She had worked herself up to this passion so suddenly, so outrageously and inconsistently, that it was not strange that it ended in an hysterical burst of equally illogical tears. She sank down again on the bench she had gradually risen from, and applied the backs of her yellow-gloved hands to her eyes, still holding the parasol at a rigid angle with her face. To her infinite astonishment Judge Trott laid one hand gently upon her shoulder and with the other possessed himself of the awkward parasol, which he tactfully laid on the bench beside her.

“You are mistaken, my dear young lady,” he said, with a respectful gravity,—“deeply mistaken, if you think I feel anything but kindness and gratitude for your offer—an offer so kind and unusual that even you yourself feel that I could not accept it. No! Let me believe that in doing what I thought was only my duty as a Judge, I gained your good-will, and let me feel that in doing my duty now as a man, I shall still keep it.”

Miss Clotilde had lifted her face towards his, as if deeply and wonderingly following his earnest words. But she only said, “Can you see me in this light?—at this distance? Put up your glass and try.”

Her face was not far from his. I have forgotten whether I have said that she was a pretty woman. She had been once prettier. But she retained enough of her good looks to invest the “Wheel of Fortune,” over which she had presided, with a certain seductive and bewildering uncertainty, which increased the risk of the players. It was, in fact, this unhallowed combination of Beauty and Chance that excited the ire of La Porte—who deemed it unprofessional and not “on the square.”

She had fine eyes. Possibly Judge Trott had never before been so near eyes that were so fine and so—expressive. He lifted his head with some embarrassment and a blush on his high cheek-bones. Then, partly from instinctive courtesy, partly from a desire to bring in a third party to relieve his embarrassment, he said—

“I hope you will make your friend, Mr.——, understand that I appreciate his kindness, even if I can’t accept it.”

“Oh, you mean Jake,” said the lady. “Oh, he’s gone home to the States. I’ll make it all right with him!”

There was another embarrassing pause—possibly over the absence of Jake. At last it was broken by Miss Montmorency. “You must take care of your eyes, for I want you to know me the next time you see me.”

So they parted. The Judge did recognize her on several other occasions. And then La Porte was stirred to its depths in hillside and tunnel with a strange rumor. Judge Trott had married Miss Jane Thomson, alias Miss Clotilde Montmorency—in San Francisco! For a few hours a storm of indignation and rage swept over the town; it was believed to have been a deep-laid plan and conspiracy. It was perfectly well understood that Judge Trott’s resignation was the price of her hand—and of the small fortune she was known to be possessed of. Of his character nothing remained that was assailable. A factitious interest and pathos were imported into the character and condition of her last lover—Jake Woods—the victim of the double treachery of Judge Trott and Miss Clotilde. A committee was formed to write a letter of sympathy to this man, who, a few months before, had barely escaped lynching at their hands. The angry discussion was at last broken by the voice of the first speaker in this veracious narrative, Captain Henry Symes—

“Thar’s one feature in this yer case that ye don’t seem to know, and that oughter be considered. The day she married him in San Francisco she had just come from the doctor’s, who had told her that Trott was helplessly blind! Gentlemen, when a gal like that throws over her whole life, her whole perfession, and a square man like Jake Woods, to marry a blind man without a dollar—just because he once stood up for her—on principle, damn me ef I see any man good enough to go back on her for it! Ef the Judge is willing to kinder overlook little bygone eccentricities o’ hers for the sake o’ being cared for and looked