n opened. But our
stay was lengthened at Juneau, where we were entertained by acquaintances
of Mrs. Feversham's, and we spent a long time around Taku glacier and the
Muir. I missed my steamer connections, and there was not another boat due
within a week. But the weather was delightful, and Mr. Morganstein
suggested taking me on in the yacht. Then Mrs. Feversham proposed a side
trip along Columbia glacier and into College fiord. It was all very
wonderful to me, and inspiring; the salt air had been a restorative from
the start. And I saw no reason to hurry the party. David would understand.
So, the second mail steamer passed us, and finally, when we reached
Seward, David had gone back to the interior. The rest--you know."

"You mean," said Tisdale slowly, "you heard about Mrs. Barbour."

She bowed affirmatively. The color swept in a wave to her face; her lashes
fell.

"Mrs. Feversham heard about it, how David had brought her down from the
interior. I saw the cabin he had furnished for her, and she herself,
sewing at the window. Her face was beautiful."

There was a silence, then Hollis said: "So you came back on the _Aquila_
to Seattle. But you wrote; you explained about the child?"

She shook her head. "I waited to hear from David first. I did not know,
then, that the letter with Silva's picture was lost."

Tisdale squared his shoulders, looking off again to the snow-peaks above
Cerberus.

"Consider!" She rose with an outward movement of her hands, like one
groping in the dark for a closed door. "It was a terrible mistake, but I
did not know David as you knew him. My father, who was dying, arranged our
marriage. I was very young and practically without money in a big city;
there was not another relative in the world who cared what became of me.
And, in any case, even had I known the meaning of love and marriage, in
that hour,--when I was losing him,--I must have agreed to anything he
asked. We had been everything to each other; everything. But I've been a
proud woman; sensitive to slight. It was in the blood--both sides. And I
had been taught early to cover my feelings. My father had adored my
mother; he used to remind me she was patrician to the finger-tips, and
that I should not wear my heart on my sleeve if I wished to be like her.
And, when I visited my grandfather, Don Silva, in the south, he would say:
'Beatriz, remember the blood of generations of soldiers is bottled in you;
carry yourself like the last Gon