d anything have lacked now to set in worse snarl my already tangled
skein of evil fortune! Out of all the thousand ways in which we several
actors in this human comedy might have gone without crossing each
other's paths, why should Fate have chosen the only one to bring us thus
together?

Kitty seemed first to spy me, and greeted me with an enthusiastic waving
of her gloves, parasol, veil and handkerchief, all held confusedly,
after her fashion, in one hand. "P-r-r-r-t!" she trilled,
school-girl-like, to attract my attention meanwhile. "Howdy, you man! If
it isn't John Cowles I'm a sinner. Matt, look at him, isn't he old, and
sour, and solemn?"

Stevenson jumped out and came up to me, smiling, as I passed down the
steps. I assisted his vivacious helpmeet to alight. I knew that all this
tangle would presently force itself one way or the other. So I only
smiled, and urged her and her husband rapidly as I might up the steps
and in at the door, where I knew they would immediately be surprised and
fully occupied. Then again I approached Grace Sheraton where she still
sat, somewhat discomfited at not being included in these plans, yet not
unwilling to have a word with me alone.

"You sent me no word," began she, hurriedly. "I was not expecting you
to-day; but you have been gone more than two weeks longer than you said
you would be." The reproach of her voice was not lost to me.

Stevenson had run on into the tavern after his first greeting to me, and
presently I heard his voice raised in surprise, and Kitty's excited
chatter. I heard Colonel Meriwether's voice answering. I heard another
voice.

"Who is in there?" asked Grace Sheraton of me, curiously. I looked her
slowly and fully in the face.

"It is Colonel Meriwether," I answered. "He has come on unexpectedly
from the West. His daughter is there also, I think. I have not yet seen
her."

"That woman!" breathed Grace Sheraton, sinking back upon her seat. Her
eye glittered as she turned to me. "Oh, I see it all now--you have been
with them--_you have met her again!_ My God! I could kill you both--I
could--I say I could!"

"Listen," I whispered to her, putting a hand on her wrist firmly. "You
are out of your head. Pull up at once. I have not seen or heard from
either of them. I did not know they were coming, I tell you."

"Oh, I say, Cowles," sang out Stevenson, at that moment running out,
flushed and laughing. "What do you think, here's my Colonel come and
caught