."

"Let that go. But in the question of this ball? Do you mean to obey me?"

"Grandfather, please consider! How can I mix with gay scenes while the
fate of my husband is still an awful mystery?"

"You must conquer your feelings, and go, or--take the consequences!"

"Even if I could forget the tragedy of my wedding day, and mix with the
gay world again, what would people say?"

"What would people say, indeed? What would they dare to say of my
granddaughter?"

"But, sir, it would be contrary to all the laws of etiquette and
conventionality."

"My granddaughter, madam, should give the law to fashion and society,
not receive it from them!" said the Iron King, throwing himself back in
his arm chair as if it had been his throne.

Cora smiled faintly at this egotism, but made no reply in words.

"To come to the point!" he suddenly exclaimed--"Will you obey me and
attend this ball, or will you take the other alternative?"

Cora's heart swelled; her eyes flashed; she longed to defy the despot,
but she thought of her meek, patient, long-suffering grandmother, and
answered coldly:

"I will go to the ball, sir, since you wish it."

"Very well. That will do. Now leave the room. I wish to read the morning
papers."

Cora went out to find her grandmother and to relieve the lady's
anxiety; old Aaron Rockharrt threw himself back in his arm chair with
grim satisfaction at having conquered Cora and set his iron heel upon
her neck. Yes; he had conquered Cora through her love for her poor,
timid, abused grandmother. But now Fate was to conquer him.

But Fate had decided that Cora should not attend that ball, or any other
place of amusement, for a long time. And he was just on the brink of
discovering the impertinent interference of Fate in human affairs, and
especially those of the Iron King.

He took up a Washington paper--a government organ--and read, opening his
eyes to their widest extent as he read the following head-lines:

A MYSTERY CLEARED UP.

_THE FATE OF GOVERNOR REGULAS ROTHSAY_.

Killed by the Comanches on November 1st.

A dispatch from Fort Security to the Indian Bureau, received this
morning, announces another inroad of the Comanches upon the new
settlement of Terrepeur, in which the inhabitants were massacred
and their dwellings burned. Among the victims who perished in the
flames in their own huts was Regulas Rothsay, late Governor-elect
of ----, and at the time of