Page:Scribner's Monthly, Volume 12 (May–October 1876).djvu/335

Rh why, I want to know! it can't be! yes, it is!"

He stopped; the recognition was complete!

Arthur did not move. If he had expected an outburst from the injured man before him he was disappointed. Gabriel passed his hard palm vaguely and confusedly across his forehead and through his hair, and lifted and put back behind his ears two tangled locks. And then, without heeding Arthur's proffered hand, yet without precipitation, anger or indignation, he strode toward him, and asked calmly and quietly, as Arthur himself might have done.

"Where is Grace?"

"I don't know," said Arthur, bluntly. "I have not known for years. I have never known her whereabouts, living or dead, since the day I left her at a logger's house to return to Starvation Camp to bring help to you." (Arthur could not resist italicizing the pronoun, nor despising himself for doing it when he saw the full significance of his emphasis touched the man before him.) "She was gone when I returned; where, no one knew! I traced her to the Presidio, but there she had disappeared."

Gabriel raised his eyes to Arthur's. The impression of nonchalant truthfulness which Arthur's speech always conveyed to his hearer, an impression that he did not prevaricate because he was not concerned sufficiently in his subject, was further sustained by his calm, clear eyes. But Gabriel did not speak, and Arthur went on:

"She left the logger's camp voluntarily, of her own free will, and doubtless for some reason that seemed sufficient to her. She abandoned me—if I may so express myself—left my care, relieved me of the responsibility I held toward her relatives—" he continued, with the first suggestion of personal apology in his tones—"without a word or previous intimation. Possibly she might have got tired of waiting for me. I was absent two weeks. It was the tenth day after my departure that she left the logger's hut."

Gabriel put his hand in his pocket and deliberately drew out the precious newspaper slip he had once shown to Olly.

"Then thet thar 'Personal' wozent writ by you, and thet P. A. don't stand for Philip Ashley?" asked Gabriel, with a hopeless dejection in his tone.

Arthur glanced quickly over the paper, and smiled. "I never saw this before," he said. "What made you think I did it?" he asked curiously.

"Because July—my wife that was—said that P. A. meant you," said Gabriel, simply.

"Oh! she said so, did she?" said Arthur, still smiling.

"She did. And ef it wasn't you, who was it?"

"I really don't know," returned Arthur, carelessly; "possibly it might have been herself. From what I have heard of your wife I think this might be one, and perhaps the most innocent of her various impostures."

Gabriel cast down his eyes, and for a moment was gravely silent. Then the look of stronger inquiry and intelligence that he had worn during the interview faded utterly from his face, and he began again in his old tone of apology:

"For answerin' all my questions, I'm obliged to ye, Mr. Ashley, and it's right good in ye to remember ol' times, and ef I hev often thought hard on ye, ye'll kinder pass that by ez the nat'rel allowin's of a man ez was worried about a sister ez hasn't been heer'd from sens she left with ye. And ye mustn't think this yer meetin' was o' my seekin'. I kinder dropped in yer," he added wearily, "to see a man o' the name o' Poinsett. He allowed to be yer at eleving o'clock—mebbee it's airly yet—mebbee I've kinder got wrong o' the place!" and he glanced apologetically around the room.

"My name is Poinsett," said Arthur, smiling; "the name of Philip Ashley, by which you knew me, was merely the one I assumed when I undertook the long overland trip." He said this in no tone of apology or even explanation, but left the impression on Gabriel's mind that a change of name, like a change of dress, was part of the outfit of a gentleman emigrant. And looking at the elegant young figure before him, it seemed exceedingly plausible. "It was as Arthur Poinsett, the San Francisco lawyer, that I made this appointment with you, and it is now as your old friend Philip Ashley, that I invite your confidence, and ask you to tell me frankly the whole of this miserable business. I have come to help you, Gabriel, for your own—for your sister's sake. And I think I can do it!" He held out his hand again, and this time not in vain; with a sudden frank gesture it was taken in both of Gabriel's, and Arthur felt that the greatest difficulty he had anticipated in his advocacy of Gabriel's cause had been surmounted.

"He has told me the whole story, I