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Of course Lansing’s only idea now was to get home as fast as steam could carry him; but they were one hundred miles from the railroad, and the only communication was by stage. It would get up from the railroad the next day, and go back the following morning. Pinney took Lansing out to his ranch, some miles from the mining camp, to pass the interval. The first thing he asked Mrs. Pinney was if she had a photograph of his wife. When she brought him one, he durst not look at it before his hosts. Not till he had gone to his room and locked the door did he trust himself to see again the face of his beloved Mary.

That evening Mrs. Pinney told him how his wife and children had fared in his absence. Her father had helped them at first, but after his death Mary had depended upon needlework for support, finding it hard to make the two ends meet.

Lansing groaned at hearing this, but Mrs. Pinney comforted him. It was well worth while having troubles, she said, if they could be made up to one, as all Mary’s would be to her when she saw her husband.

The upcoming stage brought the mail, and next day Pinney rode into camp to get his weekly newspaper, and engage a passage down the next morning for Lansing. The day dragged terribly to the latter, who stayed at the ranch. He was quite unfit for any social purpose, as Mrs. Pinney, to whom a guest in that lonely place was a rare treat, found to her sorrow, though indeed she could not blame him for being poor company. He passed hours, locked in his room, brooding over Mary’s picture. The rest of the day he spent wandering about the place, smiling and talking to himself like an imbecile, as he dreamed of the happiness so soon to crown his trials. If he could have put himself in communication with Mary by telegraph during this period of waiting, it would have been easier to get through, but the nearest telegraph station was at the railroad. In the afternoon he saddled a horse and rode about the country, thus disposing of a couple of hours.

When he came back to the house, he saw that Pinney had returned, for his horse was tethered to a post of the front piazza. The doors and windows of the living-room were open, and as he reached the front door, he heard Pinney and his wife talking in agitated tones.

“Oh, how could God let such an awful thing happen?” she was exclaiming, in a voice broken by hysterical sobbing. “I ‘m sure there was never anything half so horrible before. Just as John was coming home to her, and she worshiping him so, and he her! Oh, it will kill him! Who is going to tell him? Who can tell him?”

“He must not be told to-day,” said Pinney’s voice. “We must keep it from him at least for to-day.”

Lansing entered the room. “Is she dead?” he asked quietly. He could not doubt, from what he had overheard, that she was.

“God help him! He ‘ll have to know it now,” exclaimed Pinney.

“Is she dead?” repeated Lansing.

“No, she is n’t dead.”

“Is she dying, then?”

“No, she is well.”

“It’s the children, then?”

“No,” answered Pinney. “They are all right.”

“Then, in God’s name, what is it?” demanded Lansing, unable to conceive what serious evil could have happened to him, if nothing had befallen his wife and babies.

“We can’t keep it from him now,” said Pinney to his wife. “You ‘ll have to give him her letter.”

“Can’t you tell me what it is? Why do you keep me in suspense?” asked Lansing, in a voice husky with a dread he knew not of what.

“I can’t, man. Don’t ask me!” groaned Finney. “It’s better that you should read it.”

Mrs. Finney’s face expressed an agony of compassion as, still half clutching it, she held out a letter to Lansing. “John, oh, John,” she sobbed; “remember, she’s not to blame! She doesn’t know.”