The Nevada County picayune., 1909-06-10
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 dozen contradictions.
 He went over the night of the at tack on Keatcham; he summoned every look, every motion of Janet Smith: in one phase of feeling he cudgeled himself for a wooden fool who had been absolutely brutal to defenseless woman who trusted him; he hated himself for the way he would not see her when she looked toward him; no wonder at last she stiffened and now she absolutely avoided him, But, in swift revulsion against his own sonness, he was instantly laying on the blows as Justify because of his incredible, pig-headed credulity. How absolutely simple the thing was. She cared for this scoundrel of an At kins who had first betrayed his en- ployer and then tried to murder him. Very likely they had been half en- gagged down there in Virginia and he had crawled out of his engagement; it would be quite like the cur! Later he found that just such distinguished charming woman, who had family and friends, was what he wanted; it would be easy enough for him to warm up his cid passion, curse him! Then, he had met her and run in a bunch of plausible lies that had convinced her that he had been regular angel in plain clothes; hadn't done a thing to Cary or to her. Atkins was such a smooth devil, Winter could just pie ture him whining to the girl, putting his life in her hands and all that rot {; and making all kinds of a tool of her why, the whole hand was on the board! So she was ready to throw them all overheard to save Atkins from getting his feet wet. That was why she looked so pale and haggard of a morning sometimes, in spite of that ready smiles of hers; that was why her eyes were so wistful; she wasn't a false woman and she sickened of her squalid part. She loved Aunt Rebecca and Archie-all the same, she would turn them both down for him; while as to Rupert Winter, late of the United States army, a worn-Out, lame, elderly idiot who had flung away the profes- sion he loved and every chance of a future career in order to have his hands free to keep her out of danger where were there words bistering enough for such puppy-dog folly! At this point in his jealous imaginngs the pain in him goaded him into motion; he began furiOusly pacing the room, although his lame leg, which he had been using remorselessly all day, was vending jabs and twists of agony through him. But after little he halted again before the easement window
 The wide, darkening view the great. silent city with it's myriad lights: the shining mist of the bay; the foothills with their sheer, straw colored streaks through the forests and vineyards; the illmitable depths of stars violet sky-all these touched his fevered mood with sud den calm. His unrest was quieted, as one whose senses are cooled by a run ming stream.
 You hot-headed southerner," he up- braided himself, don't get up in the air without any real proof"
 Almost in the fitting of the words through his brain he saw her. The white gown, which was her constant wear in the sickroom, defined her fig ure clearly against a clump of Japan plum-trees. Their purplish red foliage rustled; and an unseen fountain be- yond made a delicate tinkle of water splashing a marble basin. Her face was hidden; only the moonlight gently drew the oval of her cheek. She was standing still. except that one foot was groping back and forth as if trying to find something. But, as he looked, his face growing tender. she knelt on the sod and pulled something out of the ground. This something she seemed to dust off with her handkerchief he could not see the object, but he could see the fiutter of the handker- chief; and when she rose the white linen partly hid the thing in her hand. Only partly. because when she passed around the terrace wall the glow from an electric lantern, in an arch, fell full upon her and furnished long, thin  blade oS steel.
 He looked down on her from his un- lighted chamber; and suddenly she looked up straight at the windows of the room where she thought he was sleeping; and smiled a dim, amused, weary, tender smile. Then she sped i by, erect and light of foot; and the ! deep shadow of the great gateway took her. All ne could see was the moonlight on the bluish-green lawn; and the white electric light on the gleaming rubber-trees and dusty palms.
 He sat down. He clasped his hands over his knee. He whistled softly a little Spanish air. He laughed very Fl " cnid hp