nconsciously to herself, approaching Coronado. A
mote on the wave of life, she was subject to attraction, as all of us
motes are, and this man was the only tractor at hand. Aunt Maria did not
count, for woman cannot absorb woman. As to Thurstane, he not only was not
there, but he was not anywhere, as she at last believed.

Not a word from him or about him, except one letter from the
Adjutant-General, which somehow evaded Coronado's brazier, gave her a
moment of choking hope and fear, opened its white, official lips,
acknowledged her "communication," and stopped there. The unseen tragedies
in which souls suffer are numberless. Here was one. The girl had written
with tears and heart-beats, and then with tears and heart-beats had
waited. At last came the words, "I have the honor to acknowledge, etc.,
very respectfully, etc." It was one of the business-like facts of life
unknowingly trampling upon a bleeding sentiment.

Imagine Clara's agitations during this long suspense; her plans and hopes
and despairs would furnish matter for a library. There was not a day, if
indeed there was an hour, during which her mind was not the theatre of a
dozen dramas whereof Thurstane was the hero, either triumphant or
perishing. They were horribly fragmentary; they broke off and pieced on to
each other like nightmares; one moment he was rescued, and the next
tomahawked. And this last fancy, despite all her struggles to hope, was
for the most part victorious. Meantime Coronado, guessing her sufferings,
and suffering horribly himself with jealousy, talked much and
sympathetically to her of Thurstane. So much did this man bear, and with
such outward sweetness did he bear it, that one half longs to consider him
a martyr and saint. Pity that his goodness should not bear dissection;
that it should have no more life in it than a stuffed mannikin; that it
should be just fit to scare crows with.

But hypocrite as Coronado was, he was clever enough to win every day more
of Clara's confidence; and perhaps she might have walked into this whited
sepulchre in due time had it not been for an accident. Cantering into San
Francisco to hold a consultation with her lawyer, she was saluted in the
street by a United States officer, also on horseback. She instinctively
drew rein, her pulse throbbing at sight of the uniform, and wild hopes
beating at her heart.

"Miss Van Diemen, I believe," said the officer, a dark, stout,
bold-looking trooper. "I am glad to s