The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1913-02-27
CHAPTER XVI.

A Slump In Crystal Consolidated.
The week of my convalescence was
not eventful. Evelyn and Mrs. Ian.
caster called daily, and the reports
from O'Hara came each morning with
u%nvarying regularity and equally un.
varying lack of import. The artist.
after his visit to Yup Sing, had re.
turned to his Cos Cob hermitage, &C.
%companied by a successor to his for.
mer unfortunate Chinese servant, and
now rarely left his own grounds.
Gravid with suggestion as his appear.
ance in Chinatown had seemed at first,
! soon came to realize that it might
possibly bear no more vital signif.
n than that altogether common.
place proceeding, the quest Of a cook.
And in the absence of any conflrma.
cory evide re to the contrary, and
with the k..-wledge cleaned from Miss
Clement that Yup Sing, on occasions,
added to his regular business of mel.
chandizins that of an employment
agent, l saw no reason to attach an
undue importance to the incident.
Nevertheless I relinquished none of
my suspicious regarding Murphy, but
continued the detectives surveillance
with a fresh injunction to vigilance
And / did not apologize to Yup Sing.
Miss Clement, to whom l believe i
owe my life, visited me at my request.
How l whelmed her with my gratitude
Is no more material than how she en-
deavored to make light Of her service
to me, declaring that such Offices were
q part of her days work in her chosen
field. and that her days work was her
passion. And yet it was this part of
u interview which gave me my
strongest insight into her exceptional
ly worthy character. Absolutely un-
selfish, she joyed in a life that even a
religious fanatic might we'll have
quailed before; finding flowers in
muck heaps and jewels amid tinsel.
In five minutes, too. I glimpsed her
Astounding magnetism, the moving
agent in that rare efficiency which war
part and parcel Of her. Later, l learned
Of the weight of her influence among
the jewellers in the Chinese colony;
not from any direct narrative Of what
she had accomplished-for she was
chary Of speaking of herself-but by
deduction, purely. Moreover, my
watch, a few trinkets and a little
money. taken from me that night in
Doyers street. had all been returned
through Miss Clements good Offices;
and If. thus far, she had afforded us
no real clew in our absorbing ext
gency, I felt that ultimately her knowl-
edge. coupled with her resourceful-
ness. would prove to us of unbounded
value. And, as events shaped them
selves. I was not wrong.
It was now nearly four weeks since
Cameron's disappearance, and a fear
that he had met death in some f1end-
ish form at the hands Of his abductors
had come to be with me very nearly
an obsession. The care I exercised in
hiding my real state of mind from
Evelyn could not well be exaggerated.
When I appeared to her most hopeful
! was actually most despairing. With
Miss Clement, however, l had no rea-
son to dissemble. With all frankness
l told her Of my despair; and when.
instead of trying to comfort me with
empty words Of encouragement she
agreed with me that the chances OF
u ever seeing Cameron again were
at q minimum, I liked her the better
for being STRAIGHTFORWARD.