n, feeling that not only was she utterly unable to
produce Captain Horn, but that she might never be able to do so? Should
the captain not return, and should she have proofs of his death, or
sufficient reason to believe it, she might then do as she pleased about
claiming her place as his widow. But should he return, he should not find
that she had trammelled and impeded his plans and purposes by announcing
herself as his wife. She did not expect ever to live in San Francisco
again, and in no other place need she be known as Mrs. Horn.

As to the business objects of her exceptional marriage, they were, in a
large degree, already attained. The money Captain Horn had remitted to
her in San Francisco was a sum so large as to astound her, and when she
reached Paris she lost no time in depositing her funds under her maiden
name. For the sake of security, some of the money was sent to a London
banker, and in Paris she did not deposit with the banking house which
Captain Horn had mentioned. But directions were left with that house that
if a letter ever came to Mrs. Philip Horn, it was to be sent to her in
care of Mrs. Cliff, and, to facilitate the reception of such a letter,
Mrs. Cliff made Wraxton, Fuguet & Co. her bankers, and all her letters
were addressed to them. But at Edna's bankers she was known as Miss
Markham, and her only Parisian connection with the name of Horn was
through Mrs. Cliff.

The amount of money now possessed by Edna was, indeed, a very fair
fortune for her, without regarding it, as Captain Horn had requested, as
a remittance to be used as a year's income. In his letters accompanying
his remittances the captain had always spoken of them as her share of the
gold brought away, and in this respect he treated her exactly as he
treated Mrs. Cliff, and in only one respect had she any reason to infer
that the money was in any manner a contribution from himself. In making
her divisions according to his directions, her portion was so much
greater than that of the others, Edna imagined Captain Horn sent her his
share as well as her own. But of this she did not feel certain, and
should he succeed in securing the rest of the gold in the mound, she did
not know what division he would make. Consequently, this little thread of
a tie between herself and the captain, woven merely of some hypothetical
arithmetic, was but a cobweb of a thread. The resumption of her maiden
name had been stoutly combated by both Mrs. Cliff an