat-like tread behind her, and then, quite close,
halted, and silently stood regarding her.

Virginia was watching the stranger on the road, almost directly below
her, with such intense eagerness as to be quite unconscious of the
dark shadow behind her.

"Perhaps I am being watched," she thought. "I will go down the steps."
She turned about, and was terrified to discover a roughly-clad man at
her elbow. Her heart seemed to stop its beat.

"What do you mean? Who are you?" she gasped.

The man lifted his hat, bowed and softly said: "Bees a-note a da
fraid, Signora de Virginia. Eesa nota-a do you-a da harm. I come to da
meet-a you."

His easy, respectful manner reassured her. Relieved, she said: "Then
it was you who sent me the note this morning?"

"He, he, he, he," he chuckled low, but exultantly. "Eesa tole-a da
self a-da letta would-a da fetch a-you."

"What do you want--what am I--who are you?"

He turned his head aside, and muttered to himself. "She doesn't
recognize me as the old cripple," and evaded a direct answer by asking
her: "Donna you da know-a me?"

"Your voice sounds like"--and she thought of the old cripple who
intruded on Mr. Harris' grounds a few nights since. "Yes--what"-- And
she halted, unable to frame her thoughts into words.

He laughed low and gutturally. "He, he, he, he, eesa be a da fine-a
artiste. Make-a da boss actor--like-a Salvina--bime by, eh?"

"You--you--you kidnapped little Dorothy," she almost shrieked,
forgetting her fear, and searching him with glittering eyes.

Jack Shore, for it was he, chuckled gleefully.

"You make-a da wild-a guessa, Signora, Eesa not-a da old-a cripple."

"You were in disguise, a beggar. I gave you money. What have you done
with the child?"

"What-a da child-a?" he asked, gruffly.

"Dorothy Thorpe!"

"He, he, he, he," he again chuckled, and sharply turned on her: "Who
tole-a you, Eesa gott-a da kid?"

"What did you want to meet me here for? Was it not to tell me where
Dorothy is?"

"Oh, he, he, he, he," he laughed. "Eesa jessa da thought-a youda
like-a see me--alone--at night, Signora." And he watched her from the
corners of his eyes, as, with bent head, he muttered:

"Turnoppsis, carrotsis, ca-babbages, black-a da boots, steal-a da
chil. Anyting dees-a gett-a da mon. Go back a da sunny Italy!"

"What was your motive for kidnapping the child?" she asked, without
heeding his significant answer.

"Da mon!" he promptly replied. Up to that moment he had equivocated.

"You are frank," she rejoined, and then asked: "Is Dorothy safe?"

"Youse-a da bet she's a da safe," he proudly replied.

"Ah!" It was a sigh of glad relief that she uttered, for she believed
the man's statement to be true, and with the information her spirits
rose.

"How many of you are there in this?" she quietly asked.

"Eesa not-a da beeze, jess-a da myself."

"You told me you sent the note requesting this meeting. Who wrote it?
It was not you!" she demanded.

Jack was not expecting so pointed a question and was thrown somewhat
off his guard by her abrupt eagerness. He answered thoughtlessly--or,
it may have been, indifference to the importance.

"Eesa my good-a da friend."

"So there are at least two of you in this 'over the road' business?"

Chagrined, he thought how easily he had been trapped. "Hang it! I
didn't mean to make a break like that." And then he exclaimed, between
his teeth, for he realized too late the slip of his tongue.

"See-a da here. Da mon. Eesa want. How much-a you-a da give to gett-a
back-a da kid? Speak a da quick."

Virginia perceived he was getting angry and restless.

It was about that time that Sam, who was lying on his stomach in a
slight depression, peered over the rise in the ground a short distance
from the two. He was a little too far away to hear distinctly, except
occasional words, as their voices were pitched in a low key.

"How much will I give?" replied Virginia, surprised, and then her
voice lowered again.

"You are a poor man, no doubt, but you have your liberty, which is
priceless, and I warn you of the severe penalty for the offense you
are committing. It is most dangerous business."

"Liberty, wid out-a da mon! Eesa be damn! Say, Signora, yous-a come-a
down wid a da handsome da mon--Eesa take de kid--wid da longa golda hair
so nicey da shiney, and da bigg-a da brown eyes."

"Dorothy, I am sure!" she thought.

"Well, what do you call the handsome mon?"

"Eesa note-a bees-a da hard. Eesa cheap at-a da twenty thous."

"Twenty thous--what!"

"Bigg-a da round flat dollairs!"

"Twenty thousand dollars!" angrily exclaimed Virginia, for the moment
forgetting herself, and then again her voice fell almost to a whisper.

"You dare ask that from me! Knowing that I have but to call and the
police would hound you to prison."

Jack swiftly wheeled about and rolled his eyes in alarm. The word
police startled him, and for the moment he verily believed they were
within call, a circumstance he at once set down to his lax
watchfulness, but he soon felt reassured, and, turning upon her said,
sarcastically:

"Oh, that-a beesa a lettle a da game-a. He, he, he, he," he laughed
low and gleefully, in strange contrast to the white of his eyeballs,
which shone with sinister effect as he leered at her.

"Two play-a dees-a da trick, Signora! Wouldn't yous-a look-a da well
bees-a compan-e-on ove-a mine, in a da pen, eh, Signora. He, he, he,
he," he again laughed.

"Eesa don-a da know some-a da ting about eesa da Duc, eh! Eesa don-a
da hear a da game between ee mand a da Signora da Virginia, eh!
Sacremento!" He fairly ground out the last word between his teeth.

Virginia shuddered and then involuntarily exclaimed: "Villain!"

Jack turned upon her swiftly, ceremoniously bowed, and again leered at
her. Then, with a most offensive smirk playing about his mouth, said:
"Tank-a da Signora, my a da pard."

Her face burned with the red that flushed up. She felt that even the
darkness could not conceal her flaming cheeks. She bent her head in
humiliation and shame at the all too well merited rebuke.

For a moment there followed intense stillness. She thought of what he
had possibly heard at the Harris reception. "His disclosure would
incriminate me with Rutley. Still, it matters not. My duty to my God,
my home and Constance is to make reparation for the wrong I have
done."

She broke the silence in an assumed, haughty tone. "Well, as you are
poor and in need, I will give you five hundred dollars upon return of
the child; but if you do not comply by noon tomorrow I shall inform
the police."

"Eesa bett-a note!" he replied, with an unmistakable menace in his
voice. "Eef yourse da squeal on a da ma, Signora--look-a da out!" And
so saying, he slowly drew his finger across his throat.

The action was most significant. "Eesa bett-a da keep a da mum!
Understand-a! Youse-a geeve a me a da twenty da thouse-a dollair,
youse-a take a da kid--but youse-a da squeal!" and he drew close and
hissed at her--"Bett-a da look a for her eesa mong a da weeds in a da
Willamette."

His attitude was so threatening, and his speech uttered with such
savage earnestness, that it drove all courage from her heart. Again
she felt, as once before, at the Harris reception, how puny a thing
she was in the presence of a strong, masculine rascal.

She, however, quickly mastered the momentary sickening alarm that had
seized her, and assuming a bold, threatening manner, in which she
astonished herself, for she felt anything but defiant just then, said
in a voice low and determined:

"Scoundrel! If you harm that child, I, myself, will weave the rope to
hang you!"

Jack leered at her. "So Signora"--laughed, laughed low and derisively.
"Ha, ha, ha, Signora lak-a da job, eh? Eesa mak-a da boss a hang-a
man, eh?"

Jack could not repress a smile of admiration at her courage, and his
lips quivered to exclaim: "God, she is game!"

"An-a deesea lettle white-a da hands-a," he sneered. "Stain 'em all a
da red, eh?" and he chuckled low, as though amused. "Oh, ha, ha, ha."
Suddenly he changed his tone and again continued threateningly. "Now
look-a da ere. Eef-a youse-a da want a kid, gett-a da mon a da
quick--twenty da thous, for eesa tink a da move-a da way. May bees
gett-a da organ en-a da monk, go down South Amereek. Eef youse-a danna
da squeal, da kid bees-a da safe; but effe youse-a da tell a po-lis,
eesa mak-a da me a devil," and he again drew close to her and hissed
out between his teeth.

"When eesa be lik-a dat, Eesa does a da murda," and so saying, he
thrust his hand inside his double-breasted short coat, and partially
drew out a glittering knife. "Eesa you da see?"--and he leaned over to
her, a sinister glint shooting from the corner of his eye--"Eesa slit
more's a da one-a windpipe." As he replaced the knife, a low whistle
sounded off toward the right. It startled him, for he muttered as if
alarmed. "Ha, some one is watching me." And without another word or
moment of delay, glided off southward, and disappeared in the
darkness.

Sam having seen the glitter of a knife against the dim city lights,
unconsciously gave a low whistle of warning, and sprang to his feet.
He believed Virginia was in imminent peril.

For a moment he stood irresolute, unwilling to uncover his identity to
her or to in any wise have her think he had been shadowing her. Then
feeling satisfied she was not hurt, he sped away on the track of the
Italian.

Virginia was alone. She, also, had seen the figure of a man suddenly
loom up on the right and then hasten after the supposed Italian.

The terror that now had seized her, the strain that gave artificial
courage, so worked upon her nerves as to produce a trembling of her
limbs, and to avoid a threatened collapse she sank down on the grass.

Her strength gradually returned, her agitation quieted and she began
to think with lucidity. She had been followed by whom? Most likely a
detective in the pay of her brother.

"Thank God!" His unknown presence at a perilous moment had been
sweetly welcome. "Dorothy is not dead," she thought. "Thank Heaven for
that, too; but she is in the hands of a murderous scoundrel, who would
not hesitate to shed innocent blood were his own safety jeoparded."

An attempt at rescue by the police would, no doubt, result in the
death of Dorothy. She must act alone, act at once. Having arrived at
that conclusion, she arose to her feet. To get Dorothy home was the
first thing to be done--the mother's life depended upon that.

How could she get twenty thousand dollars to pay the ransom? She bent
her head in thought. She had been instrumental in the ruin and
disgrace of her only brother's happy home. If it was in human power to
restore happiness to that home, she would do it. The Italian is in
desperate need of money. She could hypothecate her income; sell her
jewels.

"I will offer him all I can possibly obtain--then, if he will not
release Dorothy," and her voice took on a soft, strange, resolute
calmness. "God helping me, I will take her from him, even though," and
she looked at her own little white hands, "these do become stained red
in the work."

Then she made her way out of the park, and returned to her home.




CHAPTER VI.


Sam had followed Virginia and stood unseen within ten yards of her
when that morning she sat under the maple after she had left
Constance. He noted how absorbed she was in thought--noted her grave,
white, shocked face, and her bowed head. His sympathy went out to her.
Oh, what wouldn't he then have given to be able to clasp her in his
arms, to comfort her--the woman he so madly loved! Though free and
impulsive in his manner with other women, to her he was as coy and
modest and respectful as a boy of fifteen.

He lingered near the premises for a time, from an impelling sympathy
to be near her in her trouble, and hoping she would re-appear, but in
that he was disappointed.

He returned again in the evening, resolved to call on her. He ascended
the piazza steps and crossed to the door, but somehow at the moment
could not muster courage to push the button. After meditating for a
moment, he turned and softly passed along the piazza. On reaching the
south extension he halted, for the sound of a door softly closing
caught his ear, and then he saw Virginia emerging from the side
entrance, closely veiled. In a moment Sam was all alertness.

He wondered at her veiled appearance at that hour, about half past
ten, and at her avoiding the main front entrance. He followed at a
distance and saw her enter a Washington and Twenty-third street car.
He boarded the next one that came along.

Fortunately the interval between the two cars was short, there having
been a breakdown on Fifth and Washington streets, resulting in the
cars being bunched. Sam stood at the front end of the car beside the
motorman, and in the darkness--the front inside blinds being down--was
able to keep a sharp lookout at the car just ahead.

At the intersection of Washington and Twenty-third streets, the
forward car stopped, and he distinctly saw a woman alight. "Virginia!"
he muttered, and as his car passed on, he saw her walking toward the
park entrance. One block further along Twenty-third street Sam
alighted, and rapidly retraced his steps to Washington street. On
rounding the corner, and coming into view of the park entrance, where
blazed an arc light, he caught sight of her again, entering the
gateway.

Sam briskly covered the distance, keeping well under the line of
shadows.

"Did you notice the path a lady took, who entered the park a minute
since?" he inquired of a park policeman.

"Yes; that way!" and the policeman waved his hand to the left.

"Thank you," and Sam followed the direction indicated. A strange
foreboding hurried him on. He was then fully aroused to something
extraordinary about to happen. He walked on the grass whenever
possible to muffle the sound of his footfalls, and soon was rewarded
by making out the dim form of a woman some distance ahead, being still
in the range of the gate arc light. There was no mistaking the figure.
From that moment he never lost sight of her.

To avoid suspicion of shadowing her, he took a diverging path and
boldly clambered over the hill, and proceeded toward the children's
playgrounds, apparently away from her. Passing on and in the direction
of the reservoirs, he at length stopped at the fountain.

He was the "man near the fountain" whom she discovered while she was
standing under the cedar.

Sam had stopped but a moment when, to his amazement, he discovered
Virginia suddenly had disappeared down the hillside. He at once
followed her, and was the man she again saw on the driveway beneath
her. Again she disappeared, and he shrewdly suspected, into the deep
shadow of the clump of firs nearby.

He was straining his eyes diagonally up the slope, trying to penetrate
the gloom, when a low scream of terror assailed his ears, and was
quickly followed by a low, reassuring masculine voice. He determined
to get near them. He threw himself flat against the bank and, shielded
some by the unmowed grassy slope, dragged himself along for about
fifty feet, to where the driveway, rounding westward, divided them
from the long flight of steps. He passed within fifty feet of the
couple, then cautiously pulled himself near the summit. The ridge was
strategically of great value. It enabled him to flank them unseen.

He immediately availed himself of its cover and sneaked slowly and
cautiously along the side of the crest to a point which he judged to
be near enough to them, and then he peered above the summit. The
couple were between him and the dim city lights. He strained his ears
to catch their words, and drew himself closer, inch by inch, fearing
discovery, yet desperately anxious to catch the purpose of the
meeting, and when he saw the glittering knife, his alarm gave
expression in the low whistle.

When he sprang on in pursuit of Jack, it was with a determination to
ascertain who he was, where he lived, and, if possible, to gain some
knowledge of his purpose in this meeting with Virginia at such an
unseasonable time and place.

The few words of low-spoken conversation he had heard gave him no clue
to the real object of the meeting; but he was convinced that some
grave and momentous purpose was involved to have induced Virginia to
keep so perilous an appointment alone.

"Did she make the appointment?" The thought was no sooner uttered than
it gave place to another equally as suggestive, for just then thoughts
raced through Sam's brain with amazing rapidity. "Or, rather, was she
not compelled to meet the stranger by some power which he had obtained
over her--some secret of her life which she feared--a deathly fear, of
disclosure, and which this man knew, and its power he knew only too
well, how to wield."

The more he thought about it, the more the mystery, for such it
appeared to him, deepened. He determined to fathom it. Inured to a
rough, open-air life on the Texas plains, his constitution was hard
and tough, and well seasoned for the job presented--and, it must be
confessed, it was to his liking.

Sam felt his blood tingle as his enthusiasm rose to the prospect of a
genuine adventure, and he hurried along, over the soft, yielding
grass, to catch sight of the fellow ahead. A clump of low bushes
suddenly confronted him. It was an unusually dark spot, and then, for
the first time, he thought of the ugly knife the stranger had
displayed, and realized that he himself was unarmed.

He almost halted--wary of running into an ambush, and cautiously made a
wide detour, meanwhile alert for any sudden surprise from the
direction of the bush. Discovering no sign of a crouching figure
there, he hastened on, and finally caught sight of a moving shadow, as
it crossed a faint shaft of light shot from a window of a dwelling on
Ford street, to his left.

"Ah, I guess so. That's the party," he muttered to himself, and from
that moment Sam was as keen on the trail as a sleuth on the scent,
never losing sight of his quarry, but himself avoiding, as he
believed, discovery.

Occasionally, as the moon cleared from an obscuring cloud, he could
make out the man halting under the shelter of a fir or clump of
saplings, evidently to listen for sounds of a pursuer, and then,
seemingly satisfied, again move on.

So far the direction of his course was toward the reservoir, but of a
sudden he turned, and sharply cutting across Sam's front, swiftly
entered the deep gloom of a cluster of cedars, where he was lost to
the eyes of the pursuer.

It was plain that his man intended to avoid exit by the main gate, or
by Park avenue, a circumstance to cause Sam keen chagrin, for he hoped
by an adroit move to get a good square look at the fellow's face as he
would pass under the entrance arc light.

To the right, a foot path wound its way to the main gate. To the left
of a cluster of dark firs stretched a comparative level, past the bear
pit, and right down to the deer corral; but what park features lay
beyond and between the firs and corral, he could not determine. In his
effort to mislead Sam, the fugitive had doubled on his track, and at
that moment was but a short distance west of the starting point. Sam
reasoned that this man would not cross that smooth, grassy plot, nor
emerge from his retreat and go down the path, but most likely would
take a direct course through the cluster of firs, and under the
shelter of their dark shadow strike the fence directly opposite, and
so reach the Barnes road, a hundred yards or so west of the park gate.

It was obvious that time was an important factor. There being no
possible place of concealment between his present position and the
firs, he must either go back and take a circuitous route, or boldly
approach by the path. He chose the latter. Skirting the firs--for he
dared not enter the cluster's gloomy precincts in his defenseless
condition--he soon passed them and discovered a succession of
odd-looking shrubs, trained to fantastic growths by the gardener. They
afforded excellent cover right down past the bear pit to the deer
corral fence, which ran along the brow of the hill; farther down, a
second fence, which still exists, bounded the deer corral and
separated the park from the Barnes road. A little further along and
against the upper picket fence (since removed), a mass of tangled ivy
and Virginia creeper foliage, revelled in wild luxuriance.

The vines had seized upon and had grown about and over some dwarf
locust trees, forming a series of natural bowers, rather picturesque
by daylight, but at night, dismally dark and forbidding.

Sam hesitated, which was well for him, for under the shadow of these
dark vines, Rutley and Jack Shore had met by previous arrangement.
They were silently watching him.

"I cannot shake him off. He tracks me like a bloodhound," Jack
informed his companion, in a whisper.

"The meddlesome fool!" replied Rutley. "If he will not stop following
you--why--he carries his life in his hands."

"No, no! Not that. We don't want any killing in ours, Phil, anything
but that. Who is he?"

"Sam Harris. I saw him follow Virginia and was sure he would run foul
of you."

"The simpleton is harmless anyway. He is moving to the fence. See him?
Hist!"

After studying the wild growth for a few moments, Sam decided to
approach it by way of the fence. There he suddenly dropped to his
knees and crept noiselessly--very close beside the fence, toward the
tangle. As he neared it he could make out its black cavernous
recesses. Twice he paused, his eyes strained with the utmost tension
of watchfulness against a surprise, for he now fully believed that the
man he was attempting to shadow was a desperate character.

However, he crept nearer, hardly stirring a blade of grass, so
cautious was his progress--so silent his movements. He listened
intently, scarcely breathing, lest its sound should betray his
presence. His hands gently touched a vine to part the leaves--instantly
he was greeted with a hiss and a rattle, and then something glittered
close to his eyes, which in the moment of his startled alarm he
believed to be the glitter of a reptile's fangs. It caused him to bolt
suddenly with a panicky feeling at his heart, and then it brought from
Jack a soft chuckle of merriment.

"He's not as plucky as the girl. We must throw him off the scent at
any cost," whispered Rutley, "or we will be trapped." Suddenly he laid
his hand on Jack's arm and continued with a low, sardonic laugh: "I
have it, Jack. You lead him down on the Barnes road; I'll meet him
there," and without any further delay Rutley slipped down the steep
slope to his automobile, which lay in the deep shadow of the canyon
walls, a little further to the west, where he waited with the evil
purpose in his heart for the climax.

Sam was no coward. He had faced dangerous situations fearlessly, but
that hiss and rattle, in the stillness of a dark, lonely and
forbidding place, fairly raised his hair, and lent a lightness to his
feet that amazed him, when he halted and noted the distance covered in
the few moments of his flight.

"One of those deadly reptiles got out of the park zoo," he thought,
"sneaked his way into that jungle--I guess so!" and he wiped the beads
of perspiration from his face as he added aloud: "An almighty close
call! But," and he looked up at the dark sky, and then around and
about, and as gathering confidence returned to him, continued: "I
shall not give up yet, not yet. I guess not."

Yet it was apparent his pursuit of the stranger had signally failed,
and he stood motionless wondering what course then best for him to
adopt.

True, he was in a dilemma, and instinctively realized that to remain
in the park was useless. So, without forming any practical conclusion,
and for the purpose of keeping active, he again moved toward the
fence. It was then he conceived the notion to climb over the fence and
make a short descent to the gate, in order to catch sight of Virginia,
for she could not be far away yet, and to follow her and secretly to
protect her on her return to her home. With that object in mind, he
climbed the fence, and, securing a position on its top, looked
cautiously about. He was some distance to the west of the tangle of
vines, from which he was screened by the foliage of a small tree that
grew nearby.

[Illustration: Sam--"One of those deadly reptiles got out of the Park
Zoo."]

The gate light threw a faint glimmer along the fence, and on the
Barnes road in the gorge below. He peered down the steep hillside, and
looked up and down the road. There being no one in sight, he let his
legs slip quietly down the other side of the fence, and gradually
lowered himself, without sustaining other injury than a few trivial
scratches. As he brushed mechanically the debris which had clung to
his clothes, he was surprised to see the figure of a man step out,
seemingly from the fence itself, and slip down the hillside, and
climbing the lower fence, cross the almost dry bed of the stream,
close to the road, and proceed cityward.

Sam was sure the man, whoever he was, had not been on the corral side
of the fence a moment before, and to give the mysterious appearance a
deeper significance, the point of exit was about the location of the
tangled vines. The appearance of the man differed from the one he had
followed, inasmuch that one had on a long coat and bushy beard, the
other wore a short pilot coat and mustache. For a moment Sam was
puzzled, and he scratched his head. Suddenly he broke out in an
unconscious whisper to himself, as though urged on by some
supernatural agency, for afterward it surprised him when he thought of
that moment: "Damned if I don't think he's the same party I've been
after, disguised."

And he made straight for the place, as near as he could estimate,
where the man had emerged.

It was a few moments before he found it, but a close examination soon
revealed two yielding pickets of the fence. True, just sufficient to
admit a man's body sideways, but there it was, as he afterwards
discovered, and perfectly screened from observation by masses of
slender leaf-laded branches and twigs. The inner, bushy part being
skilfully cut away. The trick employed to evade him was now palpable.
The hiss, the buzzing rattle, the glitter--"Ah; it was the glitter of a
steel blade"--and at the thought he shivered, as with an icy chill, for
he realized how dangerously near a death-trap he had ventured. As the
reaction came, his face flamed with the hot blood of indignation and
chagrin at the smart dodge by which he had been temporarily baffled.

In the distance, down near the park entrance, was still dimly visible
the retreating form of a man. Sam determined to follow him.

He slid and partly tumbled down the steep hillside, sprang over the
lower fence, and crossed the bed of the creek and on to the road--and
was so intent on his mission that he did not hear or see, until it was
almost upon him, a dark, noiseless machine, approaching from the rear.
He moved hastily aside to let it pass, but to his intense
astonishment, the automobile followed him with evident intention of
running him down. Again he sprang aside, but too late. The front wheel
grazed his left leg and swung him around on to the rear wheel, which
hurled him violently to the ground.

Having accomplished his purpose, Rutley at once stopped the machine,
alighted, and examined Sam.

He was soon joined by Jack, who asked, in a low voice: "Have you
killed him?"

"I don't think so. Bad gash on the side of his head, though."

"Dangerous?"

"Impossible for me to say."

"Just unconscious?" anxiously inquired Jack.

"Yes; but I don't think he will interfere with us again for some time.
What shall we do with him?"

"Take him home."

"Good idea," grunted Rutley. "It becomes you decidedly well, Jack,
after being a villain, to play the good Samaritan. Well, take this
handkerchief and bind his wound," and he raised Sam's head while Jack
bound up the wound.

"It will make old Harris feel under an obligation to me."

"And you can touch him for the loan of ten thousand, to square
accounts," added Jack. And again Rutley laughed.

"Come, let's pack him on to the machine."




CHAPTER VII.


Shortly after the insult forced upon him by John Thorpe at the Harris
reception, and finding it impossible to enjoy the spirit of the gay
throng, Mr. Corway took his departure.

Disappointed in his endeavor to communicate with Hazel, who deemed it
discreet to avoid his presence until after the affair had been cleared
up--and actuated by the purest motives, he could not but feel that he
was the mistaken victim of some foul play with which fate had
strangely connected him.

He recalled the profound respect he had always entertained for and on
every occasion he had shown Mrs. Thorpe. And as his thoughts of the
affair deepened, his natural fire of resentment softened and died out
as effectually as though he had been summoned to stand beside the
deathbed of some very dear friend. And the more he thought of it, the
more disagreeable and repugnant a quarrel with John Thorpe appeared to
him; yet his honor as a gentleman grossly insulted, forbade any other
way out of it.

Finally he decided to consult Mr. Harris on the best course to pursue,
and for that purpose determined to visit Rosemont the next day.

It was well on in the afternoon that he left his hotel for the
Jefferson street depot, and while walking along First street he
noticed a closed "hack," drawn by a pair of black horses, rapidly
proceeding in the same direction.

As it passed him, he felt sure that he had caught a glimpse of Lord
Beauchamp's profile, through the small, glazed lookout at the back of
the vehicle.

It was late when Corway returned from Rosemont, and strangely
coincident, as he stepped down off the car he saw that same "hack"
move off, and that same face inside, made plain by a chance gleam of
light from a street lamp, that quivered athwart the casement of the
door. But except for a thought of "devilish queer, unless 'me lord'
was expecting some one," he attached no further importance to it, and
dismissed it from his mind.

He proceeded up Jefferson street with head bent low, engrossed in deep
meditation, for Mr. Harris was unable to give him any concrete advice
on the matter, and he was recalling to memory every conceivable act he
had committed, or words he had uttered that could have been possibly
misconstrued by Mr. Thorpe to urge the latter to a frenzy and so
violent an outburst, when he was abruptly halted by a peremptory
order: "Hands up!"

Simultaneously two masked men stepped out from the shadow of a gloomy
recess of a building between Second and Third streets, and one of them
poked the muzzle of an ugly-looking revolver in his face.

At that moment Mr. Corway had his hands thrust deep in his light
overcoat pockets, and the suddenness of the demand made at a time when
his mind was in a perturbed, chaotic state, evidently was not clearly
comprehended. At any rate, he failed to comply instantly, with the
result that he received a heavy blow on the back of his head with some
blunt instrument, which felled him like a log. His unquestioned
personal courage, and his reputation of being a dead shot at twenty
paces availed him nothing. He was not permitted time, short as was
needed, to wrest his mind from its pre-occupied business to grasp a
mode of defense, before he was struck down. He thought he had met
with, what many others before him have met on the streets of Portland
after dark, a "holdup."




When he recovered consciousness the smell of tar and whiskey was
strong about him. To his dazed senses, for his brain had not
completely cleared of a stunned sensation in his head, this smell was
incomprehensible, and suddenly becoming startled, he cried out, half
aloud: "For the love of God, where am I?" And then a recollection of
the apparent "holdup" dawned on his mind.

He lay still for a moment trying to trace his actions following the
blow he had received, but in vain; all was a blank. It was very dark
where he was lying, and he fancied he heard the swish of waters. He
put out his right hand and felt the wooden side of a berth. He put out
his left hand and felt a wooden wall. Then he tried to sit up, but the
pain in his head soon compelled him to desist.

He lay quiet again and distinctly heard a sound of straining, creaking
timbers. He at once concluded he was on a ship. "Why! Wherefore! Good
God, have I been shanghaied?" were the thoughts that leaped to his
mind, and notwithstanding the pain in his head, he attempted to sit
up, but his head bumped violently against some boards just above him,
and he fell back again, stunned. He had struck the wooden part of the
upper berth. He, however, soon recovered and commenced to think
lucidly again. He knew how prevalent the practice of forcibly taking
men to fill an ocean ship's crew had become in Portland and other
Coast cities by seamen's boarding house hirelings, and he felt
satisfied that he was one of their victims.

He put his hand in his pocket for a match; there was none; and his
clothes felt damp, then a fresh whiskey odor entered his nostrils.
"Have I been intoxicated?" The question startled him, but he could not
remember taking any liquor. "No; I am sure of that, but why this odor;
perhaps this berth has been occupied by some 'drunk'."

A feeling of disgust urged him to get out of it at once, and he threw
his leg over the side of the berth and stood upright.

The pain in the back of his head throbbed so fiercely that he clapped
his hand over it, which afforded only temporary relief. He then
thought of his handkerchief, which he found in his pocket, and though
smelling of whiskey, he bound it about his head.

Being now in full possession of his faculties, and feeling strong on
his legs, he determined to investigate his quarters. "Oh, for a
light!"

Again he felt in his pockets for a match and found none, but he
discovered that his watch was gone, and a further search revealed that
every cent of his money was gone.

At this time, in addition to occasional indistinct sounds of the swish
of waters against the bow, he heard some tramping about overhead, as
by barefooted men, acting seemingly under orders from a hoarse voice
farther away.

His first impulse was to shout to apprise them of his presence, but on
second thought decided to remain silent for a time, or until he could
determine their character.

So he proceeded to grope around, first extending his foot in different
directions, and then his hands. He found three berths, one above the
other, and then, fearful of bumping his head against some projecting
beam or other obstacle, put out his left hand as a feeler before him,
and slowly worked along by the side of the berths.

Soon his foot struck something hard, unlike wood, for it appeared to
give a little, and putting down his hand, felt it to be a coil of
rope. It was in an open space at the end of the berths. A little
further his foot struck some wood, and feeling about with his hand,
found it was a partition wall. On rounding the partition a very thin
ray of light issued from a crevice in front, and then he discovered
steps.

He crawled up to a door, opened it, and peered out on a pile of
lumber. Above it masts towered up into the darkness, with sails
hoisted, but unset and flapping lazily to and fro in the wake of the
breeze.

It was near the dawn, light clouds almost transparent and partly
obscuring the moon, drifted along in the sky, while here and there,
through openings of deepest blue, glittered countless stars.

The air was fresh, too, a little raw and chill, but good to inhale
after the dead rank odor from which he had just escaped.

An open space in the lumber pile just in front of the forecastle door,
and left to facilitate ingress and egress, gave him room to stretch.
The light that glimmered faintly through a chink in the door was from
a lantern that hung on the fore mast, a few feet above the deck-load
of lumber.

By the aid of this light he looked over and along the surface of the
lumber aft to where some men were dimly silhouetted against the aft
sail, then swinging abeam, by a lantern on the poop.

Without hesitation he mounted the lumber and was immediately accosted
by a gruff voice from behind: "Where away now shipmate?"

"That's something I should like to know," replied Corway, turning
around and facing the questioner.

Then he saw that the ship was being towed down the Columbia River, of
which he was certain by its width, by a steamer, and the man who had
addressed him was leaning on the boom that swung over the forecastle.

"You'll know soon enough when your 'watch' comes," said the man with a
grunt that may have been meant for a laugh.

"I say, friend," went on Corway, pleadingly, "I am not a sailor, and
as there must be some mistake about me being on this ship, may I ask
what means were used to get me aboard?"

"Well, that's a rummie," said the fellow, leering at Corway, and after
a moment of seeming reflection, he continued: "Well, I reckon it's not
a mate's place to give out information, but bein' you've a sore top
an' wearin' city clothes, I will say this much: you had stowed away
such a bally lot of booze that you come to the ship like a gentleman,
sir. Yes, sir. And nothing short of a hack with a pair of blacks to
draw it, would do for you, sir."

"In a hack, you say!" exclaimed Corway, alertly.

"Yes, sir; in a hack, just as we cast off from the sawmill wharf at
Portland."

"Strange! The hack I saw yesterday afternoon, and again at the depot
last night, was drawn by black horses," muttered Corway to himself,
and after a moment of deep reflection, went on: "Looks like a
conspiracy to get me out of the way. I say, my good fellow, do you
remember the time I was brought on board and how many were in the
party?"

"That's none o' my business," replied the mate, turning away.

"Oh, come now," said Corway, pleadingly, for he believed this man
could tell more about the affair than he cared to.

"Well, all I seen was three swabs that said they was from the Sailor
boardin' house, chuck you aboard about two bells," replied the mate,
indifferently, as he straightened himself up.

Corway then noted the huge proportions of the fellow and thought:
"What a terrorizing bully he could be to the poor sailors that chanced
to anger him at sea."

"But I never was in a sailor boarding house in my life."

"Oh, tryin' to crawfish from your bargain, eh?" laughed the big
fellow. "It won't go; ship's bally well short-handed, long vige, too,
and the capt'n had to do it!"

"Do what?" Corway sharply snapped.

"Why, he pays over the money afore they'd h'ist ye over the rail.
Better talk to the capt'n. He's comin' for'ard now," and the mate
stepped over and leaned on the bulwark.

Corway at once turned and moved toward the captain, who was
approaching with his first officer, from amidships, smoking a cigar.

"Yes, I am the captain. What do you want?"

"To be put ashore!" Corway demanded. "I've been sandbagged and robbed,
and evidently sold to you for a sailor, which I am not."

"Not a sailor, eh," the captain said, taking the cigar from his mouth
and looking sharply at Corway. "What did you sign the articles for?"

"I never signed any articles." By this time Corway was fully alive to
his position and spoke with rising heat and ill-suppressed
indignation.

"Oh, yes you did!" sneered the first officer, "but you were too drunk
to remember it."

"Repeat that, and I'll choke the words back down your throat," and
Corway stepped menacingly toward him.

The captain held up his hand warningly and looked at Corway as if he
was daffy, then said slowly and meaningly: "Be careful, young man;
that is insubordination; a repetition will land you in irons. The
boarding-house master swore that he saw you sign the articles, and he
had other witnesses to your signature to satisfy me before I paid him
your wages for six months in advance on your order."

"I signed no articles, and I know nothing about it," fumed Corway.
"And I again demand, as an American citizen, that you put me ashore,
or I shall libel this ship for abduction."

"Ah, ah, ah," sneered the first officer, who was unable to conceal his
ill-will to Corway since the latter's threat to choke him. "Give the
dandy a lady's handkerchief, and he'll believe the ship's a jolly good
wine cask."

Corway struck him square on the mouth. "Take that for your insolence,
you contemptible puppy," and following him up with clenched fists, as
the officer stumbled back, said wrathfully: "If you speak to me that
way again, I'll break in your anatomy."

"Here, Judd," called the captain to the mate on the forecastle. "Take
this fellow to the strong room and keep him there on 'hardtack' for
three days."

"Aye, aye, sir," replied Judd.

Hearing the captain's orders, and seeing the commotion he had created,
Corway saw that his only chance for escape was to go overboard, and
without further hesitation sprang toward the side of the ship for a
plunge, but his toe caught on the edge of a warped board and down he
went sprawling.

The big mate jumped on him, and though he fought desperately, he was
overpowered, and the last he remembered was being dragged by the
collar over the lumber toward the forecastle.

When he next got on deck the ship was far out to sea and bowling along
in a stiff breeze.

It is said that it is an ill wind that doesn't blow somebody good.

So with Mr. Corway, for though the boarding-house toughs had nearly
given him his quietus and sent him on a long journey, they had
conveniently done him the effective service of quashing an encounter
with John Thorpe.




CHAPTER VIII.


When Sam regained consciousness it was to find himself on a couch in
his uncle's home, with the odor of ammonia in his nostrils. For a
couple of minutes he lay very still, collecting his scattered senses,
and then, as the clouds that darkened his brain cleared away, the
events of the night dawned upon his memory.

Two men were in the room conversing in low tones. They were standing
near the dressing-case, back of the couch, which had been drawn out to
the middle of the room to facilitate examination of his injuries. One
of the speakers he recognized by the voice as his uncle. The other he
soon made out to be the family doctor.

"Then you are quite satisfied he is not badly hurt?"

"So far as I have been able to examine him, yes. The concussion, when
he struck the hard roadbed, produced insensibility. The cut of the
cuticle covering the left parietal bone, just above the ear, is not
dangerous, since there is no fracture. I do not anticipate any serious
result, fortunately. It might have been worse--it might have been
worse!"

"Quite true; still we should have more confidence in his recovery if
we were certain the worst has passed."

"All passed, Uncle--I guess so!" spoke up Sam, in cheery tones, and he
sat up on the couch.

"Ha, ha, Sam, my boy; not so fast. Glad to hear your voice again, but
you must rest; you must rest. You need it. The doctor insists," and
Mr. Harris hastened to his side to urge him again to lie down.

Nevertheless Sam arose to his feet and remarked: "All right, Uncle! A
little sore up there," and he motioned to the sore side of his head.
"But that's all--I guess."

"You must avoid excitement," cautioned the doctor. "And I advise you
at once to take to your bed and remain there until I make a thorough
diagnosis of your case, which I shall do in the morning."

"Not if I know it. Not much--I guess not!" mentally noted Sam.

Turning to Mr. Harris, he asked: "How long have I been unconscious,
Uncle, and who brought me home?"

The question was put by Sam with an eagerness bordering on excitement.

It was noticed by both the gentlemen.

"I insist that you go to bed, Sam," pleaded Mr. Harris.

"The very best thing you can do, sir," added the doctor.

"Of course, Uncle, I shall do so to please you; but the only soreness
I feel is on the side of my head, and I've often felt worse. But you
have not answered my questions."

"You were unconscious for about two hours. My Lord Beauchamp brought
you home in an automobile. It seems he was returning from a spin out
on the Barnes road and accidentally ran his machine against you. He,
like the perfect gentleman he is, immediately stopped and went to your
aid. He recognized you and brought you home with all speed."

"Ah! Very queer!" exclaimed Sam, significantly.

"What is queer, Sam?" Mr. Harris interrogated, with a keen,
penetrating, yet puzzled look.

"Why, that fellow," and Sam checked himself from making a grave
charge, by indifferently remarking: "Oh, it seems queer to be run
over," and then he looked up and continued: "Doctor, I thank you for
your attention; good night.

"Uncle, good night; I'm going to bed."

"Very sensible, Sam; good night."

"This powder is an opiate and will act to produce sound sleep, which
is very essential to counter the shock your nervous system has
received," said the doctor, as he laid out the potion. "Take it, after
getting into bed."

"Thank you," and Sam fingered the powder gingerly. "Good night,
Doctor."

"Good night, sir."

As Mr. Harris and the doctor left the room Sam stood for a moment in
deep thought, then muttered to himself: "That fellow out there near
midnight. No lights or gong on his machine. Deliberately ran me
down--and Virginia about! Did he know she was to be there?" He shook
his head--"It looks queer." And then he lifted his eyes in a quick,
resolute way.

"I'll be back in the park at dawn--I guess so!"

With that he flipped the opiate out of the window.




CHAPTER IX.


It was in the gray of the dawn when Sam alighted from the first
outbound car at the junction of Twenty-third and Washington streets
and immediately struck out for the City park.

He was desirous of being the first visitor there, and he was
inordinately curious to examine by the light of day the ground he had
traversed a few hours previous, and particularly the spot where
Virginia had met the mysterious stranger, as also the tangle of vines
in which he was satisfied had lurked most deadly danger.

He had been urged on by an indefinable something, a sort of
presentiment that quickened to impatience, his desire for an early
trip to the park, and pursuing his way steadily along, afraid of no
ambush now, for he was armed, he at length arrived at the spot which
he recognized by the clump of firs close to the row of the esplanade
benches. He examined the ground as carefully as the uncertain light
would permit. Discovering nothing unusual, he was about to abandon the
search and make his way over to the tangle of vines, when on second
thought he decided to wait awhile for stronger light. Producing a
cigar, he contentedly sat on a bench--the very same Virginia had
occupied--near a tree.

Sam was not of a romantic turn of mind, yet his attention was arrested
by the sublime grandeur of the scene confronting him. The morning was
emerging from the deep darkness of night, mild, clean and fresh. The
base of the distant eastern hills was yet shrouded in inky blackness--a
blackness intensified by a vast superimposed floating mass of thin
fog, seemingly motionless in the noticeably still air.

The billowy crest of this fleecy, semi-transparent mass of vapor
reflected a mellow chastity, while the irregular points of the rugged
mountain tops were sharply defined against the soft emerald,
golden-pink light that streaked and massed the sky in the advance of a
promising Autumn morn.

The huge, glistening white peaks of Hood and Adams and St. Helens,
towered in lofty majesty, clear and individually distinct above the
high altitudes of the range that encompassed them, and even as he
looked, a soft, rose-red tinge tipped the apex of Mount Hood, which
appeared unusually close, and crept softly down the glacis of its
snow-covered, precipitous sides.

And nearer, at his feet, in a basin--the city spread out far and wide.

The silvery green waters of the Willamette River, cutting through the
city's center, silently glided along its sinuous course to the
Columbia; while patches of thin mist flitted timidly about on its
placid surface, to vanish like tardy spirits of a departing night.

The grand panorama gave his usually buoyant spirits pause.

Gradually the light of his eyes changed from absorbing admiration to a
reflective mood, in which the strange behavior of Virginia Thorpe was
the predominating subject.

That money, possibly blackmail, was the object of the
stranger--scoundrel. Sam could think of him in no other light after the
night's experience. There was no doubt, for he had plainly heard her
say in a loud, surprised tone, "Twenty thousand dollars."

Suddenly the hoarse whistle of a far-off industrial establishment
vibrated the air and aroused him from his deep reverie. The morning
was well advanced.

As the light in his eyes quickened from a pensive stare at the ground
a few paces from his feet, he perceived a shred of red peeping between
the blades of short grass. He picked it up. It was a narrow piece of
soiled and worn ribbon, but attached to it was an old oxidized bronze
medal, about the size of a silver quarter-dollar. The inscription upon
its rim was in Latin, but Sam clearly made out one word, "Garibaldi,"
from which he concluded its late owner must be an Italian.

From the smooth condition of the medal, and unweathered appearance of
the ribbon, he judged it must have been recently lost.

"What if it had been accidentally dropped by the man talking to
Virginia last night?" The idea was fraught with great possibilities.

"A clue! A sure clue, as I live," and Sam's enthusiasm soared with the
recollection of seeing the man thrust his hand into the inside breast
of his coat to show the knife, when it was quite possible the medal
either became unfastened from its clasp, or being loose in his pocket,
had been drawn out with the knife and slipped noiselessly to the
ground.

Somehow Sam's thoughts flew back to the night of his uncle's
reception, and connected the old Italian beggar loitering about the
grounds with the medal.

"Was he the owner of the medal? And, if so, was he the same party that
met Virginia, and whom he had followed last night?"

"Heavens! Could he have kidnapped Dorothy?" A train of thought had
been started and rushed through Sam's brain with prodigious alacrity.

"Was the twenty thousand dollars he had heard Virginia mention with
surprise, a ransom?"

"If Virginia knew that Dorothy was in the hands of the Dago, why did
she keep it secret? And what business had Beauchamp out on the Barnes
road last night?" Sam derided the idea of him being out there alone,
for a spin.

With these thoughts, and others, pregnant with momentous
possibilities, he continued the search. Finding nothing more, he
sprang onto the path that led to the tangle of vines. There was the
very spot. No mistaking it. Along that fence he had crept in the
darkness of night. Those the leaves he had touched with his hands, and
he thrust his stout cane among them, but no hiss, or rattle, or
glitter of something sinister, greeted his probing now.

Into the gloomy recess of the jungle he made his way, derisively
fearless of any possible lurking danger.

He parted the overhanging foliage to let in more light. Ah, it was all
plain now.

There close to his elbow was the artfully concealed exit through the
foliage, and the pickets loose at the bottom. There the man had
stood--not more than a foot of space separating them when Sam's hand
touched the leaves, and the glitter--well, it was the vicious glint of
an ugly knife. Of that Sam now felt perfectly satisfied.

Pushing the leaves further apart to enlarge the opening overhead, so
as to admit more light, he discovered several strands of hair of a
brownish color clinging to the end of a broken twig in the cavity of
the tangle, which he at once conjectured had been torn from the man's
false beard. These strands of hair Sam carefully gathered and placed
between the leaves of his notebook. "Maybe, maybe they'll be useful
some day. I guess so," he muttered.

He resumed the search, but with the exception of a few indistinct
shoeprints on the soft soil, found nothing more to interest him, and
squeezing himself through the aperture in the fence, he quickly
emerged on the Barnes road, well satisfied with his morning's work.




One hour later, with his hat jauntily set on the side of his head,
effectually concealing the wound, Sam was walking on Third street, in
front of the "Plaza" blocks, where several vegetable vendors
rendezvous preparatory for their morning's work. Several bustling
women, hotel stewards and others were out early, marketing. As he
wended his way through the bargain-driving throng, the loud voice of
an olive-skinned huckster standing on the rear footboard of his
heavily-laden wagon, attracted his attention. It was a covered,
one-horse express wagon, common on the city streets, and contained a
motley assortment of oranges, bruised bananas, melons and the like.

He was putting in a paper bag some bananas he had sold to a woman, who
stood by, at the same time talking volubly--evidently in an effort to
fend off her too curiously searching eyes from the over-ripe fruit.

"Eesa good-a da lady. Nice-a da ripe-a."

"Oh, they are too ripe! Put in those other ones, they don't look so
soft."

"Eesa note-a da soft-a; only a da black-a da skin. Look-a," and he
peeled a diminutive banana.

"How nice and clean those are in that wagon over there. I think I'll
buy some of them. You needn't mind putting those up for me."

"Sacre, Tar-rah-rah! Eesa beg-a da pardon, good-a da lady. Take eem
all for a ten-a da cent-a," and he thrust the bag of fruit into her
hands. "Eesa 'chink' wagon. Show all-a da good-a side, hide-a da
rotten side. Da morrow, Eesa sell-a da turnoppsis, carrottsis,
cababages, every kind-a da veg-a-ta-bles. Some-a time Eesa black-a da
boots. Saw da ood. Do anyting gett-a da mon. Go back-a da sunny
Italy."

He was so insistent, with fear of being made a subject for coarse
remonstrance, she paid him his price and departed. Whereupon he again
began to bawl out in his peculiar Dago dialect: "Or-ran-ges! Ba-nans!
Nice-a da ripe-a banans. Ten-a cents-a doz-z. Me-lo-nas!
War-ter-me-lo-nas! Nice-a da ripe-a Musha Me-lonas!" and he suddenly
lowered his voice on observing Sam halt in front of him.

"Eesa tenna cent-a da one. Nice-a da ripe-a, my friend. Take-a eem a
da home, two for-a da fifteen-a da centa." And he handled a couple of
small melons.

"Sacre, da damn," and his voice again rose to a high pitch, as he
shouted: "Me-lo-nas! Ba-nans! Nice-a da ripe-a da Ba-nans. Tenn-a
cents-a doz!"

The peculiar idioms of the fellow, and his manner of delivery seemed
strangely familiar, and as Sam moved along slowly, a pace or two,
rumaging his brain for identification, he suddenly remembered the old
cripple at his uncle's reception, and also, only last night, the
mysterious stranger in the park.

It may be pertinent to remark that Jack Shore had obtained most of his
dago dialect from a close study of this very man. The similarity of
speech and voice, therefore, was accountable for Sam's mistake of
identification.

A moment later, among a passing throng, Sam stopped and pretended to
pick up a small copper-colored medal appended to a bit of soiled
ribbon. He halted and ostentatiously displayed it, turning it over and
over in his hands while examining it. It attracted the attention of an
Italian nearby, who at once claimed the medal.

"If it is yours, no doubt you can describe certain marks which appear
on its surface?"

"I don-a have to. Eets a Garibaldi! Giv-a da me!"

"What else?" Sam pressed for more definite information, for he
immediately became convinced that this claimant was not the real
owner.

The word Garibaldi attracted a second Italian, a short, fat man, with
huge, flat face, who was at once apprised of the find. He asked Sam to
let him have it for examination.

Sam refused to let it pass from his hands, explaining that this man
had claimed it, but seemingly was unable to identify it. "I will
deliver it to the officer," and he beckoned a policeman to approach.

There followed instantly a lively colloquy between the two Italians,
the second one declaring it belonged to Giuseppe--for he had seen him
with it, and he turned to Sam.

"That man," indicating the fruit vendor, on express wagon license
number 346, "is own it. I'm sure he will it tell-a you so," and he
shouted, "Giuseppe!"

Giuseppe heard and shouted back, "Ta-rah-rah!"

As they moved toward him the short man continued to address Sam. "His
fadder was wit Garibaldi at Palestrino."

"Giuseppe, have you lost your fadder

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