Project Gutenberg's The Avalanche, by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Avalanche

Author: Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

Release Date: June 30, 2004 [EBook #7863]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AVALANCHE ***

Produced by Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

THE AVALANCHE

_A MYSTERY STORY_

BY GERTRUDE ATHERTON

1919

TO CHARLES HANSON TOWNE

CHAPTER I

I

Price Ruyler knew that many secrets had been inhumed by the earthquake
and fire of San Francisco and wondered if his wife's had been one of
them. After all, she had been born in this city of odd and whispered
pasts, and there were moments when his silent mother-in-law suggested a
past of her own.

That there was a secret of some sort he had been progressively convinced
for quite six months. Moreover, he felt equally sure that this impalpable
gray cloud had not drifted even transiently between himself and his wife
during the first year and a half of their marriage. They had been
uncommonly happy; they were happy yet ... the difference lay not in the
quality of Helene's devotion, enhanced always by an outspoken admiration
for himself and his achievements, but in subtle changes of temperament
and spirits.

She had been a gay and irresponsible young creature when he married her,
so much so that he had found it expedient to put her on an allowance and
ask her not to ran up staggering bills in the fashionable shops; which
she visited daily, as much for the pleasure of the informal encounter
with other lively and irresponsible young luminaries of San Francisco
society as for the excitement of buying what she did not want.

He had broached the subject with some trepidation, for they had never had
a quarrel; but she had shown no resentment whatever, merely an eager
desire to please him. She even went directly down to the Palace Hotel and
reproached her august parent for failing to warn her that a dollar was
not capable of infinite expansion.

But no wonder she