sible phantom way beyond me. "It seems to me that I
shall never be your wife!"

I must have stared at her several seconds in silence. Then I said:

"You are ill. You are not yourself. When you have recovered your normal
condition I will come back."

I snatched a kiss from her lips, that were strangely cold, and rushed
from the house.

It was not till the next morning, when I woke up after a short and
disturbed sleep, that my mind reverted to the cause of all this purely
sentimental disagreement, and I felt a strong desire to have events
prove that the Judge was slightly monomaniacal, and that I was right. I
went to Riccadonnas' for my breakfast and got all the morning papers, as
usual, but this time with a distinct confidence that the news would be
the best vindication of my good sense, and that I should yet have a good
laugh at the Judge.

I opened the paper as I sipped my coffee, and the first thing my eyes
fell on were the headlines of a dispatch from St. Louis. I read them
with an inexplicable sense of something sinking in me. As I recall them
they ran as follows:

"Strange news from the West. All communication west of Salt Lake City
ceases. Meteorological puzzle. What is the matter with the wires?"

Then followed the dispatch, which I have not forgotten:

ST. LOUIS, June 26, 8 P. M.--A dispatch received here from Yuma on
the Texas Pacific announces that no eastern-bound train has come in
since morning, and all attempts to open communication by telegraph
with points west of that place have failed. It is the opinion of
railroad men that a great storm is raging in California. Weather
here pleasant, with a steady, dry wind from the east blowing.

Immediately following this was another news item which I can quote from
memory:

DENVER, June 26, 9 P. M.--Intelligence from Cheyenne is to the
effect that railway travel and telegraphic communication west of
Pocatello on the Union Pacific and Ogden and on the Central Pacific
have been interrupted by a storm. The telegraph wires are believed
to be in good condition, but up to nine o'clock there has been no
return current.

I read these paragraphs over three or four times. Ordinarily I should
have passed them by and given my attention to other and more congenial
news. But now a dull fear that events were conspiring to widen the
breach between myself and the Brisbanes focussed my interest on them.
There wa