Page:The New Penelope.djvu/259

 gay, she had better send some invitations to certain of their friends.

"By the way John, do you know where Charles Erskine is?" Miss Edwards asked, with much forced composure.

"The last I heard of him he was in San Francisco, lying dangerously ill," answered John coldly.

"Oh, John!"

"Mary, you must hope nothing from that man. Don't waste your sympathies on him, either; he'll never repay you the outgo."

"Tell me just one thing, John: Was Charles ever false to me? Tell me the truth."

"I think he kept good faith with you. It is not that I complain of in his conduct. The quarrel is strictly between us. He can never come here, with my consent."

"But I can go to him," said Miss Edwards, very quietly.

And she did go—with Sandy-haired Jim for an escort, and her brother's frowning face haunted her.

"If all is right," she said to him, at the very last, "I will be back to keep Christmas with you. Think as well as you can of me, John, and—good-by."

It will be seen, that, whatever Miss Edwards' little, womanly plan of reconciliation had been, it was, as to details, all changed by the information John had given her. What next she would do depended on circumstances. It was, perhaps, a question of life and death. The long, wearying, dusty stage-ride to San Francisco, passed like a disagreeable dream; neither incident of heat by day, nor cold by night, or influence of grand or lovely scenes, seemed to touch her consciousness. James Harris, in his best clothes and best manners—the latter having a certain gentle dignity about them that was born of the occasion—sat beside her, and ministered assiduously to those personal wants which she had forgotten in the absorption of her painful thoughts.

What Jim himself thought, if his mental processes could be called thinking, it would be difficult to state. He was