he dwelt upon his assumptions of superiority. She hated the whole
glittering, unresting, lavish city at the moment, and her soul longed
for the silence of the peaks to the west. She turned to her husband as
one who seeks a tower of refuge in time of war.

CHAPTER XXIII

BERTHA'S FLIGHT

Before she had fairly recovered her poise next day Lucius brought to her
a letter from Humiston--a suave, impudent note wherein he expressed the
hope that she was well, and went on to plead in veiled phrase: "I'm
sorry you did not stay to see the rest of my pictures. I meant it all as
a compliment to your innate good taste and purity of thought. I expected
you to see them as I painted them--in pure artistic delight. You
misunderstood me. I hope you will let me see you again. You must
remember you promised to let me make a portrait sketch of you."

Although not skilled in polite duplicity, Bertha was able to read
beneath the serene insolence of these lines something so diabolically
relentless that she turned cold with fear and repulsion. She had no
experience which fitted her to deal with such a pursuer, and she
shuddered at the rustling of the paper in her hand as she had once
quivered in breathless terror of a rattlesnake stirring in the leaves
near the door of her tent. Her first impulse was to lay the whole affair
before the Captain, but the knowledge of his deadly temper when roused
decided her to slip out at the other side of this fearsome thicket and
leave the serpent in possession. She longed to return to the West. The
little group of people in the Springs allured her; they were to be
trusted. Congdon and Crego and Ben--these men she knew and respected.
Her joy of the big outside Eastern world had begun to pass, and she
dreaded to encounter again the bold eyes and coarse compliments of the
men who loaf about the hotels and clubs.

She turned to Haney as he came into her room, and said: "Mart, I want to
go home--to-day."

"All right, Bertie, I'm ready--or will be, as soon as I pick up the old
father. But don't you want to see that show we've got tickets for?"

"No, I've had enough of this old town. I'm crazy to go home."

"Home it is, then." He called sharply; "Lucius!" The man appeared,
impassive, noiseless, unhurried. The Captain issued his orders: "Thrun
me garbage into a thrunk, and call some one to help the missus; we're
goin' to hit the sunset trail to-night. 'Phone me old dad besides, and
have him come over