in, with its old clown and its old ringmaster and the old 'wheezes,' and I chucked it.”
“Look here,” said Jack, rising and surveying Mrs. Rylands critically. “If you go on at this gait, I'll tell you what that man of yours will do. He'll bolt with some of your old friends!”
She turned a quick, scared face upon him for an instant. But only for an instant. Her hysteric little laugh returned, at once, followed by her weary, worried look. “No, Jack, you don't know him! If it was only that! He cares only for me in his own way—and,” she stammered as she went on, “I've no luck in making him happy.”
She stopped. The wind shook the house and fired a volley of rain against the windows. She took advantage of it to draw a torn lace-edged handkerchief from her pocket behind, and keeping the tail of her eyes in a frightened fashion on Jack, applied the handkerchief furtively, first to her nose, and then to her eyes.
“Don't do that,” said Jack fastidiously, “it's wet enough outside.” Nevertheless, he stood up and gazed at her.
“Well,” he began.
She timidly drew nearer to him, and took a seat on the kitchen table, looking up wistfully into his eyes.
“Well,” resumed Jack argumentatively, “if he won't 'chuck' you, why don't you 'chuck' HIM?”
She turned quite white, and suddenly dropped her eyes. “Yes,” she said, almost inaudibly, “lots of girls would do that.”
“I don't mean go back to your old life,” continued Jack. “I reckon you've had enough of that. But get into some business, you know, like other women. A bonnet shop, or a candy shop for children, see? I'll help start you. I've got a couple of hundred, if not in my own pocket in somebody's else, just burning to be used! And then you can look about you; and perhaps some square business man will turn up and you can marry him. You know you can't live this way, nohow. It's killing you; it ain't fair on you, nor on Rylands either.”
“No,” she said quickly, “it ain't fair on HIM. I know it, I know it isn't, I know it isn't,” she repeated, “only”—She stopped.
“Only what?” said Jack impatiently.
She did not speak. After a pause she picked up the rolling-pin from the table and began absently rolling it down her lap to her knee, as if pressing out the stained silk skirt. “Only,” she stammered, slowly rolling the pin handles in her open palms, “I—I can't leave Josh.”
“Why can't you?” said Jack quickly.
“Because—because—I,” she went on, with a quivering lip, working the rolling-pin heavily down her knee as if she were crushing her answer out of it—“because—I—love him!”
There was a pause, a dash of rain against the window, and another dash from her eyes upon her hands, the rolling-pin, and the skirts she had gathered up hastily, as she cried, “O Jack! Jack! I never loved anybody like him! I never knew what love was! I never knew a man like him before! There never WAS one before!”
To this large, comprehensive, and passionate statement Mr. Jack Hamlin made no reply. An audacity so supreme had conquered his. He walked to the window, looked out upon the dark, rain-filmed pane that, however, reflected no equal change in his own dark eyes, and then returned and walked round the kitchen table. When he was at her back, without looking at her, he reached out his hand, took her passive one that lay on the table in his, grasped it heartily for a single moment, laid it gently down, and returned around the table, where he again confronted her cheerfully face to face.
“You'll make the riffle yet,” he said quietly. “Just now I don't see what I could do, or where I could chip in your little game; but if I DO, or you do, count me in and let me know. You know where to write—my old address at Sacramento.” He walked to the corner, took up his still wet serape, threw it over his shoulders, and picked up his broad-brimmed riding-hat.
“You're not going, Jack?” she said hesitatingly, as she rubbed her wet eyes into a consciousness of his movements. “You'll wait to see HIM? He'll be here in an hour.”
“I've been here too long already,” said Jack. “And the less you say about my calling, even accidentally, the better. Nobody will believe it—YOU didn't yourself. In fact, unless you see how I can help you, the sooner you consider us all dead and buried, the sooner your luck will change. Tell your girl I've found my own horse so much better that I have pushed on with him, and give her that.”
He threw a gold coin on the table.
“But your horse is still lame,” she said wonderingly. “What will you do in this storm?”
“Get into the cover of the next wood and camp out. I've done it before.”
“But, Jack!”
He suddenly made a slight gesture of warning. His quick ear had caught the approach of footsteps along the wet gravel outside. A mischievous light slid into his dark eyes as he coolly moved backward to the door and, holding it open, said, in a remarkably clear and distinct voice:—
“Yes, as you say, society is becoming very mixed and frivolous everywhere, and you'd scarcely know San Francisco now. So delighted, however, to have made your acquaintance, and regret my business prevents my waiting to see your good husband. So odd that I should have known your Aunt Jemima! But, as you say, the world is very small, after all. I shall tell the deacon how well you are looking—in spite of the kitchen smoke in your eyes. Good-by! A thousand thanks for your hospitality.”
And Jack, bowing profoundly to the ground, backed out upon Jane, the hired man, and the expressman, treading, I grieve to say, with some deliberation upon the toes of the two latter, in order, possibly, that in their momentary pain and discomposure they might not scan too closely the face of this ingenious gentleman, as he melted into the night and the storm.
Jane entered, with a slight toss of her head.
“Here's your expressman—ef you're wantin' him NOW.”
Mrs. Rylands was too preoccupied to notice her handmaiden's significant emphasis, as she indicated a fresh-looking, bashful young fellow, whose confusion was evidently heightened by the unexpected egress of Mr. Hamlin, and the point-blank presence of the handsome Mrs. Rylands.
“Oh, certainly,” said Mrs. Rylands quickly. “So kind of him to oblige us. Give him the order, Jane, please.”
She turned to escape from the kitchen and these new intruders, when her eye fell upon the coin left by Mr. Hamlin. “The gentleman wished you to take that for your trouble, Jane,” she said hastily, pointing to it, and passed out.
Jane cast a withering look after her retreating skirts, and picking the coin from the table, turned to the hired man. “Run to the stable after that dandified young feller, Dick, and hand that back to him. Ye kin say that Jane Mackinnon don't run arrants fur money, nor play gooseberry to other folks fur fun.”
PART II
Mr. Joshua Rylands had, according to the vocabulary of his class, “found grace” at the age of sixteen,
