Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-40.djvu/539

Rh I had business in the West and that I would explain when I returned. This, I knew, she could read between the lines, and I could not help it if Bernard should wonder.

I reached Denver ready for combat. The claim was heavy, and would certainly be disputed. I could not sleep while I was journeying, so busy was I feeling the links in the chain of evidence, trying to find its weakest place. I supposed many obstacles, and I supposed all sorts of additional proof, and now, for the first time, I trembled because I was a woman and not a lawyer, and I had dared to take this responsibility. Tired and disheartened, I came to the end of my journey, yet as soon as I was refreshed by food and a bath I went to the office of the company, and told them that I had come on the business belonging to Mrs. Juliet Garlic. I was received courteously, and listened to with attention. There was no opinion given, no question raised, and the interview was as brief as the paying of rent. The money involved was not mentioned, and I gave them the papers for which they asked with a reliance on their sincerity and honesty that would have vexed my lawyer had he known it.

For a week I waited in Denver, and then came a letter. It was very short. It did not cover one page of paper, and it told me that the claim of Mrs. Juliet Garlic was allowed, and that the company desired a personal interview with her at their principal office in Leaping Rock.

Now, by this time I knew all about the Lightning Mine, and I knew that Juliet's fortune would mount into the millions. Into millions of dollars, and six weeks before—not more than that—she had had no butter for her bread! Here was the proof that she was a rich woman, here the crown to my labor! It seemed to fall from the skies into my lap. Surely never had such a fortune been wrested by law so readily, and by a woman without a lawyer to stand in front of her. But of all this I did not think. I was not elated. I was not glad at all. I only realized that they wanted to see Juliet, and at once.

It was impossible! Should she tell Bernard and immediately leave him? That was out of the question. Tell him and ask him to bring her? The idea was absurd. And Juliet could not take the journey; she was still too ill. And there was the baby!

I did not know what to do. I sat down and wrote a letter to the company, and I told them she was ill and could not come, and asked if the business could not be transacted without her. I tore this up, and wrote a long, long letter to Juliet, telling her what I had done, and leaving it all in her hands to decide upon, and then I tore that up also. I could not give this responsibility into her judgment.

Long sat I pondering and seeing no way out. Leaping Rock was far from Denver, yet I almost resolved to go there. Surely I could convince them that she could not come. If I knew just why they wanted her, I could make answer for her. I should at least know what the hitch was, if hitch there should be. And then like a flash it came to me that perhaps they had felt that there was a mystery, and that they might suppose her dead!

I grew so confused thinking over all this that I felt I must have