The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-09-04
: u = Y
The Story of q Wait.
NJ BREr HARrE.
Copyright, 1892, by Bret Harts.
CHAPTER VII.

What other speech passed between Clar-
ynce and Peyton's retainer's was not
.nown, but not . word of the interview
seemed 70 have been divu!ged by those
present 1t was generally believed and ac-
cepted that Judge Peyton met his death
BY being thrown from his half-broken
mustang and dragged at its heels, and
medical opinion, hastily summoned from
Santa Inez, after the body had been borne
to the corral and stripped of its hideous
crossings, declared that the neck had been
broken and death had followed instantan-
eously. An inquest was deemed unneces-
sary.
Clarence had selected Mary to break the
news to Mrs. Peyton, and the frightened
young girl was too much struck with the
change still visible in his face and the half
authority of his manner to decline or even
! to fully appreciate the calamity that had
Lcfallen them. After the first benumbing
shock Mrs. Peyton passed into that
strange exaltation CT excitement brought
on by the immediate necessity for action,
followed by pailid calm. which the aver
age spectator too often unfairly accepts as
incongruous, inadequate or artificial.
There had also occurred one OF those
strange compensations that wait on death
or disrupture by catastrophe; such as the
rude shaking down of an unsettled life,
the forcible realization of what were vague
spccuiations, the breaking of old habits
and traditions. and the unloosing Of half
conscious bonds. Mrs. Peyton with
out insensibiiity TO her loss or
disloyalty to her affections, never
theless felt relief to know
that she was now really Susy's guardian.
free to order her new life wherever and
under what conditions she chose as most
favorable to it, and that she could dispose
Of this house that was wearying to her
when Susy was away, and which the girl
herself had always found insupportable.
She could settle this question of Clar-
ence's relations to her daughter, out Of
hand, without advice or opposition. She
had brother i'm the East who would be
summoned to take care of the property.
This consideration for the living pursued
her even while the dead mans presence
still awed the hushed house; it was in her
thoughts as she stood beside his bier and
adjusted the flowers on his breast, which
no longer moved for or against these van
tiles, and it stayed with her even in the
solitude of her darkened room.
But If Mrs. Peyton was deficient, it was
6usy who filled the popular idea Of
mourner, and whose emotional attitude of
grief-stricken daughter left nothing to
be desired. 1t was she who, when the
house was filled with sympathizing friends
from San Francisco and the few near
neighbcrs who had hurried with con-
dolences. was overlooking in her reminis-
ccnces Of the dead mans goodness to her
and her own undying affection: who re-
called ominous things that he had said
and strange premontions of her own-the
result OF her ever present filiai anxiety; it
was she who had hurried home that after
noon impelled with vague fears of some
impending calamity; it was she who drew
/, . picture of Peyton as a doting and almost
too indulgent parent, which Mary Rogers
failed to recognize and which brought back
wildly to- Clarence's recollections her
old childish exaggerations Of the Indian
massacre. l am far from saying that she
was entirely insincere or merely acting Mt
these moments; at times she was taken
with . mild hysteria brought on by the
exciting intrusion of this real event in her
monotonous life, by the attention of her
friends. the importance of her suffering as
IN only child. and the advancement of her
position as the heiress of the Robes
rancho. If her tears were near the surface
they were at least genuine, and filmed her
violet eyes and Redeemed her pretty eye-
lids quite as effectually as if they had
welled from the depths of her being. Her
black frock lent a matured dignity to her
figure, and paled her delicate complexion
with the refinement of suffering. Even
Clarence was moved in that dark and hag-
gard abstraction that had settled upon
him since his strange outbreak over the
body of his old friend
The extent of that change had not been
noticed by Mrs. Peyton, who had only OBJ
served that Clarence had treated her grief