didn't tumble to it. No! Reformin' ain't in
HIS line I'm afeard. And what was the result? Why, Kelly only got all
the more keen when she found she couldn't manage him like Reddy,--and,
between you and me, she'd have liked Reddy more if he hadn't been so
easy,--and it's ended, I reckon, in her now falling dead in love with
Sylvester. She swears she won't marry any one else, and wants to devote
her whole life to him! Now, what's to be done! Reddy don't know it yet,
and I don't know how to tell him. Kelly says her mission was ended when
she made a new man of him, and he oughter be thankful for that. Couldn't
you kinder break the news to him and tell him there ain't any show for
him?"

"Does he love the girl so much, then?" said the lady gently.

"Yes; but I am afraid there is no hope for Reddy as long as she thinks
there's a chance of her capturing Sylvester."

The lady rose and went to the writing-table. "Would it be any comfort
to you, Mr. Woodridge, if you were told that she had not the slightest
chance with Sylvester?"

"Yes."

She wrote a few lines on a card, put it in an envelope, and handed it to
Woodridge. "Find out where Sylvester is in San Francisco, and give him
that card. I think it will satisfy you. And now as I have to catch the
return coach in ten minutes, I must ask you to excuse me while I put my
things together."

"And you won't first break the news to Reddy for me?"

"No; and I advise you to keep the whole matter to yourself for the
present. Good-by!"

She smiled again, fascinatingly as usual, but, as it seemed to him, a
trifle wearily, and then passed into the inner room. Years after, in his
practical, matter of fact recollections of this strange woman, he always
remembered her by this smile.

But she had sufficiently impressed him by her parting adjuration to
cause him to answer Reddy's eager inquiries with the statement that
Kelly and her mother were greatly preoccupied with some friends in
San Francisco, and to speedily escape further questioning. Reddy's
disappointment was somewhat mitigated by the simultaneous announcement
of Mrs. Merrydew's departure. But he was still more relieved and
gratified to hear, a few days later, of the marriage of Mrs. Merrydew
with Louis Sylvester. If, to the general surprise and comment it
excited, he contributed only a smile of cynical toleration and superior
self-complacency, the reader will understand and not blame him. Nor did
the public, who knew the