helton! . . . Ah, me, she's gone, and here are
the black clouds and the whirling snow and the raging winds come again!
But she said good-by. She didn't say good morning, she said good-by!
. . . The clock was right, after all. What a lightning-winged
two hours it was!"

He sat down, and gazed dreamily into his fire for a while, then heaved a
sigh and said:

"How wonderful it is! Two little hours ago I was a free man, and now my
heart's in San Francisco!"

About that time Rosannah Ethelton, propped in the window-seat of her
bedchamber, book in hand, was gazing vacantly out over the rainy seas
that washed the Golden Gate, and whispering to herself, "How different he
is from poor Burley, with his empty head and his single little antic
talent of mimicry!"

II

Four weeks later Mr. Sidney Algernon Burley was entertaining a gay
luncheon company, in a sumptuous drawing-room on Telegraph Hill, with
some capital imitations of the voices and gestures of certain popular
actors and San Franciscan literary people and Bonanza grandees. He was
elegantly upholstered, and was a handsome fellow, barring a trifling cast
in his eye. He seemed very jovial, but nevertheless he kept his eye on
the door with an expectant and uneasy watchfulness. By and by a nobby
lackey appeared, and delivered a message to the mistress, who nodded her
head understandingly. That seemed to settle the thing for Mr. Burley;
his vivacity decreased little by little, and a dejected look began to
creep into one of his eyes and a sinister one into the other.

The rest of the company departed in due time, leaving him with the
mistress, to whom he said:

"There is no longer any question about it. She avoids me. She
continually excuses herself. If I could see her, if I could speak to her
only a moment, but this suspense--"

"Perhaps her seeming avoidance is mere accident, Mr. Burley. Go to the
small drawing-room up-stairs and amuse yourself a moment. I will
despatch a household order that is on my mind, and then I will go to her
room. Without doubt she will be persuaded to see you."

Mr. Burley went up-stairs, intending to go to the small drawing-room, but
as he was passing "Aunt Susan's" private parlor, the door of which stood
slightly ajar, he heard a joyous laugh which he recognized; so without
knock or announcement he stepped confidently in. But before he could
make his presence known he heard words that harrowed up his soul and
chill