Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/187

Rh the janitor said, who had merely asked if this was Mr. John Gault's office, and had then hastened away.

An instinct told him it was from her, and he shut himself into his inner office before he opened it. It was a rough wooden box, and contained the money given by him to the colonel—five hundred and ten dollars in gold coin. Lying on the top was a slip of paper bearing the words: "Good-by. "

Still he could not but believe that she would soon reveal her whereabouts. The move was occupying her, and such an operation would seem a gigantic undertaking to her youthful inexperience. That she should treat him this way was thoughtless, cruel even, but she had been deeply wounded, and her hurt was evidently still sore. He could only wait patiently.

He did so for two weeks, his uncertainties growing into fears, his conviction of her intention to communicate with him gradually weakening. Uneasiness gave place to alarm. For the first time the haunting thought that she had gone from him purposely, fled forever from his love, entered his mind.

Finally, unable to endure the anxiety that now beset him, he commissioned a private detective agency to run to earth the boy who had brought the money. He supposed it had come directly from her, and that, through the boy,