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WHEN Mrs. Horton and Mrs. Osborn learned from the messenger boy that Ethel was with Doctor Redfield their agitation became apparent. They agreed that the best thing to be done was to hasten their departure from Lake Geneva. They wisely decided not to mention the affair to Ethel; but they determined to be more careful and observant of her in the future. Before retiring, they determined to start for the Southwest on the following day.

Lady Avondale was blandly polite, and she assured Mrs. Horton that already she had learned to love Ethel, the dear child, as if she were her own daughter. “Lenox,” she said, assuringly, “is taken with her, really he is quite attentive; have n’t you noticed it, Mrs. Osborn?”

“I must admit,” replied the intriguing Mrs. Osborn, “that he has expressed his admiration for her quite freely, while the dear boy’s eyes betray an eloquence of feeling that cannot be doubted.”

Had Mrs. Horton tried to give an explanation why she desired such an alliance, she would perhaps have floundered hopelessly in a sea of interrogation-points. Until she met Mrs. Osborn this Anglomania idea had never even been thought of by this otherwise sensible American mother. There are natures that influence us, unconsciously to ourselves, in strange and mysterious ways. We meet a person, and instinctively we are impressed with some peculiarity that he or she possesses. We hardly know just what it is, nor do we even stop to analyze our feelings. This one peculiarity might outweigh, in our minds, a hundred glaring defects—defects which in others would be not only quickly noticed by us, but severely condemned. Hence, in our newly formed fondness, friendship, or whatever it may be, we practically become blind to faults.

Mrs. Horton had formed a strong attachment for this very clever woman. This power was not an unconscious one to Lucy Osborn. She had quickly discovered it, and she meant to profit by it,—not in a mercenary way, no, she would have scorned even the thought of such a thing, but in a social way; through an alliance for Ethel she would in some way build an altar for herself.

She experienced little love or sentiment for either Mrs. Horton or her daughter, but she determined to use them as a means to an end. In most things Mrs. Osborn would have been considered an average woman—no better, no worse. Her desire, her ambition, her mania, however, to enter into English social circles was paramount to all other considerations. It was the gaunt tigress of her nature, famishing with desire, ready with hidden tooth and claw to pounce upon every opposition.

“I can assure you, Lady Avondale,” said Mrs. J. Bruce-Horton, and she flushed deeply as she spoke, “that a marriage between my daughter and your son, when he shall have succeeded to his family title, will be most agreeable to me.”

“So nice of you to say that, I am sure,” lisped her Ladyship, while in her heart she was saying, “Why, this silly American woman is extremely amusing.”

“I trust,” continued she aloud, “that your worthy husband will also approve of the contemplated alliance of our families.”

Mrs. J. Bruce-Horton shrugged her stately shoulders in an affected manner and looked bored. Mrs. Lyman Osborn came to her rescue.

“I promise you, Lady Avondale,” she observed, “that when Mrs. J. Bruce-Horton speaks, she does so for her entire family. Mr. John B. Horton is, perhaps—well, a little stupid, as American men of business so often are, you know. He is perfectly at home with his vast herds of cattle, mavericks, brands, and all that sort of thing, but when it comes to social questions, or to a family alliance like this, my dear friend, Mrs. J. Bruce-Horton, is in full authority.”

“Ah, just so,” replied Lady Avondale, as she adjusted her eye-glass and nodded her head wisely, “I understand.”

In the meantime Ethel had retired to her room; but not to sleep. She had a good cry all to herself, after which she bathed her flushed face and, after the manner of women, felt much relieved. She sat down and gave herself up to thoughtful reverie. She remained thus far into the night; but, finally, arousing herself, she said aloud, “Yes, he is a brain-worker, and oh! how I love brain-workers! Bah, I hate idlers!”

In the morning she awoke from the refreshing sleep of youth. She had scarcely finished her toilet when there came a knock at her door. It proved to be the colored bell-boy who had interrupted them on the evening before.

“Please, miss,” said he, with great obeisance, as she opened the door, “the gemman said I was to give you this letter in pusson.”

“Thank you,” said Ethel as she took the missive. Hastily tearing away the envelope she read:

“My darling Ethel:—It is now after midnight. I have walked along the path and stood under the old elm in the mad belief that I might see you again, although I must have known that it was impossible. I am sustained by the abiding hope of seeing you after you have spoken to your father. I trust it will not be long. I believe in you. The honesty of the soul that shines out through your eyes cannot be doubted. I am thrilled with deepest reverence, when I think of you,—a reverence such as one might feel when standing before a snow-white sacred shrine of peace, purity, and innocence. Know that my love is immortal—it cannot die.

“Affectionately,

“Jack.”

It was no shame to the noble heart of Ethel Horton that she kissed Jack’s hurriedly written note over and over, and bathed it with her tears. On the impulse of the moment she rang for pen and paper, and wrote:

“Dear Jack:—Your note has made me very happy. We leave to-day for the Southwest. I have thought it all over, and I know that I like you awfully well. I am conscious of a strange sensation that may be—well, I don’t know what it is. Do not give up hope, but share my faith in daddy. Yours,

“Ethel.”

Before leaving Lake Geneva, it was understood between Mrs. Horton and Lady Avondale that her son was to visit them at their ranch in southwestern Kansas. He intended spending about two months, later in the fall, hunting in the mountains of Colorado. Dr. Lenox Avondale looked upon an alliance with the American heiress as necessary for the preservation of the estates in England, and he accepted his mother’s arrangements as a matter of course. The flirtation which he had secretly begun with Mrs. Osborn promised a recreation within itself when he should visit the Hortons.

As for Dr. Jack Redfield, he was impatient to see Ethel once more, and in the hope that she had not yet gone from Lake Geneva he boarded a train, and at noon was at the lake, only to find that the Hortons and Mrs. Osborn had taken their departure an hour before. He had not yet received Ethel’s letter. He returned to the city, determined to bury himself in the multiplicity of his professional duties and study until his summons should come from Ethel Horton.

That evening on returning to his apartments on Dearborn Avenue he found among his letters the note from Ethel. His other mail he left unopened, while he read and re-read this message of hope. It was so sacred to him—it meant so much. This great, strong fellow who, heretofore, had been proof against love’s tender passion, had awakened to find himself thoroughly ensnared in its silken meshes. No, he did not wish to be’ free. As he walked to and fro in his room, he idealized Ethel with an ardent chivalry that might have become a knight of old.

The door-bell rang and Hugh Stanton was announced.

“Admit him,” said Jack. “I wonder what he wants. No, I will not tell him of my happiness.”

A moment later Hugh Stanton was ushered into Jack Redfield’s presence. They greeted as the warmest of friends. Between these two it was always “Jack” on the one side and “Hugh” on the other. They had been classmates at Princeton. After graduation Hugh had turned his attention to commercial pursuits, and had gradually worked his way up to the cashiership of one of Chicago’s most conservative banking institutions.

Hugh Stanton presented a striking contrast to his friend, Doctor Redfield. He was slightly below medium height, and rather stout. He had a handsome, good-natured face, black eyes, fair skin, and a silky, dark mustache. His thick, dark hair was inclined to be wavy, while his rather small hands and feet suggested a patrician ancestry.

After their greeting Jack produced a box of Havanas, and settling themselves in comfortable chairs, he observed, “Well, old boy, what’s the news?”

“I am about to leave Chicago,” replied Hugh, with an interrogative smile as much as to say, “What do you think of that?”

“Leave Chicago!” exclaimed Jack, in amazement. “Why, man, you have one of the best positions in the city.”

“Yes, but you know that my father’s estate, which has been tied up so long in the courts, is at last settled; and I find myself with fifty thousand dollars in ready money at my command. That amount does not mean much in a city like this, but on the frontier, where rates of interest are high, I can soon double it several times; and then, too, I am tired of city life. One is too much of an atom in a great throbbing centre like Chicago.”

“Well, you astonish me,” said Jack, “you almost take my breath away. I thought you were permanently settled and thoroughly in love with your surroundings.”

“Well, you know there is an old saying,” said Hugh, smiling, “that it is better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in an ocean. I have been in correspondence with the captain of my father’s old company, who is now on the frontier, and am offered the cashiership and an opportunity to purchase half the stock in the national bank of which he is the president.”

“It is rather strange that your father’s estate was so long in being settled,” said Jack, reflectively.

“Yes,” said Hugh, “more than twenty years from the time of his supposed death. He fought in the battle of Bethel Church and was numbered among the missing, but we were unable to establish the fact of his death. My mother died when I was a mere child, and then I lived with an uncle, who has had charge of my affairs; but at last everything is settled, and the money is now to my credit in the bank.”

“And so you are going to the frontier. I fear you will soon grow tired of it,” said Jack, “the contrast will be so great. What sort of man is he with whom you are going to associate yourself?”

“I cannot say,” replied Hugh, as he knocked the ashes from his cigar, “I have never met him. He was captain of the company in which my father was first lieutenant, and I have had considerable correspondence with him in trying to obtain information in regard to my father’s death. This correspondence has, strangely enough, led to the present contemplated business arrangement.”

“Well, we must see much of each other between now and the time you start.”

“My dear Jack,” replied Hugh, “I have already resigned my position and I shall leave to-morrow for my new home. I have called to-night to have an old-time chat, and to say farewell.”

Jack looked at his friend incredulously, and said, half indignantly, “Well, why have n’t you called before?”

“I have called nearly every evening for the past two weeks,” replied Hugh, “but you were never at home.”

“Oh, yes,” said Jack, looking up at the tiers of books on the shelves, and plucking his mustache, reflectively. “Yes, that’s so, I have been away—professional calls, you know.”

Soon Hugh Stanton took leave of his friend and the following day found him en route for Meade, Kansas.

After crossing the “Big Muddy” at Kansas City, Hugh began to realize, for the first time, that he was entering the “Great Plains”—that he was, indeed, in the West. He gazed meditatively from the car windows and beheld, in rapturous anticipation, the vast, rolling, monotonous prairies. He was coming to a land of promise, a land of hopes and of disappointments, a land of vast herds and of writhing winds, a land of struggling farmers and of princely cattle barons, a land of wild flowers and of sunshine. Here, Hugh Stanton was soon to become an actor on the realistic stage of the Southwest. He was to become, first, an actor in melodrama, then tragedy, and finally he was to play a part in a mighty orchestral avalanche of mystery.