sulted in one of the strangest
of courtships and a tangle of mystery of which the rest of the world
knows nothing, but which you have adequate proof threatens my happiness
and the ghastly end of which may now be skulking within the walls of my
house.

The wild weather of this night, with the howl of the wind and the rattle
of dead leaves driven against the blinds, is in extraordinary contrast
to the day of beautiful spring sunlight when I first set eyes upon her
who was Julianna Colfax.

It is not necessary to tell you who her father was, because you have
probably many times toasted your feet before the grate in the club with
him.

He was a master of human interest, as grizzled as that old Scotch hound
which became his constant companion after Mrs. Colfax died, and his
contact with all those hosts of men and women, for whom he administered
justice so faithfully for more than twenty years, had stamped on his
shaven face sad but warm and sympathetic lines. All men liked him and
those who knew him best loved him heartily. Under his gruffness there
was a lot of sentiment and tenderness. After his reserved moments, when
he was silent and cold, he would burst forth into indulgences of fine,
dry humor, like an effervescent fluid which gains in sparkling vigor by
remaining corked awhile. It was commonly said--and often said by Judge
Graver, of the Supreme Court--that old Colfax remained in the
comparative obscurity of a probate judgeship simply from an innate
modesty and a belief that he had found his work in life in which he
might best serve humanity without hope of personal power and glory.
Gaunt, tall, stoop-shouldered, gray, walking the same path each
day,--home, court-house, club, neighbors, home,--with a grapevine stick
as thick as a fence-post in his hand--such was her father.

Exactly seven years ago the first of last June, on a spring day when I
believe every bird that dared came into the city to make his song heard,
I came up from downtown and dropped off a surface car before the
gleaming white pillars of the new probate court building. My pocket was
stuffed with a lot of documents in that Welson _vs._ Welson litigation,
which I had just succeeded in closing.

Behind those swinging green doors which flank the big bench is the
judge's retiring-room; pushing the crack there wider, I was able to peek
in, and saw at once that the old atmosphere of Judge Colfax's study had
not remained in the old dingy court-house, w