. The fact that this woman was an
actress, an abomination vaguely alluded to by her father as being even
more mysteriously wicked than her sister and mother, and correspondingly
exciting, as offering a possible permanent relief to the monotony of her
home life, seemed to excuse her brother's weakness. She was almost ready
to become his partisan--AFTER she had seen her father.

They had talked largely of their plans; they had settled small details
of the future and the arrangement of the property; they had agreed that
Zuleika should be relieved of her household drudgery, and sent to
a fashionable school in San Francisco with a music teacher and a
dressmaker. They had discussed everything but the precise manner in
which the revelation should be conveyed to Hays. There was still plenty
of time for that, for he would not return until to-morrow at noon,
and it was already tacitly understood that the vehicle of transmission
should be a letter from the Summit Hotel. The possible contingency of
a sudden outburst of human passion not entirely controlled by religious
feeling was to be guarded against.

They were sitting comfortably before the replenished fire; the wind was
still moaning in the chimney, when, suddenly, in a lull of the storm
the sound of sleigh-bells seemed to fill the room. It was followed by a
voice from without, and, with a hysterical cry, Zuleika started to her
feet. The same breathless smile with which she had greeted her brother
an hour ago was upon her lips as she gasped:--

"Lord, save us!--but it's dad come back!"

I grieve to say that here the doughty redresser of domestic wrongs and
retriever of the family honor lapsed white-faced in his chair idealess
and tremulous. It was his frailer companion who rose to the occasion
and even partly dragged him with her. "Go back to the hotel," she said
quickly, "and take the sled with you,--you are not fit to face him now!
But he does not know ME, and I will stay!" To the staring Zuleika: "I am
a stranger stopped by a broken sleigh on my way to the hotel. Leave the
rest to me. Now clear out, both of you. I'll let him in."

She looked so confident, self-contained, and superior, that the thought
of opposition never entered their minds, and as an impatient rapping
rose from the door they let her, with a half-impatient, half-laughing
gesture, drive them before her from the room. When they had disappeared
in the distance, she turned to the front door, unbolted and op