at once.

"I know all! You have laughed at my occult tendencies, sneered at my
Theosophy, but I can now, alas! give you convincing proof of the
penetrative power of the one, the sustaining power of the other. I
became so nervous at your continued silence and absence that I did what
I had promised you not to do--went out in my astral to hunt for you--and
I found you! Would to God I had never tried! It is not my health that
is ruined, but my heart and my happiness. To make assurance doubly sure,
I psychometrized the only letter I have received from Mary in weeks. She
was cunning enough not to mention your name, but the unspoken testimony
was the same. To think that you of all men--but I do not blame you! I
have gone down to the _Echo_ office, my heart bursting with despair, and
have told lies to account for your absence, to keep things moving until
you see fit to send your own explanation. I have thrown dust too in the
eyes of the family, till you tell me your will concerning them. No, I
dare not blame you! Did not I myself thrust the girl into your life--and
the best of us are but human. It is Karma! I have deserved this blow for
some previous sin of my own, and I bow my head to the stroke. Your own
harvest will be just as certain, however long delayed. O David, David!
I can look back now and see the very beginning of your interest in
Mary--but that it should end in this--that you should fly from me to
her----'"

Having read so far, I burst into hysterical laughter, and it took Mary
and her lover and Nurse Dean, and how many more I know not, to hold me
in bed. Of course I had a relapse, and my life was despaired of, but I
would not, in my sensible moments, allow Mary to write to, or send for
Isabel. I pictured the streets still full of rioting strikers, and the
mails and trains still disorganized. In waking and in delirium alike,
"Keep her out of harm's way!" I cried, "I'll go home to-morrow, sure,"
but it was a long to-morrow that saw me on the boat bound for Lake City.

Mary wanted to accompany me, for I was still very weak, and had to walk
with a stick on account of my knee, but I said brusquely, "You stay
where you are, and keep an eye on Dr. Flaker, or you'll maybe get left
again."

"No fear of that!" she said, holding up her left hand to show me a broad
gold band with five diamonds in it, adorning her third finger.

"We'll be married as soon as his year is out, for he has plenty of
money."

The stones in her