“One day, when little Carina was three years old, we were visiting at my father’s.  It was late in the afternoon, and we were playing some child’s game together when the door was suddenly thrown open and Ralph glowered in at us, his face purple with drunken anger.  Even the four-mile ride had failed to sober him, and he leaned against the framework of the door to steady himself.  The child, startled by the sudden interruption and terrified by the expression on her father’s face, ran to me for protection, burying her little face in my lap.

“‘That’s right,’ he leered at her; ’that’s what they teach you to do here—­make you hate your father, don’t they?  I’ll give you a chance to get acquainted with me.’

“Then he crossed the room and tore the child from my arms, in spite of her shrieks of fear and our joint efforts to stop him.  Even my father, who did all he could, was helpless against the man’s almost superhuman strength.  In a moment he had mounted his horse with Carina in front of him, and was galloping at breakneck speed down the long trail which led to our ranch.  Father rushed to the barn, but I was there before him.  Between us we saddled the mare I had ridden so many times before I was married, and I urged her forward to make up as much as possible for the lost time.  But I had not far to go—­”

The recital proved too much for Eleanor, in spite of her efforts to control herself.  Her eyes filled with tears, and her body was convulsed with emotion as she bent her head until it rested against her companion’s face.

“Don’t, dear,” urged Alice; “tell me the rest some other time.”

“No, no!” Mrs. Gorham cried; “you must know it all, and then we need not speak of it again.  I had gone over less than half the distance when I came upon them both lying in the trail.  I never knew how it happened.  He told some one afterward that the horse stumbled.  It may have been that; it may have been anything with him in that condition.  He had fallen at the side of the trail and was conscious before I left him, but Carina was—­dead.”

“Don’t, don’t go on—­I can’t stand it!” cried Alice.

Eleanor paused as if in response to Alice’s appeal, but a glance at her face showed that an emotion stronger than even the words had expressed was holding her in its grip.

“Father was dead, too, when I returned,” she said at last, her eyes still gazing into space.

“The excitement killed him?” Alice asked, breathlessly, still further shocked by the double tragedy.

“That and his anxiety over my unexplained absence.”

“Your absence?” queried the girl, mystified by Eleanor’s apparent incoherency.  “Didn’t you just say that he was dead when you returned?”

Mrs. Gorham started violently.  “What am I saying!” she cried, involuntarily.  In a moment she was herself again.  “Yes, dear, of course I returned; but not as soon as he expected, and the shock of it all killed him.  You understand, don’t you?  I was very ill, and a friend helped me to a hospital in Denver.”