IVE imposition being discovered than of the VAGUE
AND IMPOSITIVE truth. The real danger lay in the present uncertainty
and mystery, which courted surmise and invited discovery. Paul,
himself, was willing to take all the responsibility, and at last
extracted from the colonel a promise of passive assent. The only
revelation he feared was from the interference of the mother, but
Pendleton was strong in the belief that she had not only utterly
abandoned the girl to the care of her guardians, but that she would
never rescind her resolution to disclaim her relationship; that she had
gone into self-exile for that purpose; and that if she HAD changed her
mind, he would be the first to know of it. On this day they had
parted. Meantime, Paul had not forgotten another resolution he had
formed on his first visit to the colonel, and had actually succeeded in
getting legislative relief for the Golden Gate Bank, and restoring to
the colonel some of his private property that had been in the hands of
a receiver.

This had been the background of Paul's meditation, which only threw
into stronger relief the face and figure that moved before him as
persistently as it had once before in the twilight of his room at
Rosario. There were times when her moonlit face, with its faint,
strange smile, stood out before him as it had stood out of the shadows
of the half-darkened drawing-room that night; as he had seen it--he
believed for the last time--framed for an instant in the parted
curtains of the doorway, when she bade him "Goodnight." For he had
never visited her since, and, on the attainment of her majority, had
delegated his passing functions to Pendleton, whom he had induced to
accompany the Mayor to Santa Clara for the final and formal ceremony.
For the present she need not know how much she had been indebted to him
for the accomplishment of her wishes.

With a sigh he at last recalled himself to his duty, and, drawing the
pile of reports which Shear had handed him, he began to examine them.
These, again, bore reference to his silent, unobtrusive inquiries. In
his function as Chairman of Committee he had taken advantage of a kind
of advanced moral legislation then in vogue, and particularly in
reference to a certain social reform, to examine statistics,
authorities, and witnesses, and in this indirect but exhaustive manner
had satisfied himself that the woman "Kate Howard," alias "Beverly,"
alias "Durfree," had long passed beyond t