OCR Text |
Show ‘Copyright 1998.by The BOBBS-MERMILL C0. SV MOP RIC: Bill Cannon, the bonanza king, and his daughter, Rose, who had passed up Mrs. Cornelius Ryan’s ball at San Francisco to accompany her father, arrive at Antelope. Dominick Ryan calls on his mother to beg a ball invitation for his wife, and is refused. The determined old lady refuses ‘to recognize her daughter-in-law. Domtnick had been trapped into a marriage with Bernice Iverson, a stenographer. several years his senior. She squanders his money, they have frequent quarrels, and he slips away. Cannon. and his daughter are snowed in at Antelope. Dominick Ryan is rescued from storm in. unconscious condition and brought to Antelope hotel. Antelope is cut off by storm. Rose Cannon nurses Dominick back to life. Two weeks later Bernice discovers in a paper where husband is and writes letter trying to smooth over difficulties between them. Dominick at last is .able to join fellow snowbound prisoners~in hotel parlor. He loses temper over talk of Buford, an actor. After three weeks, end of imprisonment is seen. Telegrams and mail arrive. Dominick gets letter from wife. Tells Rose he doesn’t love wife, and never did. Stormbound people begin to depart. Rose and Dominick embrace, father sees them and demands an explanation. Rose’s brother Gene is made manager of ranch, and is to get it if he stays sober a year. Cannon expresses sympathy for Dominick’s position in talk with Rose. Dominick returns home. Berny exerts herself to please him, but he is indifferent. Can- non calls on Mrs. Ryan. inick’s marriage suggests buying goes to park on family, and sees starts Miss They discuss Dom- difficulties, and Cannon off Berny. Dominick Sunday with Berny and Cannon, uneasiness CHAPTER in bows Berny. to her . XII1.—(Continued.) tet, to Berny, this hectic prospect looked gray; all color seemed sucked from it. It appeared pale and alien, its comfortable intimacy gone. She was like a stranger walking in a strange place, a forlorn, remote land, where she felt miserable and homesick. The sense of being dazed was passing from her. Walking forward with short, careful ‘steps, she was slowly coming to the meaning of her discovery—adjusting herself to it, realizing its significance. She had an uncomfortable sensation of not being able to control the muscles round her mouth, so that if spoken to she would have had difficulty in answering, and would have been quite unable to smile. An “= : DOM J.LAVIN 12 ment, open carriage passed her, and she drew aside, then mechanically looked after it as it rolled forward. There was a single figure in it—a woman, Berny could see her head over the lowered hood, and the little paraol set she held, white with a black lace: cover and having. a joint in the handle. Her eyes followed this receding head, - moving so evenly against the background of trees. It soared along without sinking or rising, with the even, _ forward flight of a bird, passed Hannah and Josh and Hazel, turning. to drep on them quick looks, which the victoria, glittering in the trim perfection of its appointments and drawn by a pair of well-matched chestnuts, stood at the curb. The hat man with Chinese on the box respetful touched greeting butler, who had and his the accompanied her down the steps, arranged the rug over her knees and stepped back with the friendly “good-by,” which is the politeness of his race. They respected, feared and liked her. Every domestic who had ever worked in Delia Ryan’s service from the first “hired girl” of her early Shasta days to the staff that now knew the rigors of her dominion, had found her a just and generous if exacting mistress. She had never been unfair, she had never been unkind. She was one of themselves and she knew how to manage them, how to make them understand that she was master, and that no drones were permitted in her hive; how to make them feel that she had a heart that sympathized with them, not as creatures of an alien class remotely removed from her own, but as fellow beings, having the same passions, griefs and hopes as herself. As the carriage rolled forward she settled back against the cushioned seat and let her eyes roam over the prospect. It was the heart of the afternoon, still untouched by chill, not a breath stirring. Passing up the long drive which leads to the park, the dust. raised by wheels hung ruddy in the air. The long shadows:of trees striped the roadway in an irregular black pattern, picked out with spatterings of sunshine, like a spilled, gold liquid. Belts of fragrance, the breaths, of flowering shrubs, extended from bushy coppices, and sometimes the keen, acrid odor of the eucalyptus rose on the air. From this lane of entrance the park spread fan-like into a still, gracioug pleasance. The rich, golden light slept on level stretches of turf and thick mound-shaped groups of trees: The throb of -ausic—the thin, ethereal music of out-of-doors— swelled and sank; the voices of children rose clear and fine from compli- cated distances, and once the raucous ‘ery of a peacock split the quietness, seeming to break through the pictorial serenity of the lovely, d-eamy scene. Mrs. Ryan sat without movement, her face set in a sphinx-like profundity of expression. riages bowed to People in passing carher but she did not see them and their salutes went unreturned. Her vision was bent back on scenes of her past so far removed from ‘what made up the present, so different anc remote from her life to- “seemed, from its elevated position and day, that it did not seem as if the include two the shortness of the inspeetion, to Vsame perspedtive, ccld have Jas who with head the the sométhing of disdain in them. the carriage drew near Dominick, walked at the head of the line Pearl by the hand, Berny saw the move, lean forward, and then, as vehicle overhauled and passed young man, turn at right angles and bow to him. The wheel almost brushed his shoulder. He drew back from it with a start and lifted his hat. Hazel, who was walking just in front of Berny, turned and projecting her ‘lips so that they stood out from. her face in a red circle, hissed through them: “Old Lady Ryan!” and then in a slightly louder key: “You take a hatchet and saw, we'll cut off the mother-in-law.” And CHAPTER I'll take head of a such extremes. She was thinking this as the carriage swept into the wider reach of the drive near the band stand. Though the music was still throbbing on the air, people were already leaving. Mrs. Ryan let her uninterested glance touch the hatted heads of the women and then move forward to the man who headed the column. He held by the hand a pretty, fair-haired child, who, leaning out from his restraining grasp, walked a little before him, looking back laughingly into hig face. Mrs. Ryan’s eyes, alighting on his back, became suddenly charged with a fierce ‘fixity of attention. The carriage over- hauled him she leaned and before forward and he looked up saw his prefile, my went slowly up XII. Old age was coming on her and. with it a softening of her iron nature. She wanted her son, her Benjamin, dearly beloved with all the forees af kur maturity as his father fad been with all the glow of her youth. In her own room she threw aside the lace curtains, and looking out on the splendor of the afternoon, deter- mined to seek cheer in the open air. 5 Like all Californians she had a be- lief in the, healing and sunlight. Berny of her wooed beneficence of air As the sun had soothed sense of care so now it her enemy also to seek solace in its balm. She rang for the servant and ordered the carriage. A few minutes later, clad in rich enshrouding black, she slowly made her way down stairs and out to the sidewalk where The Talk Lasted marked by an Hour. a ‘frown, child’s gay prattle causing no respan- sive smile to break the brooding gravity that held his features. As he felt the vibration of the wheel at his shoulder he started aside and and the a subdued office. She beating about panting, did not the she entered waste time bush. Their that led from the parlor to the had been removed, and a bamboo talk rid few was ‘a full moon. Dominick, walking home from the bank, saw it at the end of hall por- star to worship reverently and fair, Mrs. Ryan?” over- Street which the hill was but a few blocks house, to look at The perch yawned black behind pillars that in the daytime were painted wood and now looked like temple columns wrought in marble. Dominick’s glance, sweeping the lines of yel- XIV. The Moonlight Night. nights after this, there in its windows, and see their lights. As it rose before him, a huge, pale mass checkered with shadows, the longing to see it—the outer shell that hid his heart’s desire—passed into a keener, concentrated agitation that seemed to press out from his soul like a cry to her. | Berny Iverson’s husband. A brooded to pass the Cannon that The for the participation of the Bonanza Kitg, accounted probably for the whole move—the pink and white girl in the French clothes who had all her life had everything and now wanted CHAPTER houses beyond him, and before his mind would acknowledge it, his feet had borne him that way. He thought only of her; they lowed windows, finally rested on this cavern of shadow, and he approached stealthily, as a robber might, his body close to the iron fence. Almost before his eyes had told him, he knew that a woman was standing there, leaning against the balustrade ~ that stretched between the columns. A climbing rose spread in a mottling of darkness, over the wall beside her. Here and there it was starred with the small white faces of blossoms. AS the young man drew near she leaned over to guide him up difficult paths, he had been able to face his domestic tragedy with the high resolution of the martyr. But this exalted condition the balustrade, plucked one of the blossoms, and, slowly shredding the leaves from the stem, stretched out her hand and let them fall, like a languid shower of silver drops, to the grass. She bent over the balustrade to look at them, and in doing so, her eyes encountered the man below. For a moment they looked at each other without speaking, then she said, her voice at the lowest note that would reach him: “What are you doing there?” “Watching you.” “Have you been standing there long?” & “No, only a few minutes. Why are you pulling the roses to pieces?” She gave a little laugh and said something that sounded like “I don’t CM CO ! | Spun, ner, something independent of one, seemed to rigid face. “Not everything,” she said. “So long,” he answered, giving his hat a farewell wave at her. “I’ve enjoyed meeting you and hope we’ll soon meet again Hasta She Manana, wheeled he in a more a short nod, walked he turned, friendly Senora!” so that she bowed to faced then the him watched door. deeply and way. Here respect- fully, and passed out into the hall, the bamboo strands of the portiere clash- ing together behind him.. A moment later she heard the bang of the street for a moment speaking, looked after door. the bonneted head that soared away Her two predominant sensations before them with a level, forward viIt deepened bration, like a floating bird, the little were rage and triumph. her detestation of the Ryans, and at parasol held stiffly erect on its jointed the same time gave her a sense of handle. intimacy with them. And it showed As Mrs. Ryan passed down the long Standing in’ the midpark entrance she thought no more of her her power. the past. The sight of her son, head- dle of the room with her eyes stil steps. The wind was not yet out in force;! its full, steady sweep would not be inaugurated till early in the afternoon. It came now in gusts which fell upon Cornelia from the back and accelerated her forward progress, throwing out on either side of her a flapping sail of skirt. ¢@ o3 It was after midday when she found herself approaching that particular block, along the-edge of which the flower-venders place their baskets and display their wares. The boys and men, seeing that the brilliant lady was. in a generous mood, collected about her, shouting out the excellences of their particular blossoms. Cornelia, amused and somewhat bewildered, looked at the faces and bought recklessly. “Well, Cornelia, are you trying to corner the curb-stone market?” She wheeled swiftly and saw her brother. ‘Dominick!’ she exclaimed, “you're just the person I want to see. I was going to write to you. I’ve got lots to tell you.” “Come along then and take lunch with me. I was on my way up to us when a I saw good lunch you. They’ll there and a French restaurant the you _ toward which esteem ; of the restaurant they found a vatable in a corner, and Cornelia order of given lunch brother was caught ‘Dear look sion, me, of “it be—’ and_the_ appearing, first Cornelia, looked up and by) her going his ey@ rosily-blushing Cornie,” he said slowly-dawning really isn’t—it with a comprehen. really ean’t 39 “And why can’t it be?” looking very much hurt: “What’s there so queer about that?” “Nothing, only I meant that I hadn’t heard any rumors about it. Is it that?” “Yes, it is, Dominick Ryan, and I don’t see why you should be so surprised.” “Surprised! I’m more than sur prised. I’m delighted—haven’t been go pleased for years. Who is it?” “Jack Duffy.” i “Oh, Cornie, that’s the best yet! That’s great! It’s splendid. I wish I could kiss you, but I can’t here in the open restaurant. Why didn’t you tell me somewhere where we would be alone? I’d just like to give you a good hug.” Cornelia leaned across the table and tion. Seven thousand dollars will be set aside for your expenses. At the tell Mrs. Ryan,” she said slow- the | cheeks. the burning my It was a great morning for Cornelia. She was engaged. Two evenings be fore, Jack Duffy, who had been hovering round the subject for a month, poised above it, as a hawk above delighted prey, had at last descended and Cornelia’s anxieties were at an end. Her or New York, and the period of deser- now that so was to see you, and how I was to write to you, didn’t 1?” You’re to leave the city, going prefer- color was up The will leave your husband - The you could at last claim her brother’s full \_ attention. “i told you how awfully anxious.I for a year and at the end of that}. } time ask him to give you your 1liberty, he suing you for divorce on the ground of desertion.” “It’s a bribe,” she said slowly, “a bribe to leave my husband.” “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he answered with a deprecating shrug. “Call it a deal, a settlement. The terms are easy and favorable. You'll not find one of them unjust or unfair. ably to Chicago staying there for wanted and without looking at him turned and went stages tions she exacts.” “What are they?” you I Dominick pondered over the bill of fare. She was impatient and drummed on the table with her fingers, while her eyes roamed about the room. money yours to do with as you like, if -you’ll consent to the few condi-. “That think In cant frankly, any an- had to bottle up her good news while “Yes,” said Berny. “Go right meee ‘ “Mrs. Ryan will maké you ‘a rich" woman, “I for years had enjoyed the city’s gourmets. » is welcome here.” speak of her will called you out,” he said in an im- Bertrand’s, ns me few. words can tell me all your secrets.” They walked up the street that made her feel he}. “Will you let Mrs. Ryan?” the Bertrand’s would never censure her for her past,7} or, in fact, think about it at all. ‘T’m sure I’m very glad you came,” she said politely; “any friend of Dom- inick’s to swer. give Berny liked him. There was something so easy and affable in his man- mother his face reddened, and, with a quick smile, he lifted hig hat. Her returning salute was serious, almost tragically somber. Then the victoria swept on, and he and the child, neither to get tiere hung in the opening. A large masculine hand thrust apart the hanging strands, and Bill Cannon, hat in hand, confident and yet apologetic, en- was hard to maintain in the friction of daily life with Berny. tered the. room. To-night, the period of ill humor She looked at him inquiringly with something of wariness and distrust in seemed over. Berny was not only once again her animated self, she was alher face. most feverishly garrulous. She remembered him to be a friend Fearful of angering her, or, still of the Ryans’, and she had arrived at worse, of arousing her suspicions, the stage when any friend of the RyDominick bore her talk with all the ans’ was an enemy of hers. She looked at the old man guardedly, ready for an attack and bracing herself to meet it. a “You'll pardon this intrusion, won’t you?” he said in a deep, friendly voice. She looked up at him and made a slight inclination of her head as she had seen actresses do on the stage. “Won’t you sit down, Mr. Cannon?” she added. “Now, let me make my apologies for coming. In the first place, I’m an old man. We've got a few privileges tocompensate us for the loss of so much that’s good. Don’t you think that’s gave recognized Dominick old grown gardens. That part of California the street’s vista, a large, yellowishpink disk floating up into the twilight. The evening was warm, like the early summer in other climates; and Dominick, walking slowly and watching the great yellow sphere deepening in of this bold and energetic pair of con- color as it swam majestically upward, spirators. | thought of evenings Hke this in the past when he had been full of the Two days after this momentous comjoy of life and had gone forth in the bination of her enemies, Berny was spirit of love and adventure. sitting in the parlor of her flat, writing a letter. It was three o’clock in the The determination to accept his fate afternoon and she had just dressed which had been with him on his reherself for her daily jaunt down town. turn from Antelope had of late been She did not hear a foot ascending shaken by stirrings of rebellion. Upthe stairs, till a tap on the door-post lifted by the thought of his love for of the room made her turn and ejacua woman hopelessly removed. from late a startled “Come in!’ The door him, but who would always be a lode- ag he crested If lasted nearly an hour. Before the interview ended they had threshed out every aspect of the matter under discussion. There would be no loose ends or slighted details in any piece of work which engaged the attention him When It was not the Ryans alone who wanted to buy her off. It was the Cannons as well. They not only want- passioned whisper. She said nothing and suddenly his hand sought hers, clasped it tight on the head of the lion, and he whispered again: “Oh, Rose, if I could see you now and then—only for a moment like this.” He felt her hand, small and cold, crush softly inside his, and almost immediately was conscious of her effort to withdraw it. He instantly loosened his fingers, let hers slide from his grasp, and drew back. “Good night,” she said hurriedly, ery street corners. With her approach heralded by a rustling of rich stuffs and up. where family. wanted him to get rid of her so he «ould marry Rose Cannon. -inick.. The Wednesday morning following that Sunday she put on her outdoor things and, dispensing with the carriage, went down town on the car to see Bill Cannon. The Bonanza King’s office was on the first floor of a building owned by himself on one of the finest Montgom- his looked their desire to rupture the marriage took them thus far, where might it not take them? othex girl was behind it all, accounted a slight acid smile. the listening tiations with her husband’s peo- |ly, “that I'll lie dead in my coffin be\fore Vil take her money and leave my husband.” “Well, I’m a patient man, and eyerything comes to him who waits.” She looked over her shoulder with brow exerted some mesmeric influence upon the earth. He walked on, skirting the hollow, and moving forward through streets ten minutes after she had passed Dom- “You the staring at the now motionless portiere strands, she saw, stretching away into a limitless gilded distance, her nego- ed in her cheeks and her eyes hold all the vitality of her stairs, hearing UTAH ple. Money was all.they were after. Well, they could have it! She let three days go by before she made the move she had determined on at him. the low murmur of voices from the sitting-room:where Cornelia and Jack Duffy were still secluded. Even the thought of that satisfactorily-budding romance did not cheer her as it had done earlier in the day. As she had toid Cannon, she was not the woman she had been. talk to those end of the year you are to write to Dominick telling him you no longer want to live with him and asking him to give you your freedom. After the divorce is granted the sum of: fifty thousand dollars will be handed over to you, the one condition being that you will leave the country and go to Europe. It is understood, of course, that the matter’s to be kept a secret from Dominick. He must think that you are acting entirely from your |own free will. He mustn’t guess his mother’s had any part in it.’”Berny lifted her head and looked The Root of All Evil. The conversation with her old friend had upset Mrs. Ryan. These were grievances she did not talk of to all the world, and the luxury of such plain speaking was paid for by a reawakened smart. The numb ache of a sorrow was always with her, but her consciousness of it was dulled in the diversion of every day’s occupations. Bringing it to the surface this way gave it a new vitality, and when the eonversation was over and the visitor gone it refused to subside into its old place. She but it would KAMAS, spoke LAVIN mee, “111 Lie Dead In My Coffin Before fortitude he had, but he rose from the table with every nerve tingling, rasped and galled to the limit of endurance. He did not come into the den immediately but roamed about, into the parlor, down the passage, and into his own room. “Aren’t you coming into the den?” she called, as she heard him pacing steadily along the passageway. “No,” he called back. “The moon- light’s shining in at every window. It makes me restless. I don’t feel like sitting still.” She sat on the divan, a paper spread before her face, but her eyes were slanted sidewise, unblinking in the absorption of her attention. Suddenly she heard a rattling sound which she knew to be from the canes and umbrellas in ‘the hat-rack. She cast away the paper, and, drawing herself to the edge of the divan, peered down the passage. Dominick was by the hat-rack, his hat on of hig head, his hand standing the back feeling among the canes. “You’ve got your hat on,” she called In a high key of surprise. “You’re not going aut?” “Yes, I sum,” he answered, drawing out the catty he wanted. “It’s a fine night, and I~ going for a walk,” Outside, Dominick walked slowly, keeping to the smaller and less fre- quented streets. It was a wonderful night, as still as though the moon had I’ll Take Her Money.” know,” and moved balustrade. He thought she clutched They don’t do any one any good.’ But you know mommer. The first thing was going and she said when house wedding, we and me ‘If he'll come into his head: “This is very different from Antelope, isn’t it?” . “Yes,” she said gravely, “we had no moonlight there, nothing but storms and gray clouds. “Well, I must go in. The roses are all picked and papa’ll be wondering as It seemed to Dominick just then that he could not lose her. She must stay a moment longer. Urgency that was imploring was in his voice as he said: “Don’t go! don’t go! Stay just one moment longer! Can’t you come down and talk for a minute?” She listened, wavered, and was won over. Without answer she turned from the shadow of the porch into the light on from there the skirt gathered top of slowly in one tremu- the in a voice of urgent out of keeping with I am.” almost from the words, the first remark that came where low-toned, back the iron spikes of the fence, calling up to her feeling, curiously with lous earnestness: “You know that if it were I, I’d ask your wife. You know that all the hard feelings I may once have had against her have gone. If it were for me to say, I’d have received her from the start. What Ive always said is, ‘What’s the good of keeping up these fights? No one gets anything by them. the steps, descended, hand, and and was, talked I said about the you’d give without his wife.’ ” There were tears in her eyes tad Dominick saw them and looked duwn at his plate. “All right,” he said quietly. “Ill come. When is it to be?’ ' “June,” said the prospective bride, once more beginning to blush and beam, “early in June. The roses are so fine then, and we can have the house so beautifully decorated.” ‘With a scraping of chair legs, they, rose and, threading their way among the now crowded tables, passed out into the wind-swept streets. Here they separated, Cornelia, with her armful of wilting flowers, going home, and Dominick back to the bank. Two hours later, while he was still bending over his books, in the hushed seclusien Cawnem parief of the closed was.talking wf the to building, Berny Sacramento Bill in Street the flat. This iaterview was neither so long, her -and th the the other touching the baluster. : “I’ve wanted so to see you. I came by to-night hoping that perhaps I could catch a glimpse of your shadow on the curtain. | I didn’t expect anything like this.” He stopped, looking at her, and not away, (@® Berny’s part) did not show self-restraint which had marked! first one. The offer of one hun- dred thousand dollars which the old man made her was refused with more scorn and less courtesy then had peen displayed in her manner on the former occasion. {TO BE CONTINUED.) 1 tte I AE uthor of THE PIONEER Illustrations by COURANT, ing the file of his wife’s relations, his face set in an expression of heavy dejection, scattered her dreams of retrospect with a shattering impact. The old woman’s face was dark with passion, her pale lips set into a tight line. Money! Money might make trouble and bring disappoint- PTOMORROWS TANGLE,te oe KAMAS ES Se THE |