udden tightening round her heart.

"Quite sure, miss," said the stableman, "for he was in the yard when
Steptoe came, after missing the coach. He wanted a buggy to take him
over to the Divide. We hadn't one, so he went over to the other stables,
and he didn't come back, so I reckon he's gone. I remember it, because
Steptoe came by a minute after he'd gone, in another buggy, and as he
was going to the Divide, too, I wondered why the gentleman hadn't gone
with him."

"And he left no message for me? He said nothing?" asked Mrs. Barker,
quite breathless, but still smiling.

"He said nothin' to me but 'Isn't that Steptoe over there?' when Steptoe
came in. And I remember he said it kinder suddent--as if he was reminded
o' suthin' he'd forgot; and then he asked for a buggy. Ye see,
miss," added the man, with a certain rough consideration for her
disappointment, "that's mebbe why he clean forgot to leave a message."

Mrs. Barker turned away, and ascended the stairs. Selfishness is quick
to recognize selfishness, and she saw in a flash the reason of Van Loo's
abandonment of her. Some fear of discovery had alarmed him; perhaps
Steptoe knew her husband; perhaps he had heard of Mrs. Horncastle's
possession of the sitting-room; perhaps--for she had not seen him since
their playful struggle at the door--he had recognized the woman who was
there, and the selfish coward had run away. Yes; Mrs. Horncastle was
right: she had been only a miserable dupe.

Her cheeks blazed as she entered the room she had just quitted,
and threw herself in a chair by the window. She bit her lip as she
remembered how for the last three months she had been slowly yielding
to Van Loo's cautious but insinuating solicitation, from a flirtation in
the San Francisco hotel to a clandestine meeting in the street; from a
ride in the suburbs to a supper in a fast restaurant after the theatre.
Other women did it who were fashionable and rich, as Van Loo had pointed
out to her. Other fashionable women also gambled in stocks, and had
their private broker in a "Charley" or a "Jack." Why should not Mrs.
Barker have business with a "Paul" Van Loo, particularly as this fast
craze permitted secret meetings?--for business of this kind could not be
conducted in public, and permitted the fair gambler to call at private
offices without fear and without reproach. Mrs. Barker's vanity, Mrs.
Barker's love of ceremony and form, Mrs. Barker's snobbishness, were
flattered by the a