“You you’re there yet, ain’t you?”
“Yes; but please hurry. What did you want
to say?”
“Well, I—well, nothing in particular.
It’s very lonesome here. It’s asking
a great deal, I know, but would you mind talking with
me again by and by—that is, if it will
not trouble you too much?”
“I don’t know but I’ll think about
it. I’ll try.”
“Oh, thanks! Miss Ethelton! . . .
Ah, me, she’s gone, and here are the black
clouds and the whirling snow and the raging winds come
again! But she said good-by. She didn’t
say good morning, she said good-by! . . .
The clock was right, after all. What a lightning-winged
two hours it was!”
He sat down, and gazed dreamily into his fire for
a while, then heaved a sigh and said:
“How wonderful it is! Two little hours
ago I was a free man, and now my heart’s in
San Francisco!”
About that time Rosannah Ethelton, propped in the
window-seat of her bedchamber, book in hand, was gazing
vacantly out over the rainy seas that washed the Golden
Gate, and whispering to herself, “How different
he is from poor Burley, with his empty head and his
single little antic talent of mimicry!”
Four weeks later Mr. Sidney Algernon Burley was entertaining
a gay luncheon company, in a sumptuous drawing-room
on Telegraph Hill, with some capital imitations of
the voices and gestures of certain popular actors
and San Franciscan literary people and Bonanza grandees.
He was elegantly upholstered, and was a handsome
fellow, barring a trifling cast in his eye.
He seemed very jovial, but nevertheless he kept his
eye on the door with an expectant and uneasy watchfulness.
By and by a nobby lackey appeared, and delivered
a message to the mistress, who nodded her head understandingly.
That seemed to settle the thing for Mr. Burley; his
vivacity decreased little by little, and a dejected
look began to creep into one of his eyes and a sinister
one into the other.
The rest of the company departed in due time, leaving
him with the mistress, to whom he said:
“There is no longer any question about it.
She avoids me. She continually excuses herself.
If I could see her, if I could speak to her only
a moment, but this suspense—”
“Perhaps her seeming avoidance is mere accident,
Mr. Burley. Go to the small drawing-room up-stairs
and amuse yourself a moment. I will despatch
a household order that is on my mind, and then I will
go to her room. Without doubt she will be persuaded
to see you.”
Mr. Burley went up-stairs, intending to go to the
small drawing-room, but as he was passing “Aunt
Susan’s” private parlor, the door of which
stood slightly ajar, he heard a joyous laugh which
he recognized; so without knock or announcement he
stepped confidently in. But before he could
make his presence known he heard words that harrowed
up his soul and chilled his young blood, he heard
a voice say:
