The San Francisco call., 1904-03-13

What is it, Jake?" she said. Win
says you're cross Something gone
wrong?"
"Lucy's dead" he answered. rising to
his feet and handing her the paper.
She paled a little as she read the no
tice. Then raising her eyes, they met
his In this look was their knowledge
of the secret that both had struggled to
keep, and that now, at last, was theirs.
For the second time in half year.
death had stepped in and claimed one
of the four whose aives had touched SO
briefly and so momentously twenty-five
years before.
Poor Lucy" said Bessie, in a low
voice. but they say she was very
happy with Moreau. You can do some
thing for your-for the girl now"
Yes" he said; 'I'll think it over.
won't be down to breakfast Send up
some coffee
He went upstairs and locked himself
in his library. He could not understand
why the news had affected him so
deeply 1t seemed to make him feel
sick. He did not tell Bessie that he had
gone upstairs because he felt too i'll
and shaken to see any one.
All morning he sat in the library.
with frowning brows. thinking At
noon he took the train for the city and,
socn after it's arrival, dispatched to
Mariposa the $780, He had no doubt of
her accepting it, as 1t never crossed his
mind that Lucy, at the last moment,
might have told.
The days that followed her mothers
funeral passed to Mariposa like series
of gray dreams, dreadful, with an unN
familiar sense of wretchedness. The
preoccupation of her mothers illness
was gone. There were idle hours, when
she sat IN her rooms and tried to real
ize the full meaning of Lucy's last
words. She would sit motionless, star
ing before her, her heart feeling shriv-
eled in her breast. Her life seemed
broken to pieces. She shrank from the
future, with the impossibilities she had
pledged herself to. And the strength
and inspiration of the beautiful past
were gone. All the memories of that
happy childhood and young maiden
hood were blasted. 1t was natural that
the shock and the subsequent brooding
should make her view of the subject
grown up to regard with reverential
tenderness had not been hers. The
mother who had been a cherished idol
had hidden a dark secret. And she,
herself was an outsider from the home
she had so deeply loved-child of
brutal and tyrannical father-originally
adopted and cared for out of pity.
1t was a crucial period in her life.
Old ideals were gone, and new ones not
yet formed. There seemed only ruins
about her, and amid these she sought
for something to cling to, and believe
in. With secret passion she nursed the
thought of Essex---an she had left that
had not been swept away in the deluge
of this past week.
Fortunately for her, the business calls
of the life of a woman left penniless
shook her from her state of brooding
idleness. The cottage was hers for a
month longer, and despite the impover-
ished condition of the widow there was
a fair amount of furniture still left in
1t that was sufficiently valuable to be a
bait to the larger dealers Mariposa
found her days varied by contentious
with men, who came to stare at the
great red lacquer cabinet and investi-
gate the interior condition of the mar
quetry sideboard. When the month
was up she was to move to a small
boarding house, kept by Spaniards
called Garcia, that Mrs. Willers, in her
varying course, included among her
habitats The Garcias would not object
to her piano and practicing, and it was
amazingly cheap. Mrs. Willers herself
had lived there in one of her periods of
eclipse, and knew them to be respecta-
BILE denizens of a somewhat battered
Bohemia
But you're going to be Bohemian
yourself, being a musical genius she
said cheerfully. 80 you won't mind
that
Mariposa did not think she would
mind. In the chaotic dimness of the
dismantled front parlor she looked like
a listless goddess who would not mind
anything.
Mrs. Willers thought her state of
dreary apathy curious and spoke of it
to Shackleton, whom she now recog
nized as the girls acknowledged guard
ian He had listened to her account of
Mariposa's broken condition with ex-
pressionless attention.
ism [ IL NATURAL, dll Things COnSlu-
cred, that girl should be broken
hearted over the death of devoted
mother? And, as 1 understand it, Miss
Moreau is absolutely alone. She has
no relatives anywhere. It's a pretty
bleak outlook"
That's true. I never saw a girl left
so without connections. But she wor-
ries me. She's so silent, and dull, and
unlike herself. OF course, it's been a
terrible blow. I'd have thought she'd
been more prepared"
He shrugged his shoulders, stroking
his short beard with his lean, heavily
veined hand. 1t amused him to see the
way Mrs. Willers was quietly pushing
him into the position Of the girls
sponsor. And at the same time 1t
heightened his opinion of her as a wo-
man of capacity and heart. She would
be an ideal chaperone and companion
for his unprotected daughter.
when she feels better" he said, II
wish you'd bring her down here again.
Don't bother her until she feels equal