f its mother, had been
kept at a convenient distance at Sacramento, ready to be sent for when
needed. She remembered his occasional visits there on--business, as he
said. Perhaps the mother already was there; but no, she had gone East.
Nevertheless, Mrs. Tretherick, in her then state of mind, preferred to
dwell upon the fact that she might be there. She was dimly conscious,
also, of a certain satisfaction in exaggerating her feelings. Surely
no woman had ever been so shamefully abused. In fancy, she sketched
a picture of herself sitting alone and deserted, at sunset, among
the fallen columns of a ruined temple, in a melancholy yet graceful
attitude, while her husband drove rapidly away in a luxurious
coach-and-four, with a red-haired woman at his side. Sitting upon
the trunk she had just packed, she partly composed a lugubrious poem
describing her sufferings as, wandering alone and poorly clad, she came
upon her husband and "another" flaunting in silks and diamonds. She
pictured herself dying of consumption, brought on by sorrow--a beautiful
wreck, yet still fascinating, gazed upon adoringly by the editor of the
AVALANCHE and Colonel Starbottle. And where was Colonel Starbottle all
this while? Why didn't he come? He, at least, understood her. He--she
laughed the reckless, light laugh of a few moments before; and then her
face suddenly grew grave, as it had not a few moments before.

What was that little red-haired imp doing all this time? Why was she so
quiet? She opened the door noiselessly, and listened. She fancied
that she heard, above the multitudinous small noises and creakings
and warpings of the vacant house, a smaller voice singing on the floor
above. This, as she remembered, was only an open attic that had been
used as a storeroom. With a half-guilty consciousness, she crept softly
upstairs and, pushing the door partly open, looked within.

Athwart the long, low-studded attic, a slant sunbeam from a single small
window lay, filled with dancing motes, and only half illuminating the
barren, dreary apartment. In the ray of this sunbeam she saw the child's
glowing hair, as if crowned by a red aureole, as she sat upon the floor
with her exaggerated doll between her knees. She appeared to be talking
to it; and it was not long before Mrs. Tretherick observed that she was
rehearsing the interview of a half-hour before. She catechized the
doll severely, cross-examining it in regard to the duration of its
stay there, a