er father had laid before me,
and so high was my sense of honor and duty to the community. This action
on my part she assumed would result in the publicity her father dreaded,
but eventually would lead to Jim's vindication; she deplored my lack of
faith in my companion; she marveled that I, too, should have fallen so
easily a prey to the sharpers who were deceiving her hot-headed,
obstinate father, whose senses were alert for every word or sign that
would smirch, by even so much as a shadow, the man he would overthrow.
If it had been possible for Gabrielle Tescheron to understand that I had
read her impulsive father's character aright, and that my loyalty to Jim
Hosley at the time was as firm as her own, our difficulties would have
been greatly simplified. My joke turned its other edge on me and cut me
off from her confidence, but not from her good-will, as expressed in the
beautiful flowers, in the hope that I might turn from pursuing Jim and
become a staunch advocate of his cause, when I realized, as she did and
as I surely must, how strong and true he was and how far above the
rogues who would smirch him for gain. But it was plain to her that I had
been turned against Jim by her father, and had gone far beyond the point
her father intended to reach in his attack on Hosley. Jim must be
quickly warned not to place any more confidence in me, for I had taken
hasty action that would soon involve them all in a criminal
investigation, full of unpleasant notoriety even for the innocent. Jim
should also be well advised by an able criminal lawyer to protect him
against these rogues and intemperate reasoners.

But these thoughts which came to Gabrielle and seemed to her to be the
impelling force that directed her to Eighteenth Street that morning, to
my mind now, read in the light of the whole story, were really only the
miraculous methods of that clairvoyance, operating under the veil of
mystery beyond reason. My shallow joke, I insist, could not have been
the cause. With an unshaken faith in Jim and no danger threatening him,
I am confident she would have remained at the hotel, taken breakfast
with her father and mother, and then, perhaps, have leisurely departed
for her office, to tell laughingly of the early morning flight to Jim at
some trysting place in the commercial section of the town later in the
day. Faith, without real danger, would have meant a contented mind,
whether or not, it seems to me, I had notified one coron