ful gusts, and occasionally the rain was driven softly
across the panes like the passing of childish fingers. This disturbed
him more than the monotony of silence, for he was not a nervous man.
He seldom read a book, and the county paper furnished him only the
financial and mercantile news which was part of his business. He knew
he could not sleep if he went to bed. At last he rose, opened the
window, and looked out from pure idleness of occupation. A splash of
wheels in the distant muddy road and fragments of a drunken song showed
signs of an early wandering reveller. There were no lights to be seen
at the closed works; a profound darkness encompassed the house, as if
the distant pines in the hollow had moved up and round it. The silence
was broken now only by the occasional sighing of wind and rain. It was
not an inviting night for a perfunctory walk; but an idea struck
him--he would call upon the Slinns, and anticipate his next day's
visit! They would probably have company, and be glad to see him: he
could tell the girls of Mamie and her success. That he had not thought
of this before was a proof of his usual self-contained isolation, that
he thought of it now was an equal proof that he was becoming at last
accessible to loneliness. He was angry with himself for what seemed to
him a selfish weakness.

He returned to his office, and, putting the envelope that had been
lying on Slinn's desk in his pocket, threw a serape over his shoulders,
and locked the front door of the house behind him. It was well that
the way was a familiar one to him, and that his feet instinctively
found the trail, for the night was very dark. At times he was warned
only by the gurgling of water of little rivulets that descended the
hill and crossed his path. Without the slightest fear, and with
neither imagination nor sensitiveness, he recalled how, the winter
before, one of Don Caesar's vaqueros, crossing this hill at night, had
fallen down the chasm of a landslip caused by the rain, and was found
the next morning with his neck broken in the gully. Don Caesar had to
take care of the man's family. Suppose such an accident should happen
to him? Well, he had made his will. His wife and children would be
provided for, and the work of the mine would go on all the same; he had
arranged for that. Would anybody miss him? Would his wife, or his
son, or his daughter? No. He felt such a sudden and overwhelming
conviction of the truth o