YOU 
 
 NEVER KNOW 
 YOUR LUCK 
 
 GILBERT PARKER
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW 
 YOUR LUCK 
 
 GILBERT PARKER 
 
 IHIIT. OF CALIF. L1HKAKY. LOS ANGELES
 
 A SOB ALMOST BROKE FROM HER AS SHE GAZED HER FILL.
 
 Being the Story of a Matrimonial Deserter 
 
 By GILBERT PARKER 
 
 Author of "The Seats of the Mighty," "The 
 Weavers," " The Judgment House," Etc. 
 
 With Four Illustrations in Colon 
 By W. L. JACOBS 
 
 A. L BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 
 
 114-120 East Twenty-third Street - - New York 
 
 PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 Copyright, 1914, 
 BY GILBERT PARKER
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PROEM n 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I "PIONEERS, O PIONEERS" 15 
 
 II CLOSING THE DOORS 33 
 
 III THE LOGAN TRIAL AND WHAT CAME 
 
 OF IT 54 
 
 IV " STRENGTH SHALL BE GIVEN THEE " . 79 
 V A STORY TO BE TOLD 87 
 
 VI " HERE ENDETH THE FIRST LESSON " . 98 
 
 VII A WOMAN'S WAY TO KNOWLEDGE . .125 
 
 VIII ALL ABOUT AN UNOPENED LETTER . . 147 
 
 IX NIGHT SHADE AND MORNING GLORY . 162 
 
 X "S. O. S." 175 
 
 XI IN THE CAMP OF THE DESERTER . . .181 
 
 XII AT THE RECEIPT OF CUSTOMS .... 197 
 
 XIII KITTY SPEAKS HER MIND AGAIN. . .211 
 
 XIV AWAITING THE VERDICT 229
 
 CONTENTS 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XV " MALE AND FEMALE CREATED HE 
 
 THEM " 250 
 
 XVI MIDNIGHT Is NOT FAR OFF .... 266 
 XVII WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT? . . 279 
 EPILOGUE 322
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 A sob almost broke from her as she gazed her 
 
 fill Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 "Where away goes my lad? Tell me, has he gone 
 
 alone?" 22 
 
 It was strangely magnetic, this tale of a man's life . 98 
 "You you here!" 254
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK
 
 PROEM 
 
 DID you ever see it in reaping time? A sea 
 of gold it is, with gentle billows telling of 
 sleep and not of storm, which, like regiments 
 afoot, salute the reaper and say, "All is fulfilled 
 in the light of the sun and the way of the earth; 
 let the sharp knife fall." The countless million 
 heads are heavy with fruition, and sun glorifies 
 and breeze cradles them to the hour of harvest. 
 The air like the tingle of water from a moun- 
 tain-spring in the throat of the worn wayfarer, 
 bringing a sense of the dust of the world flushed 
 away. 
 
 Arcady? Look closely. Here and there, like 
 islands in the shining yellow sea, are houses 
 sometimes in a clump of trees, sometimes only like 
 bare-backed domesticity or naked industry in the 
 workfield. Also rising here and there in the ex- 
 panse, clouds that wind skyward, spreading out 
 in a powdery mist. They look like the rolling 
 [11]
 
 PROEM 
 
 smoke of incense, of sacrifice. Sacrifice it is. 
 The vast steam thrashers are mightily devouring 
 what their servants, the monster steam-reapers, 
 have gleaned for them. Soon, when September 
 comes, all that waving sea will be still. What 
 was gold will still be a rusted gold, but near to 
 the earth the stubble of the corn now lying in 
 vast garners by the railway lines, awaiting trans- 
 port east and west and south and across the seas. 
 Not Arcady this, but a land of industry in the 
 grip of industrialists, whose determination to 
 achieve riches is, in spite of themselves, chastened 
 by the magnitude and orderly process of nature's 
 travail which is not pain. Nature hides her in- 
 ternal striving under a smother of white for many 
 months in every year, when what is now gold in 
 the sun will be a soft sometimes, too, a hard 
 shining coverlet like impacted wool. Then, 
 instead of the majestic clouds of incense from the 
 thrashers, will rise blue spiral wreaths of smoke 
 from the lonely home. Here the farmer rests till 
 spring, comforting himself in the thought that 
 while he waits, far under the snow the wheat is 
 slowly expanding; and as in April, the white 
 frost flies out of the soil into the sun, it will push 
 upward and outward, green and vigorous, greet- 
 
 [12]
 
 PROEM 
 
 ing his eye with the "What cheer, partner!" of 
 a mate in the scheme of nature. 
 
 Not Arcady; and yet many of the joys of Ar- 
 cady are here bright, singing birds, wide adven- 
 turous rivers, innumerable streams, the squirrel 
 in the wood and the bracken, the wildcat stealing 
 through the undergrowth, the lizard glittering by 
 the stone, the fish leaping in the stream, the plaint 
 of the whippoorwill, the call of the bluebird, the 
 golden flash of the oriole, the honk of the wild 
 geese overhead, the whirr of the mallard from 
 the sedge. And, more than all, a human voice 
 declaring by its joy in song that not only God 
 looks upon the world and finds it very good. 
 
 [13]
 
 CHAPTER I 
 "PIONEERS, O PIONEERS" 
 
 IF you had stood on the borders of Askatoon, 
 a prairie town, on the pathway to the Rockies 
 one late August day not many years ago, you 
 would have heard a fresh young human voice 
 singing into the morning, as its possessor looked 
 from a coat she was brushing out over the "field 
 of the cloth of gold," which your eye has already 
 been invited to see. With the gift of singing 
 for joy at all, you should be able to sing joyously 
 at twenty-one. This morning singer was just 
 that age ; and if you had looked at the golden car- 
 pet of wheat stretching for scores of miles, before 
 you looked at her, you would have thought her 
 curiously in tone with the scene. She was a 
 symphony in gold nothing less. Her hair, her 
 cheeks, her eyes, her skin, her laugh, her voice 
 they were all gold. Everything about her was 
 
 [15]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 so demonstratively golden that you might have 
 had a suspicion it was made and not born; as 
 though it was unreal, and the girl herself a proper 
 subject of suspicion. The eyelashes were so long 
 and so black, the eyes were so much like a topaz, 
 and the little glint of gold in a tooth, the one 
 weak member of an otherwise perfect array 
 that an air of faint artificiality surrounded what 
 was in every other way a remarkable effort of 
 nature to give this region, where she was so very 
 busy, a keynote. 
 
 Poseurs have said that nature is garish or ex- 
 aggerated in this or that; but it is a libel. She 
 is aristocratic to the nth degree, and is never over- 
 done; she has courage but no ostentation. There 
 was, however, just a slight touch of overemphasis 
 in this singing-girl's presentation that you were 
 bound to say, if you considered her quite apart 
 from her place in this nature-scheme. She was 
 not wholly aristocratic; she was lacking in that 
 high, social refinement which would have made 
 her gold not so golden, the black eyelashes not 
 so black. Being unaristocratic is not always a 
 matter of birth, though it may be a matter of par- 
 entage. 
 
 Her parentage was honest and respectable 
 
 [16]
 
 'PIONEERS, o 
 
 though not exalted. Her father had been 
 an engineer, who had lost his life on a new 
 railway of the West. His widow had received 
 a pension from the company insufficient to main- 
 tain her, and so she kept three boarders, the coat 
 of one of whom her daughter was now brushing 
 as she sang. The widow herself was the origin 
 of the girl's slight disqualification for being of 
 that higher circle of selection which nature ar- 
 ranges long before society makes its judicial de- 
 cision. The father had been a man of intelli- 
 gence, which his daughter to a real degree inher- 
 ited; but the mother, as kind a soul as ever lived, 
 was a product of southern English rural life a 
 little sumptuous, but wholesome, and for her 
 daughter's sake at least, keeping herself well and 
 safely within the moral pale in the midst of 
 marked temptations. She was forty-five, and it 
 says a good deal for her ample but proper graces 
 that at forty-five she had numerous admirers. 
 The girl was English in appearance, with a touch 
 perhaps of Spanish why, who can say 1 ? Was it 
 because of those Spanish hidalgos wrecked on the 
 Irish coast long since? Her mind and her 
 tongue, however, were Irish like her father's. 
 You would have liked her, everybody did 
 [17]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 yet you would have thought that nature had over- 
 done herself for once, she was so pointedly de- 
 signed to express the ancient dame's colour- 
 scheme, even to the delicate auriferous down on 
 her youthful cheek and the purse-proud look of 
 her faintly retrousse nose; though in fact she 
 never had had a purse and scarcely needed one. 
 In any case she had an ample pocket in her dress. 
 
 This fairly full description of her is given not 
 because she is the most important person in the 
 story, but because the end of the story would 
 have been entirely different had it not been for 
 her; and because she herself was one of those who 
 are so much the sport of circumstances or chance 
 that they express the full meaning of the title of 
 this story. As a line beneath the title explains, 
 the tale concerns a matrimonial deserter. Cer- 
 tainly this girl had never deserted matrimony, 
 though she had on more than one occasion avoided 
 it; and there had been men mean and low 
 enough to imagine they might allure her to the 
 conditions of matrimony without its status. 
 
 As with her mother the advertisement of her 
 
 appearance was wholly misleading. A man had 
 
 once said to her that "she looked too gay to be 
 
 good," but in all essentials she was as good as 
 
 [18]
 
 'PIONEERS, o PIONEERS' 
 
 she was gay, and indeed rather better. Her 
 mother had not kept boarders for seven years 
 without getting some useful knowledge of the 
 world, or without imparting useful knowledge; 
 and there were men who, having paid their bills 
 on demand, turned from her wiser if not bet- 
 ter men. Because they had pursued the old but 
 inglorious profession of hunting tame things, 
 Mrs. Tyndall Tynan had exacted compensation 
 in one way or another by extras, by occasional 
 and deliberate omission of table luxuries, and by 
 making them pay for their own mending, which 
 she herself only did when her boarders behavtd 
 themselves well. She scored in any contest in 
 spite of her rather small brain, large heart, and 
 ardent appearance. A very clever, shiftless Irish 
 husband had made her develop shrewdness, and 
 she was so busy watching and fending her daugh- 
 ter that she did not need to watch and fend her- 
 self to the same extent as she would have done 
 had she been free and childless and thirty. The 
 widow Tynan was practical, and she saw none 
 of those things which made her daughter stand 
 for minutes at a time and look into the distance 
 over the prairie towards the sunset light or the 
 grey-blue foothills. She never sang she had 
 
 [19]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 never sung a note in her life; but this girl of 
 hers, with a man's coat in her hand, and eyes on 
 the joyous scene before her, was forever hum- 
 ming or singing. She had even sung in the 
 church choir till she declined to do so any longer, 
 because strangers stared at her so; which goes 
 to show that she was not so vain as people of 
 her colouring sometimes are. It was just as bad, 
 however, when she sat in the congregation; for 
 then, too, if she sang, people stared at her. So 
 it was that she seldom went to church at all; but 
 it was not because of this that her ideas of right 
 and wrong were quite individual and not con- 
 ventional, as the tale of the matrimonial deserter 
 will show. 
 
 This was not church, however, and briskly ap- 
 plying a light whisk-broom to the coat, she sang 
 one of the songs her father taught her when he 
 was in his buoyant or in his sentimental moods, 
 and that was a good portion of the time. It used 
 to perplex her the thrilling buoyancy and the 
 creepy melancholy which alternately held her 
 father; but as a child she had become so inured 
 to it that she was not surprised at the alternate 
 pensive gaiety and the blazing exhilaration of 
 the particular man whose coat she now dusted 
 
 [20]
 
 'PIONEERS, o PIONEERS' 
 
 long after there remained a speck of dust upon 
 it. This was the song she sang: 
 
 "Whereaway, whereaway goes the lad that once was 
 
 mine; 
 
 Hereaway I waited him, hereaway and oft; 
 When I sang my song to him, bright his eyes began to 
 
 shine 
 Hereaway I loved him well, for my heart was soft. 
 
 "Hereaway my heart was soft; when he kissed my happy 
 
 eyes, 
 Held my hand, and pressed his cheek warm against nay 
 
 brow, 
 Home I saw upon the earth, heaven stood there in the 
 
 skies 
 'Whereaway, whereaway goes my lover now !' " 
 
 "Whereaway goes my lad tell me, has he gone alone? 
 
 Never harsh word did I speak, never hurt I gave; 
 Strong he was and beautiful; like a heron he has flown 
 
 Hereaway, hereaway will I make my grave. 
 
 "When once more the lad I loved hereaway, hereaway, 
 Comes to lay his hand in mine, kiss me on the brow, 
 
 I will whisper down the wind, he will weep to hear me 
 
 say 
 Whereaway, whereaway goes my lover now !" 
 
 [21]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 There was a plaintive quality in the voice of 
 this golden creature in perfect keeping with the 
 music and the words; and though her lips smiled, 
 there was a deep, far-away look in her eyes more 
 in harmony with the coming autumn than with 
 this gorgeous harvest-time. 
 
 For a moment after she had finished singing 
 she stood unmoving, absorbed by the far horizon; 
 then suddenly she gave a little shake of the body 
 and said in a brisk, playfully reproving way: 
 
 "Kitty Tynan, Kitty Tynan, what a girl you 
 are!" 
 
 There was no one near, so far as eye could see, 
 so it was clear the words were addressed to her- 
 self. 
 
 She was expressing that wonder which so 
 many folk feel at discovering in themselves char- 
 acteristics heretofore unrecognised, or find them- 
 selves doing things out of their natural orbit, as 
 they think. If any one had told Kitty Tynan 
 that she had rare imagination she would have 
 wondered what was meant. If any one had said 
 to her, "What are you dreaming about, Kitty?" 
 she would have understood, however, for she had 
 had fits of dreaming ever since she was a child, 
 and these fits had increased during the past few 
 [22]
 
 " WHKRE AWAY GOES MY LAD ? TELL ME HAS HE GONE ALONE ? "
 
 'PIONEERS, o 
 
 years since the man came to live with them 
 whose coat she had been brushing. Perhaps this 
 was only imitation, because the man had a habit 
 of standing or sitting still and looking into space 
 for minutes and on Sundays for hours at a 
 time; and often she had watched him as he lay 
 on his back in the long grass, head on a hillock, 
 hat down over his eyes, while the smoke from 
 his pipe came curling up from beneath the rim. 
 Also she had seen him more than once sitting with 
 a letter before him and gazing at it for many 
 minutes together. The curious thing was that it 
 was the same letter on each occasion. It was a 
 closed letter, and it also was unstamped. She 
 knew that, because she had seen it in his desk 
 the desk once belonging to her father, a slop- 
 ing thing with a green-baize top. Sometimes he 
 kept it locked, but very often he did not; and 
 more than once, when he had asked her to get him 
 something from the desk, not out of meanness, 
 but chiefly because her moral standard had not 
 a multitude of delicate punctilios, she had looked 
 curiously at this letter. The envelope bore a 
 woman's handwriting, and the name on it was 
 not that of the man who owned the coat and 
 the letter. The name on the envelope was Shiel 
 [23]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 Crozier, but the name of the man who owned the 
 coat was J. G. Kerry James Gathorne Kerry, 
 so he said. 
 
 Kitty Tynan had certainly enough imagina- 
 tion to make her cherish a mystery. She won- 
 dered greatly what it all meant. Never in any- 
 thing else had she been inquisitive or prying where 
 this man was concerned; but she felt that this 
 letter had the heart of a story, and she made up 
 fifty stories which she thought would fit the case 
 of J. G. Kerry, who for over four years had lived 
 in her mother's house. He had become part of 
 her life, perhaps just because he was a man 
 and what home is a real home without a man 4 ? 
 perhaps because he always had a kind, quiet word 
 for her, and sometimes a word of buoyant cheer- 
 fulness; indeed, he showed in his manner occa- 
 sionally almost a boisterous hilarity. He un- 
 doubtedly was what her mother called "a queer 
 dick," but also "a pippin with a perfect core," 
 which was her way of saying that he was a man 
 to be trusted with herself and with her daugh- 
 ter; who would stand loyally by a friend or a 
 woman. He had stood by them both when Au- 
 gustus Burlingame, the lawyer, who had boarded 
 with them when J. G. Kerry first came, coarsely 
 
 [24]
 
 'PIONEERS, o PIONEERS' 
 
 exceeded the bounds of liberal friendliness which 
 marked the household, and by furtive attempts 
 at intimacy began to make life impossible for 
 both mother and daughter. Burlingame took it 
 into his head, when he received notice that his 
 rooms were needed for another boarder, that J. G. 
 Kerry was the cause of it. Perhaps this was not 
 without reason, since Kerry had seen Kitty Tynan 
 angrily unclasping Burlingame's arm from 
 around her waist, and had used cutting and de- 
 cisive words to the sensualist afterwards. 
 
 There had taken the place of Augustus Bur- 
 lingame a land-agent Jesse Bulrush who 
 came and went like a catapult, now in domicile 
 for three days together, now gone for three 
 weeks; a voluble, gaseous, humorous fellow, 
 who covered up a well of commercial eva- 
 siveness, honesty and adroitness by a perspiring 
 gaiety natural in its origin and convenient for 
 harmless deceit. He was fifty, and no gallant 
 save in words ; and though a bachelor of so many 
 years' standing it was a long time before he 
 showed a tendency even to blandish a good-look- 
 ing middle-aged nurse named Egan who also 
 lodged with Mrs. Tynan; though even a plain- 
 faced nurse in uniform has an advantage over a 
 [25]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 handsome unprofessional woman. Jesse Bul- 
 rush and J. G. Kerry were friends became such 
 confidential friends indeed to all appearance, 
 though their social origin was evidently so dif- 
 ferent, that Kitty Tynan, when she wished to 
 have a pleasant conversation which gave her a 
 glow for hours after, talked to the fat man of 
 his lean and aristocratic-looking friend. 
 
 "Got his head where it ought to be on his 
 shoulders; and it ain't for playing football with," 
 was the frequent remark of Mr. Bulrush con- 
 cerning Mr. Kerry; and this always made Kitty 
 Tynan want to sing, she could not have told 
 why, save that it seemed to her the equivalent 
 of a long history of the man whose past lay in 
 mists that never lifted, and whom even the in- 
 quisitive Burlingame had been unable to probe 
 when he lived in the same house. But then 
 Kitty Tynan was as fond of singing as a canary, 
 and relieved her feelings constantly by this vir- 
 tuous and becoming means, with her good con- 
 tralto voice a creature of contradictions; for if 
 ever any one should have had a soprano voice it 
 was she. She looked a soprano. 
 
 What she was thinking of as she sang with 
 Kerry's coat in her hand it would be hard to dis- 
 [*]
 
 'PIONEERS, o PIONEERS' 
 
 cover by the process of elimination, as the de- 
 tectives say when they are searching for a 
 criminal. It is, however, of no consequence; but 
 it was clear that the song she sang had moved 
 her, for there was the glint of a tear in her eye 
 as she turned towards the house, the words of 
 the lyric singing themselves over in her brain: 
 
 "Hereaway my heart was soft; when he kissed my happy 
 
 eyes, 
 Held my hand, and pressed his cheek warm against 
 
 my brow, 
 Home I saw upon the hearth, heaven stood there in the 
 
 skies 
 Whereaway, whereaway goes my lover now?" 
 
 She knew that no lover had left her; that none 
 was in the habit of laying his warm cheek against 
 her brow; and perhaps that was why she had 
 said aloud to herself, "Kitty Tynan, Kitty Ty- 
 nan, what a girl you are!" Perhaps and per- 
 haps not. 
 
 As she stepped forward towards the door she 
 heard a voice within the house and she quickened 
 her footsteps. The blood in her face, the look 
 in her eye quickened also. A figure appeared at 
 the doorway a figure in shirt-sleeves, which 
 shook a fist at the hurrying girl. 
 [27]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "Villain!" he said gaily, for he was in one 
 of his ebullient moods after a long talk with 
 Jesse Blrush. "Hither with my coat; my spot- 
 less coat in a spotted world, the unbelievable 
 anomaly 
 
 'For the earth of a dusty to-day 
 
 Is the dust of an earthy to-morrow.' " 
 
 When he talked like this she did not under- 
 stand him, but she thought it was clever beyond 
 thinking a heavenly jumble "If it wasn't for 
 me you'd be carted for rubbish," she replied joy- 
 ously as she helped him on with his coat, though 
 he had made a motion to take it from her. 
 
 "I heard you singing what was it*?" he asked 
 cheerfully on the surface, though his mind was 
 on weighty things. The song she had sung, 
 floating through the air, had seemed familiar to 
 him, while he had been greatly preoccupied 
 with a big thing a big business thing, which 
 he had been planning for a long time, with Jesse 
 Bulrush in the background or foreground, as 
 scout or rear-guard or what you will. 
 
 ' 'Whereaway, whereaway goes the lad that once was 
 
 mine, 
 
 Hereaway I waited him, hereaway and oft ' " 
 [28]
 
 'PIONEERS, 
 
 she hummed with an exaggerated gaiety in her 
 voice, for the song had made her sad, she knew 
 not why. 
 
 At the words the flaming exhilaration of his 
 look vanished, his eyes took on a strange, poign- 
 ant, distant look. 
 
 "That oh, that!" he said, and with a little 
 jerk of the head and a clenching of the hand he 
 moved towards the street. 
 
 "Your hat!" she called after him, and ran in- 
 side the house. An instant later she gave it to 
 him. Now his face was clear and his eyes 
 smiled kindly at her. 
 
 " 'Whereaway, hereaway,' is a wonderful 
 song," he said. "We used to sing it when I was 
 a boy and after, and after. It's an old song 
 as old as the hills. Well, thanks Kitty Ty- 
 nan. What a girl you are, to be so kind to a fel- 
 low like me !" he added. 
 
 "Kitty Tynan, what a girl you are" these 
 were the very words she had used about her- 
 self a little while before. The song why 
 did it make Mr. Kerry go so strange in face 
 all in a moment when he heard it 4 ? Kitty 
 watched him striding down the street into the 
 town. 
 
 [29]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 Now a voice a rich, quizzical, kindly voice 
 called out to her. 
 
 "Come, come, Miss Tynan, I want to be 
 helped on with my coat," it said. 
 
 Inside the house a fat, awkward man was 
 struggling, or pretending to struggle, into his coat. 
 
 "Roll into it, Mr. Roly-poly," she answered 
 cheerily as she entered. 
 
 "Of course I'm not the star-boarder nothing 
 for me!" he said in affected irony and protest. 
 
 "A little more to starboard and you'll get the 
 coat on," she retorted with a glint of her late 
 father's raillery, and she gave the coat a twitch 
 which put it right on the ample shoulders. 
 
 "Bully! bully!" he said;' "I'll give you the tip 
 for the Askatoon cup." 
 
 "I'm a Christian. I hate horse-racers and 
 gamblers," she returned mockingly. 
 
 "I'll turn Christian I want to be loved, not 
 hated," he chortled in the doorway. 
 
 "Roll on, proud porpoise!" she returned, 
 which shows that her conversation was not quite 
 aristocratic at all times. 
 
 "Golly, but she's a gold dollar in a gold bank!" 
 Jesse Bulrush said as he lurched into the street. 
 
 She stood still in the middle of the room look- 
 [30]
 
 'PIONEERS, o PIONEERS' 
 
 ing down the way the two men had gone. The 
 quiet of the late summer day surrounded her. 
 She heard the dizzy din of the bees, the sleepy 
 grinding of the grasshoppers, the sough of the 
 solitary pine at the door, and then behind them 
 all a whizzing, machinelike sound. This par- 
 ticular sound went on and on. 
 
 She opened the door of the next room. Her 
 mother sat at a sewing-machine intent upon her 
 work, the needle eating up a spreading piece of 
 cloth. 
 
 "What are you making, mother?" Kitty asked. 
 
 "New blinds for Mr. Kerry's bedroom he 
 likes this green colour," the widow added with 
 a slight flush due to leaning over the sewing- 
 machine, no doubt. 
 
 "Everybody does everything for him," re- 
 marked the girl almost pettishly. 
 
 "That's a nice spirit, I must say!" replied her 
 mother, looking up reprovingly, the machine al- 
 most stopping. 
 
 "If I said it in a different way it would be all 
 right," the other returned with a smile, and she 
 repeated the words with a winning soft inflection, 
 like a born actress. 
 
 "Kitty Kitty Tynan, what a girl you are!" 
 [si]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 declared her mother, and she bent smiling over 
 the machine, which presently buzzed on its de- 
 vouring way. 
 
 Three people had said the same thing within 
 a few minutes. A look of pleasure stole over 
 the girl's face, and her bosom rose and fell with 
 a happy sigh. Somehow it was quite a wonder- 
 ful day for her.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 CLOSING THE DOORS 
 
 THERE are many people who, in some sub- 
 tle psychological way, are very like their 
 names; as though some one had whispered to 
 "the parents of this child" the name designed for 
 it from the beginning of time. So it was with 
 Shiel Crozier. Does not the name suggest a man 
 lean and flat, sinewy, angular and isolated like 
 a figure in one of El Greco's pictures in the Prado 
 at Madrid 4 ? Does not the name suggest a figure 
 of elongated humanity with a touch of ancient 
 mysticism and yet also of the fantastical humour 
 of Don Quixote*? 
 
 In outward appearance Shiel Crozier, other- 
 wise J. G. Kerry, of Askatoon, was like his name 
 for the greater part of the time. Take him in 
 repose and he looked a lank ascetic who dreamed 
 of a happy land where flagellation was a joy and 
 [33]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 pain a panacea. In action, however, as when 
 Kitty Tynan helped him on with his coat, he was 
 a pure improvisation of nature. He had a face 
 with a Cromwellian mole, which broke out in emo- 
 tion like an April day, with eyes changing from 
 a blue-grey to the deepest ultramarine that ever 
 delighted the soul and made the reputation of an 
 Old Master. Even in the prairie town of Aska- 
 toon, where every man is so busy that he scarcely 
 knows his own children when he meets them, and 
 almost requires an introduction to his wife when 
 the door closes on them at bedtime, people took 
 a second look at him when he passed. Many 
 who came in much direct contact with him, as 
 Augustus Burlingame the lawyer, had done, tried 
 to draw from him all there was to tell about him- 
 self; which is a friendly custom of the far West. 
 The native-born greatly desire to tell about them- 
 selves. They wear their hearts on their sleeves, 
 and are childlike in the frank recitals of all they 
 were and are and hope to be. This covers up 
 also a good deal of business acumen, shrewdness 
 and secretiveness which is not so childlike and 
 bland. 
 
 In this they are in sharp contrast to those not 
 native-born. These come from many places on 
 
 [34]
 
 CLOSING THE DOORS 
 
 the earth, and they are seldom garrulously histor- 
 ical. Some of them go to the prairie country to 
 forget they ever lived before, and to begin the 
 world again, having been hurt in life undeserv- 
 ingly; some go to bury their mistakes or worse 
 in pioneer work and adventure; some flee from 
 a wrath that would devour them the law, soci- 
 ety, or a woman. 
 
 This much must be said at once for Crozier, 
 that he had no crime to hide. It was not be- 
 cause of crime that "He buckles up his mouth like 
 the bellyband on a bronco," as Malachi Deely, 
 the exile from Tralee, said of him; and Deely 
 was a man of "horse-sense," no doubt because he 
 was a horse-doctor "a veterenny surgeon," as his 
 friends called him when they wished to flatter 
 him. Deely added to this chaste remark about 
 the bronco, that "Same as the bronco, you buckle 
 him tightest when you know the divil is stirring 
 in his underbrush." And he added further, 
 " 'Tis a woman that's put the mumplaster on his 
 tongue, Sibley, and I bet you a hundred it's an- 
 other man's wife." 
 
 Like many a speculator, Malachi Deely would 
 have made no profit out of his bet in the end, for 
 Shiel Crozier had had no trouble with the law, 
 [35]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 or with another man's wife, nor yet with any sin- 
 gle maid not yet; though there was now Kitty 
 Tynan in his path. Yet he had had trouble. 
 There was hint of it in his occasional profound 
 abstraction; but more than all else by the fact 
 that here he was, a gentleman, having lived his 
 life for over four years past as a sort of horse- 
 expert, overseer, and stud-manager for Terry 
 Brennan, the absentee millionaire. In the opin- 
 ion of the West, "big-bugs" didn't come down 
 to this kind of occupation unless they had been 
 roughly handled by fate or fortune by the law, 
 society, or a woman. 
 
 "Talk? Watch me now he talks like a tes- 
 timonial in a frame," said Malachi Deely on the 
 day this tale opens, to John Sibley, the gambling 
 young farmer who, strange to say, did well out 
 of both gambling and farming. 
 
 "Words to him are like nuts to a monkey 
 he's an artist, that man is. Been in the circles 
 where the band plays good and soft, where the 
 music smells fairly smells like parfumery," re- 
 sponded Sibley. "I'd like to get at the bottom 
 of him. There's a real good story under his as- 
 bestos vest something that'd make a man call 
 for the oh-be-joyful, same as I do now!" 
 [36]
 
 CLOSING THE DOORS 
 
 After they had seen the world through the bot- 
 tom of a tumbler Deely continued the gossip. 
 "Watch me now been a friend of dukes in Eng- 
 land and Ireland, that Mr. James Gathorne 
 Kerry as any one can see; and there he is now 
 feelin' the hocks of a filly or openin' the jaws of 
 a stud-horse, age hunting! Why, you needn't 
 tell me I've had my mind made up ever since 
 the day he broke the temper of that Inniskillen 
 chestnut of Mr. Brennan's, and won the gold cup 
 with her afterwards. He just sort of appeared 
 out of the mist of the marnin', there being a divil's 
 lot of excursions and conferences and holy gath- 
 erings in Askatoon that time back, ostensible for 
 the business which their names denote, like the 
 Dioceesan Conference and the Pure White Water 
 Society. That was their bluff; but they'd come 
 for one good pure white dioceesan thing before 
 all, and that was to see the dandiest horse-racing 
 which ever infested the West. Come he come 
 like that !" Deely made a motion like the swoop 
 of an aeroplane to earth "and here he is buckin' 
 about like a rough-neck same as you and me ; but 
 yet a gent, a swell, a cream della cream, that's 
 turned his back on a lady a lady not his own 
 wife, that's my belief." 
 
 [S7]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "You surely have got women on the brain," 
 retorted Sibley. "I ain't ever seen such a man 
 as you. There never was a woman crossing the 
 street on a muddy day that you didn't sprint to 
 get a look at her ankles. Behind everything you 
 see a woman. Horses is your profession, but 
 woman is your practice." 
 
 "There ain't but one thing worth living for, 
 and that's a woman," remarked Deely. 
 
 "Do you tell Mrs. Deely that 1 ?" asked Sibley. 
 
 "Watch me now, she knows what woman 
 is there don't know when her husband is what 
 he is ! And it's how I know that the trouble with 
 James Gathorne Kerry is a woman. I know the 
 signs. Divils me own, he's got 'em in his face." 
 
 "He's got in his face what don't belong here 
 and what you don't know much about never 
 having kept company with that sort," retorted 
 Sibley. 
 
 "The way he lives and talks 'No, thank you, 
 I don't care for anny thing,' says he, when you're 
 standin' at the door of a friendly saloon, which 
 is established by law to bespeak peace and good- 
 will towards men, and you ask him pleasant to 
 come. He don't seem to have a single vice. 
 Haven't we tried him? There was Belle Bing- 
 [38]
 
 CLOSING THE DOORS 
 
 ley, all frizzy hair and a kicker, we put her onto 
 him. But he give her ten dollars to buy a hat 
 on condition she behaved like a lady in the future 
 smilin' at her, the divil ! And Belle, with tem- 
 per like dinnemite, took it kneelin', as it were, 
 and smiled back at him her! Drink, women 
 nothin' seems to have a hold on him. What's 
 his vice? Sure, then, that's what I say what's 
 his vice? He's got to have one anny man as 
 is a man has to have one vice." 
 
 "Bosh! Look at me," rejoined Sibley. 
 "Drink women nit! Not for me! I've got 
 no vice. I don't even smoke." 
 
 "No vice? Begobs, yours has got you like a 
 tire on a wheel ! Vice what do you call gam- 
 blin"? It's the biggest vice ever tuk grip of a 
 man. It's like a fever, and it's got you, John, 
 like the nail on your finger." 
 
 "Well, p'r'aps, he's got that vice, too p'r'aps 
 J. G. Kerry's got that vice same as me." 
 
 "Annyhow, we'll get to know all we want 
 when he goes into the witness box at the Logan 
 murder trial next week that's what I'm waitin' 
 for," Deely returned with a grin of anticipation. 
 "That opium-eating Gus Burlingame's got a 
 grudge against him somehow, and when a law- 
 
 [39]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 yer's got a grudge against you it's just as well to 
 look where y' are goin'. Burlingame don't care 
 what he does to get his way in court. What set 
 him against Kerry I ain't sure, but, bedad, I think 
 it's looks. Burlingame goes in for looking like 
 a picture in a frame gold seals hangin' beyant 
 his vest-pocket, broad silk cord to his eye-glass, 
 loose flowin' tie, and long hair makes him look 
 pretentuous and showy. But your 'Mr. Kerry, 
 sir,' he don't have anny tricks to make him look 
 like a doge from Veenis and all the eyes of the 
 females battin' where'er he goes. Jealousy, John 
 Sibley, me boy, is a cruil thing." 
 
 "Why is it you ain't jealous of him? There's 
 plenty of women that watch you go down- town 
 you got a name for it, anyway," remarked 
 Sibley maliciously. 
 
 Deely nodded sagely. "Watch me now, that's 
 right, me boy! I got a name for it, but I want 
 the game without the name, and that's why I ain't 
 puttin' on anny airs none at all. I depend on 
 me tongue, not on me looks, which goes against 
 me. I like Mr. J. G. Kerry. I've plenty deal- 
 in's with him, naturally, both of us being in the 
 horse business, and I say he's right as a gold dol- 
 lar as he goes now. Also, and behold, I'd take 
 
 [40]
 
 CLOSING THE DOORS 
 
 my oath he never done anything to blush for. 
 His trouble's been a woman wayward woman 
 what stoops to folly! I give up tryin' to pump 
 him just as soon as I made up my mind it was a 
 woman. That shuts a man's mouth like a poor- 
 box." 
 
 "Next week's fixed for the Logan killin' case, 
 is it?" 
 
 "Monday comin', for sure. I wouldn't like to 
 be in Mr. Kerry's shoes. Watch me now, if he 
 gives the evidence they say he can give the 
 prasecution say it that Macmahon Gang behind 
 Logan '11 get him sure as guns, one way or an- 
 other." 
 
 "Some one ought to give Mr. Kerry the tip to 
 get out and not give evidence," remarked Sibley 
 sagely. 
 
 Deely shook his head vigorously. "Begobs, 
 he's had the tip all right, but he's not goin'. He's 
 got as much fear as a canary has whiskers. He 
 doesn't want to give evidence, he says, but he 
 wants to see the law do its work. Burlingame '11 
 try to make it out manslaughter; but there's a 
 widow with three children to suffer for the man- 
 slaughter, just as much as though it was murder, 
 and there isn't a man that doesn't think murder 
 [41]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 was the game, and the grand joory had that idea, 
 too." 
 
 "Between Gus Burlingame and that Mac- 
 mahon bunch of horse-thieves, the stranger in a 
 strange land '11 have to keep his eyes open, I'm 
 thinkin'." 
 
 "Divils me darlin', his eyes are open all right," 
 returned Deely. 
 
 "Still I'd like to jog his elbow," Sibley an- 
 swered reflectively. "It couldn't do any harm, 
 and it might do good." 
 
 Deely nodded good-naturedly. "If you want 
 to so bad as that, John, you've got the chance, 
 for he's up at the Sovereign Bank now. I seen 
 him leave the Great Overland Railway Bureau 
 ten minutes ago and get away quick to the bank." 
 
 ^What's he got on at the bank and the rail- 
 way?" 
 
 "Oh, but it's some big deal. I've seen him 
 with Studd Bradley" 
 
 "The Great North Trust Company boss?' 
 
 "On it, my boy, on it the other day as thick 
 as thieves. Studd Bradley doesn't knit up with 
 an outsider from the old country unless there's 
 reason for it good gold-currency reasons." 
 
 "A land deal, eh?" ventured Sibley. "What 
 [42]
 
 CLOSING THE DOORS 
 
 did I say speculation, that's his vice, same as 
 mine! P'r'aps that's what ruined him. Cards, 
 speculation, what's the difference *? And he's 
 got a quiet look same as me." 
 
 Deely laughed loudly. "And bursts out same 
 as you! Quiet one hour like a mill-pond or a 
 well, and then whisk, he's blazin' ! He's a 
 volcano in harness, that spalpeen." 
 
 "He's a volcano that doesn't erupt when 
 there's danger," responded Sibley. "It's when 
 there's just fun on that his volcano gets loose. 
 I'll go wait for him at the bank. I got a fellow- 
 feeling for Mr. Kerry. I'd like to whisper in his 
 ear that he'd better be lookin' sharp for the Mac- 
 mahon Gang, and that if he's a man of peace he'd 
 best take a holiday till after next week, or get 
 smallpox or something." 
 
 The two friends lounged slowly up the street, 
 and presently parted near the door of the bank. 
 As Sibley waited, his attention was drawn to a 
 window on the opposite side of the street at an 
 angle from themselves. The light was such that 
 the room was revealed to its farthest corners, and 
 Sibley noted that three men were evidently care- 
 fully watching the bank, and that one of the men 
 was Studd Bradley, the so-called boss. The 
 
 [43]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 others were local men of some weight and position 
 commercially and financially in the town. Sibley 
 did not give any sign that he noticed the three 
 men, but he watched carefully from under the 
 rim of his hat. His observant imagination, how- 
 ever, read a story of consequence in the secretive 
 vigilance of the three, who evidently thought 
 that, standing far back in the room, they could 
 not be seen. 
 
 Presently the door of the bank opened, and 
 Sibley saw Studd Bradley lean forward eagerly, 
 then draw back and speak hurriedly to his com- 
 panions, using a gesture of satisfaction. 
 
 "Something damn funny there!" Sibley said to 
 himself, and stepped forward to Crazier with a 
 friendly exclamation. 
 
 Crozier turned rather impatiently, for his face 
 was aflame with some exciting reflection. At this 
 moment his eyes were the deepest blue that could 
 be imagined an almost impossible colour, like 
 that of the Mediterranean when it reflects the 
 perfect sapphire of the sky. There was some- 
 thing almost wonderful in their expression. A 
 woman once said as she looked at a picture of 
 Herschel, whose eyes had the unworldly gaze of 
 the great dreamer looking beyond this sphere, 
 
 [44]
 
 CLOSING THE DOORS 
 
 "The stars startled him." Such a look was in 
 Crozier's eyes now, as though he was seeing the 
 bright end of a long road, the desire of his 
 soul. 
 
 That, indeed, was what he saw. After two 
 years of secret negotiation he had (from acci- 
 dental knowledge got from Jesse Bulrush, his fel- 
 low-boarder) come to the accomplishment of a big 
 land deal in relation to the route of a new rail- 
 way and a town-site, which would mean more to 
 him than any one could know. If it went 
 through he would have for an investment of ten 
 thousand dollars a hundred and fifty thousand 
 dollars; and that would solve an everlasting 
 problem for him. 
 
 He had reached a critical point in his enter- 
 prise. All that was wanted now was ten thou- 
 sand dollars in cash to enable him to close the 
 great bargain and make his hundred and fifty 
 thousand. But to want ten thousand dollars 
 and to get it in a given space of time, when you 
 have neither securities, cash, nor real estate, is 
 enough to keep you awake at night. Crozier had 
 been so busy getting the big business of the deal 
 in shape that he had not deeply concerned him- 
 self with the absence of the necessary ten thou- 
 
 [45]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 sand dollars. He thought that he could get the 
 money at any time, so good was the proposition; 
 and it was best to leave raising the money to the 
 last moment to avoid some one else cutting in 
 and forestalling him. He must first have the 
 stake to be played for before he moved to get 
 the money with which to make the throw. This 
 is not generally thought a good way, but it was 
 his way, and it had yet to be tested. 
 
 There was no cloud of apprehension, however, 
 in Crozier's eyes as they met those of Sibley. He 
 liked Sibley. At this point it is not necessary to 
 say why. The reason will appear in due time. 
 Sibley's face had always something of that im- 
 mobility and gravity which Crozier's face had 
 part of the time paler, less intelligent, with 
 dark lines and secret shadows which Crozier's 
 face had not; but still with some of the El Greco 
 characteristics which marked so powerfully that 
 of Shiel Crozier, who passed as J. G. Kerry. 
 
 "Ah, Sibley," he said, "glad to see you ! Any- 
 thing I can do for you*?" 
 
 "It's the other way if there's any doing at all," 
 was the quick response. 
 
 "Well, let's walk along together," remarked 
 Crozier cheerfully, though a little abstractedly, 
 
 [46]
 
 CLOSING THE DOORS 
 
 for he was thinking hard about his great enter- 
 prise. 
 
 "We might be seen," said Sibley, with an 
 obvious undermeaning meant to provoke a ques- 
 tion. 
 
 Crozier caught the undertone of suggestion. 
 "Being about to burgle the ' ank, it's well not to 
 be seen together eh*?" 
 
 "No, I'm not in on that business, Mr. Kerry. 
 I'm for breaking banks, not burgling 'em,' 1 was 
 the grim, merry reply. 
 
 They laughed, but Crozier knew that the ob- 
 servant gambling farmer was not talking at hap- 
 hazard. They had met on the highway, as it 
 were, many times since Crozier had come to 
 Askatoon, and Crozier knew his man. 
 
 "Well, what are we going to do and who will 
 see us if we do it?" Crozier asked briskly. 
 
 "Studd Bradley and his secret-service corps 
 have got their eyes on this street and on you," 
 returned Sibley dryly. 
 
 Crozier's face sobered from its exhilaration 
 and his eyes became less emotional. "I don't see 
 them anywhere," he answered, but looking no- 
 where. 
 
 "They're in Gus Burlingame's office. They 
 [47]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 had you under observation while you were in 
 the bank." 
 
 "I couldn't run off with the land, could I*?" 
 Crozier remarked dryly, yet suggestively, in his 
 desire to see how much Sibley knew. 
 
 "Well, you said it was a bank. I've no more 
 idea what it is you'ie/trying to run off with than 
 I know what an ace is going to do when there's 
 a joker in the pack," remarked Sibley; "but I 
 thought I'd tell you that Bradley and his lot are 
 watchin' you gettin' ready to run." Then he 
 hastily told what he had seen. 
 
 Crozier was reassured. It was natural that 
 Bradley & Co. should take an interest in his move- 
 ments. They would make a pile of money if he 
 pulled off the deal far more than he would. It 
 wasn't strange that they should watch him going 
 into the bank. They knew he wanted money, 
 and a bank was the place to get it. That was 
 the way he viewed the matter on the instant. 
 He replied to Sibley cheerfully. 
 
 "A hundred to one is a lot when you win it," 
 he said enigmatically. 
 
 "It depends on how much you have on," was 
 Sibley's "quiet reply "a dollar or a thousand dol- 
 lars. If you've got a big thing on, and you've 
 [48]
 
 CLOSING THE DOORS 
 
 got an outsider that you think is going to win 
 and beat the favourite, it's just as well to run 
 no risks. Believe me, Mr. Kerry, if you've got 
 anything on that asks for your attention, it'd be 
 sense and saving if you didn't give evidence at 
 the Logan Trial next week. It's pretty well 
 guessed what you're going to say and what you 
 know, and you take it from me, the Macmahon 
 mob that's behind Logan '11 have it in for you. 
 They're terrors when they get goin', and if your 
 evidence puts one of that lot away, there'll be 
 trouble for you. I wouldn't do it honest, I 
 wouldn't. I've been out West here a good many 
 years, and I know the place and the people. It's 
 a good place and there's lots of first-class people 
 here, but there's a few offscourings that hang like 
 wolves on the edge of the sheep fold, ready to 
 murder and git." 
 
 "tfhaf was what you wanted to see me about, 
 wasn't it?" Crozier asked quietly. 
 
 "Yes; the other was just a shot on the chance. 
 I don't like to see men sneaking about and watch- 
 ing. If they do, you can bet there's something 
 wrong. But the other thing, the Logan Trial 
 business, is a dead certainty. You're only a 
 newcomer, in a kind of way, and you don't need 
 
 [49]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 to have the same responsibility as the rest. The 
 Law '11 get what it wants whether you chip in or 
 not. Let it alone. What's the Law ever done 
 for you that you should run risks for it*? It's 
 straight talk, Mr. Kerry. Have a cancer in the 
 bowels next week or go off to see a dying brother, 
 but don't give evidence at the Logan Trial 
 don't do it. I got a feeling I'm superstitious 
 all sportsmen are. By following my instincts 
 I've saved myself a whole lot in my time." 
 
 "Yes, all men that run chances have their su- 
 perstitions, and they're not to be sneered at," re- 
 plied Crozier thoughtfully. "If you see black, 
 don't play white; if you see a chestnut crumpled 
 up, put your money on the bay even when the 
 chestnut is a favourite. Of course you're super- 
 stitious, Sibley. The tan and the green baize 
 are covered with ghosts that want to help you, 
 if you'll let them." 
 
 Sibley's mouth opened in amazement. Crozier 
 was speaking with the look of the man who 
 hypnotizes himself, who "sees things," who 
 dreams as only the gambler and the plunger on 
 the turf do dream, not even excepting the latter- 
 day Irish poets. 
 
 "Say, I was right what I said to Deely I was 
 [50]
 
 CLOSING THE DOORS 
 
 right," remarked Sibley almost huskily, for it 
 seemed to him as though he had found a long- 
 lost brother. No man except one who had staked 
 all he had again and again could have looked or 
 spoken like that. 
 
 Crozier looked at the other thoughtfully for a 
 moment, then he said: 
 
 "I don't know what you said to Deely, but I 
 do know that I'm going to the Logan Trial in 
 spite of the Macmahon mob. I don't feel about 
 it as you do. I've got a different feeling, Sibley. 
 I'll play the game out. I shall not hedge. I 
 shall not play for safety. It's everything on the 
 favourite this time." 
 
 "You'll excuse me, but morphia-sucking Gus 
 Burlingame is for the defence, and he's got his 
 knife into you," returned Sibley. 
 
 "Not yet." Crozier smiled almost sardonic- 
 ally. 
 
 "Well, I apologise, but what I've said, Mr. 
 Kerry, is said as man to man. You're ridin* 
 game in a tough place, as any man has to do who 
 starts with only his pants and his head on. 
 That's the way you begun here, I guess; and I 
 don't want to see your horse tumble because some 
 ne throws a fence-rail at its legs. Your class 
 [51]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 has enemies always in a new country jealousy, 
 envy." 
 
 The lean, aristocratic, angular Crozier, with a 
 musing look on his long face, grown ascetic again, 
 as he held out his hand and gripped that of the 
 other, said warmly: "I'm just as much obliged 
 to you as though I took your advice, Sibley. I 
 am not taking it, but I am taking a pledge to 
 return the compliment to you if ever I get the 
 chance." 
 
 "Well, most men get chances of that kind," 
 was the gratified reply of the gambling farmer, 
 and then Crozier turned quickly and entered the 
 doorway of the British Bank, the rival of that 
 from which he had turned in disappointment a 
 little while before. 
 
 Left alone in the street, Sibley looked back 
 with the instinct of the hunter. As he expected, 
 he saw a head thrust out from the window where 
 Studd Bradley and his friends had been. There 
 was a hotel opposite the British Bank. He en- 
 tered and waited. Bradley and one of his com- 
 panions presently came in and seated themselves 
 far back in the shadow, where they could watch 
 the doorway of the bank. 
 
 It was quite a half-hour before Shiel Crozier 
 
 [52]
 
 CLOSING THE DOORS 
 
 emerged from the bank. His face was set and 
 pale. For an instant he stood as though won- 
 dering which way to go, then he moved up the 
 street the way he had come. 
 
 Sibley heard a low, poisonous laugh of tri- 
 umph rankle through the hotel office. He turned 
 round. Bradley, the overfed, overconfident, 
 overestimated financier, laid his hand on the 
 shoulder of his companion as they moved towards 
 the door. 
 
 "That's another gate shut," he said. "I guess 
 we can close 'em all with a little care. It's 
 working all right. He's got no chance of rais- 
 ing the cash," he added, as the two passed the 
 chair where Sibley sat with his hat over his eyes, 
 chewing an unlighted cigar. 
 
 "I don't know what it is, but it's dirt and 
 muck at that," John Sibley remarked as he rose 
 from his chair and followed the two into the 
 street. 
 
 Bradley and his friends were trying steadily to 
 close up the avenues of credit to the man to whom 
 the success of his enterprise meant so much. To 
 crowd him out would mean an extra hundred and 
 fifty thousand dollars for themselves. 
 
 [53]
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE LOGAN TRIAL AND 
 WHAT CAME OF IT 
 
 WHAT the case was in which Shiel Crozier 
 was to give evidence is not important; 
 what came from the giving of his testimony is 
 all that matters; and this story would never have 
 been written if he had not entered the witness- 
 box. 
 
 A court-room at any time seems a little warmer 
 than any other spot to all except the prisoner ; but 
 on a July day it is likely to be a punishment for 
 both innocent and guilty. A man had been 
 killed by one of the group of toughs called 
 locally the Macmahon Gang, and against the 
 charge of murder that of manslaughter had been 
 set up in defence; and manslaughter might mean 
 jail for a year or two or no jail at all. Any evi- 
 dence which justified the charge of murder would 
 mean not jail, but the rope in due course; for 
 
 [54]
 
 THE LOGAN TRIAL 
 
 this was not Montana or Idaho where the law's 
 delays outlasted even the memory of the crime 
 committed. 
 
 The court-room of Askatoon was crowded to 
 suffocation, for the Macmahons were detested, 
 and the murdered man had a good reputation in 
 the district. Besides, a widow and three chil- 
 dren mourned their loss, and the widow was in 
 court. Also Crozier's evidence was expected to 
 be sensational, and to prove the swivel on which 
 the fate of the accused man would hang. Among 
 those on the inside it was also known that the 
 clever but dissipated Augustus Burlingame, the 
 counsel for the prisoner, had a grudge against 
 Crozier no one quite knew why except Kitty 
 Tynan and her mother and that cross-examina- 
 tion would be pressed mercilessly when Crozier 
 entered the witness-box. As Burlingame came 
 into the court-room he said to the Young Doctor, 
 he was always spoken of as the Young Doctor 
 in Askatoon, though he had been there a good 
 many years and he was no longer as young as he 
 looked who was also called as a witness, "We'll 
 know more about Mr. J. G. Kerry when this 
 trial is over than will suit his book." It did not 
 occur to Augustus Burlingame that Crozier might 
 
 [55]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 find a way of throwing doubt on the fitness of the 
 lawyer to represent innocence or the law, in view 
 of the reason why he had fled the house of the 
 showy but virtuous Mrs. Tynan. 
 
 Crozier entered the witness-box at a stage when 
 excitement was at fever height; for the Mac- 
 mahon Gang had given evidence which every one 
 believed to be perjured; and the widow of the 
 slain man was weeping bitterly in her seat because 
 of noxious falsehoods sworn against her honest 
 husband. 
 
 There was certainly something very credible 
 and prepossessing in the appearance of Crozier. 
 He might be this or that, but he carried no evil 
 or vice of character in his face. He was in his 
 grave mood this summer afternoon. There he 
 stood with his long face and the very heavy eye- 
 brows, clean-shaven, hard-bitten, as though by 
 wind and weather, composed and forceful, the 
 mole on his chin a kind of challenge to the verti- 
 cal dimple in his cheek, his high forehead more 
 benevolent than intellectual, his brown hair 
 faintly sprinkled with gray and a bit unmanage- 
 able, his fathomless eyes shining. 
 
 "No man ought to have such eyes," remarked 
 a woman present to the Young Doctor, who ab- 
 [56]
 
 THE LOGAN TRIAL 
 
 stractedly nodded assent, for like Malachi Deely 
 and John Sibley, he himself had a theory about 
 Crozier; and he had a fear of what the savage 
 enmity of the morally and physically diseased 
 Burlingame might do. He had made up his 
 mind that so intense a scrupulousness as Crozier 
 had shown since coming to Askatoon had behind 
 it not only character, but the rigidity of a set 
 purpose; and that view was supported by the 
 stern economy of Crozier's daily life, broken only 
 by sudden bursts of generosity for those in need. 
 
 In the box Crozier kept his eye on the crown 
 attorney, who prosecuted, and on the judge. He 
 appeared not to see any one in the court-room, 
 though Kitty Tynan had so placed herself that 
 he must see her if he looked at the audience at 
 all. Kitty thought him magnificent as he told 
 his story with a simply parsimony, but a thrilling 
 choice of words which made every syllable poign- 
 ant with effect. She liked him in his grave 
 mood even better than when he was afflame with 
 an internal fire of his own creation, when he was 
 almost wildly vivid with life. 
 
 "He's two men," she had often said to herself; 
 and she said it now as she looked at him in the 
 witness-box, measuring out his words and meas- 
 [57]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 uring off at the same time the span of a mur- 
 derer's life; for when the crown attorney said to 
 the judge that he had concluded his examination 
 there was no one in the room not even the 
 graceless Burlingame, who did not think the 
 prisoner guilty. 
 
 "That is all," the crown attorney said to 
 Crozier as he sank into his chair, greatly pleased 
 with one of the best witnesses who had ever been 
 through his hands lucid, concentrated, exact, 
 knowing just where he was going and reaching his 
 goal without meandering. Crozier was about to 
 step down when Burlingame rose. 
 
 "I wish to ask a few questions," he said. 
 
 Crozier bowed and turned, again grasping the 
 rail of the witness-box with one hand, while with 
 an air of both cogitation and suspense he stroked 
 his chin with the long fingers of the other hand. 
 
 "What is your name*?" asked Burlingame in a 
 tone a little louder than he had used hitherto in 
 the trial, indeed even louder than lawyers gen- 
 erally use when they want to bully a witness. 
 In this case it was as though he wished to sum- 
 mon and startle the attention of the court. 
 
 For a second Crozier's fingers caught his chin 
 almost spasmodically. The real meaning of the 
 [58]
 
 THE LOGAN TRIAL 
 
 question, what lay behind it, flashed to his mind. 
 He saw in lightning illumination the course 
 Burlingame meant to pursue. For a moment his 
 heart seemed to stand still, and he turned slightly 
 pale, but the blue of his eyes took on a new steely 
 look a look also of striking watchfulness, as of 
 an animal conscious of its danger, yet conscious, 
 too, of its power when at bay. 
 
 "What is your name*?" Burlingame asked 
 again in a somewhat louder tone, and turned to 
 look at the jury, as if bidding them note the hesi- 
 tation of the witness; though, indeed, the wait- 
 ing was so slight that none but a trickster like 
 Burlingame would have taken advantage of it, 
 and only then when there was much behind. 
 
 For a moment longer Crozier remained silent, 
 getting strength, as it were, and saying to him- 
 self, "What does he know*?" and then, with a 
 composed look of inquiry at the judge, who ap- 
 peared to take no notice, he said: "I have al- 
 ready, in evidence, given my name to the court." 
 
 "Witness, what is your name*?" again almost 
 shouted the lawyer with a note of indignation in 
 his voice, as though here was a dangerous fellow 
 committing a misdemeanour in their very presence. 
 He spread out his hands to the jury, as though 
 
 [59]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 bidding them observe, if they would, this witness 
 hesitating in answer to a simple, primary ques- 
 tion a witness who had just sworn a man's life 
 away! 
 
 "What is your name*?" 
 
 "James Gathorne Kerry, as I have already 
 given it to the court." 
 
 "Where do you live?" 
 
 "In Askatoon, as I have already said in evi- 
 dence; and if it is necessary to give my domicile, 
 I live at the house of Mrs. Tyndall Tynan, Pearl 
 Street as you know." 
 
 The tone in which he uttered the last few 
 words was such that even the judge pricked up 
 his ears. 
 
 A look of hatred came into the decadent but 
 able lawyer's face. 
 
 "Where do you live when you are at home*?" 
 
 "The house of Mrs. Tynan is the only home I 
 have at present." 
 
 He was outwitting the pursuer so far, but it 
 only gained him time, as he knew; and he knew 
 also that no suggestive hint concerning the episode 
 at Mrs. Tynan's, when Burlingame was asked to 
 leave her house, would be of any avail now. 
 
 "Where were you born?" 
 [60]
 
 THE LOGAN TRIAL 
 
 "In Ireland." 
 
 "What part of Ireland?" 
 
 "County Kerry." 
 
 "What place what town or city or village in 
 County Kerry?" 
 
 "In neither." 
 
 "What house, then what estate?" Burlin- 
 game was more than nettled; and he sharpened 
 his sword. 
 
 "The estate of Castlegarry." 
 
 "What was your name in Ireland?" 
 
 In the short silence that followed the quick 
 drawn breath of many excited and some agitated 
 people could be heard. Among the latter were 
 Mrs. Tynan and her daughter and Malachi 
 Deely; among those who held their breath in 
 suspense were John Sibley, Studd Bradley, the 
 financier, and the Young Doctor. The swish of 
 a skirt seemed ridiculously loud in the hush, and 
 the scratching of the judge's quill pen was noisily 
 irritating. 
 
 "My name in Ireland was James Shiel Ga- 
 thorne Crozier, commonly called Shiel Crozier," 
 came the calm reply from the witness-box. 
 
 "James Shiel Gathorne Crozier in Ireland, but 
 James Gathorne Kerry here !" Burlingame turned 
 [61]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 to the jury significantly. "What other name 
 have you been known by in or out of Ireland?" 
 he added sharply to Crozier. 
 
 "No other name so far as I know." 
 
 "No other name so far as you know," repeated 
 the lawyer in a sarcastic tone intended tr impress 
 the court. 
 
 "Who was your father 4 ?" 
 
 "John Gathorne Crozier." 
 
 "Any title?" 
 
 "He was a baronet." 
 
 "What was his business?" 
 
 "He had no profession, though he had business, 
 of course." 
 
 "Ah, he lived by his wits?" 
 
 "No, he was not a lawyer! I have said he had 
 no profession. He lived on his money on his 
 estate." 
 
 The judge waved down the laughter at Burlin- 
 game's expense. 
 
 "In official documents what was his descrip- 
 tion?" snarled Burlingame. 
 
 " 'Gentleman' was his designation in official 
 documents." 
 
 "You, then, were the son of a gentleman?" 
 There was a hateful suggestion in the tone. 
 
 t_7*-J 
 
 [62]
 
 THE LOGAN TRIAL 
 
 "I was." 
 
 "A legitimate son*?" 
 
 Nothing in Crozier's face showed what he felt, 
 except his eyes, and they had a look in them 
 which might well have made his questioner shrink. 
 He turned calmly to the judge. 
 
 "Your honor, does this bear upon the case? 
 Must I answer this legal libertine 1 ?" 
 
 At the word libertine, the judge, the whole 
 court, and the audience started; but it was pres- 
 ently clear the witness meant that the questioner 
 was abusing his legal privileges, though the peo- 
 ple present interpreted it another way, and quite 
 rightly. 
 
 The reply of the judge was in favour of the 
 lawyer. 
 
 "I do not quite see the full significance of the 
 line of defence, but I think I must allow the ques- 
 tion," was the judge's gentle and reluctant reply, 
 for he was greatly impressed by this witness, by 
 his transparent honesty and straightforward- 
 ness. 
 
 "Were you a legitimate son of John Gathorne 
 Crozier and his wife?" asked Burlingame. 
 
 "Yes, a legitimate son," answered Crozier in an 
 even voice. 
 
 [63]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "Is John Gathorne Crozier still living"?" 
 
 "I said that gentleman was his designation in 
 official documents. I supposed that would con- 
 vey the fact that he was not living, but I see you 
 do not quickly grasp a point." 
 
 Burlingame was stung by the laughter in the 
 court and ventured a riposte. 
 
 "But is once a gentleman always a gentleman 
 an infallible rule?" 
 
 "I suppose not; I did not mean to convey that; 
 but once a rogue always a bad lawyer holds good 
 in every country," was Crozier's comment in a 
 low, quiet voice which stirred, startled, and 
 amused the audience again. 
 
 "I must ask counsel to put questions which 
 have some relevance even to his own line of de- 
 fence," remarked the judge sternly. "This is not 
 a corner grocery." 
 
 Burlingame bowed. He had had a facer, but 
 he had also shown the witness to have been living 
 under an assumed name. That was a good start. 
 He hoped to add to the discredit. He had ab- 
 solutely no knowledge of Crozier's origin and 
 past; but he was in a position to find it out if 
 Crozier told the truth on oath, and he was sure 
 he would. 
 
 [64]
 
 THE LOGAN TRIAL 
 
 "Where was your domicile in the old coun- 
 try 1 ?" Burlingame asked. 
 
 "In County Kerry with a flat in London." 
 
 "An estate in County Kerry 1 ?" 
 
 "A house and two thousand acres." 
 
 "Is it your property still*?" 
 
 "It is not." 
 
 "You sold it?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "If you did not sell, how is it that you do not 
 own it?" 
 
 "It was sold for me in spite of me." 
 
 The judge smiled, the people smiled, the jury 
 smiled. Truly, though a life-history was being 
 exposed with incredible slowness "like pulling 
 teeth," as the Young Doctor said it was being 
 touched off with laughter. 
 
 "You were in debt?" 
 
 "Quite." 
 
 "How did you get into debt?" 
 
 "By spending more than my income." 
 
 If Askatoon had been proud of its legal talent 
 in the past it had now reason for revising its 
 opinion. Burlingame was frittering away the 
 effect of his inquiry by elaboration of details. 
 What he gained by the main startling fact he 
 
 [65]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 lost in the details by which the witness scored. 
 He asked another main question. 
 
 "Why did you leave Ireland*?" 
 
 "To make money." 
 
 "You couldn't do it there?" 
 
 "They were too many for me over there, so I 
 thought I'd come here," slyly answered Crozier, 
 and with a grave face; at which the solemn scene 
 of a prisoner being tried for his life was shaken 
 by a broad smiling, which in some cases became 
 laughter haughtily suppressed by the court at- 
 tendant. 
 
 "Have you made money here?" 
 
 "A little with expectations." 
 
 "What was your income in Ireland?" 
 
 "It began with three thousand pounds " 
 
 "Fifteen thousand dollars about?" 
 
 "About that about a lawyer's fee for one 
 whisper to a client less than that. It began with 
 that and ended with nothing." 
 
 "Then you escaped?" 
 
 "From creditors, lawyers, and other such? 
 No, I found you here." 
 
 The judge intervened again almost harshly on 
 the laughter of the court, with the remark that a 
 man was being tried for his life; that ribaldry 
 
 [66]
 
 THE LOGAN TRIAL 
 
 was out of place, and that, unless the course pur- 
 sued by the counsel was to discredit the reliability 
 of the character of the witness, the examination 
 was in excess of the privilege of counsel. 
 
 "Your honour has rightly apprehended what 
 my purpose is," Burlingame said deprecatingly. 
 He then turned to Crozier again, and his voice 
 rose as it did when he began the examination. 
 It was as though he was starting all over again. 
 
 "What was it compelled (he was boldly ven- 
 turing) you to leave Ireland at last? What was 
 the incident which drove you out from the land 
 where you were born; from being the owner of 
 two thousand acres " 
 
 "Partly bog," interposed Crozier. 
 
 " From being the owner of two thousand 
 acres to becoming a kind of head-groom on a 
 ranch. What was the cause of your flight?" 
 
 "Flight ! I came in one of the steamers of the 
 Company for which your firm are the agents 
 eleven days it took to come from Glasgow to 
 Quebec." 
 
 Again the court rippled, again the attendant 
 intervened threateningly. 
 
 Burlingame was nonplused this time, but he 
 gathered himself together. 
 [67]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "What was the process of law which forced 
 you to leave your own land"?" 
 
 "None at all." 
 
 "What were your debts when you left'?" 
 
 "None at all." 
 
 "How much was the last debt you paid 1 ?" 
 
 "Two thousand five hundred pounds." 
 
 "What was its nature?" 
 
 "It was a debt of honour do you under- 
 stand?' 
 
 The subtle challenge of the voice, the sarcasm 
 was not lost. Again there was a struggle on the 
 part of the audience not to laugh outright, and 
 so be driven from the court as had been threat- 
 ened. 
 
 The judge interposed again with the remark, 
 not very severe in tone, that the witness was not 
 in the box to ask questions, but to answer them. 
 At the same time he must remind counsel that 
 the examination must discontinue unless some- 
 thing more relevant immediately appeared in the 
 evidence. 
 
 There was silence again for a moment, and 
 even Crozier himself seemed to steel himself for 
 a question he felt was coming. 
 
 "Are you married or single 4 ?" asked Burlin- 
 
 [68]
 
 THE LOGAN TRIAL 
 
 game, and he did not need to raise his voiv:e to 
 summon the interest of the court, 
 
 "I was married." 
 
 One person in the audience nearly cried out. 
 It was Kitty Tynan. She had never allowed her- 
 self to think of that, but even if she had, what 
 difference could it make whether he was married 
 or single, since he was out of her star*? 
 
 "Are you not married now 1 ?" 
 
 "I do not know." 
 
 "You mean you do not know if you have been 
 divorced?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You mean your wife is dead*?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "What do you mean 1 ? That you do not know 
 whether your wife is living or dead*?" 
 
 "Quite so." 
 
 "Have you heard from her since you saw her 
 last?" 
 
 "I had one letter." 
 
 Kitty Tynan thought of the unopened letter in 
 a woman's handwriting in the green-baize desk 
 in her mother's house. 
 
 "No more?" 
 
 "No more." 
 
 [69]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "Are we to understand that you do not know 
 whether your wife is living or dead*?" 
 
 "I have no information that she is dead." 
 
 "Why did you leave her'?" 
 
 "I have not said that I left her. Primarily I 
 left Ireland." 
 
 "Assuming that she is alive, your wife will not 
 live with you?" 
 
 "Ah, what information have you to that 
 effect?" 
 
 The judge informed Crozier that he must not 
 ask questions of counsel. 
 
 "Why is she not with you here?" 
 
 "As you said, I am only picking up a living 
 here, and even the passage by your own second- 
 class steamship line is expensive." 
 
 The judge suppressed a smile. He greatly 
 liked the witness. 
 
 "Do you deny that you parted from your wife 
 in anger?" 
 
 "When I am asked that question I will try to 
 answer it. Meanwhile I do not deny what has 
 not been put before me in the usual way." 
 
 Here the judge sternly rebuked the counsel, 
 who ventured upon one last question. 
 
 "Have you any children?" 
 [70]
 
 THE LOGAN TRIAL 
 
 "None." 
 
 "Has your brother, who inherited, any chil- 
 dren"?" 
 
 "None that I know of." 
 
 "Are you the heir-presumptive to the bar- 
 onetcy?" 
 
 "I am." 
 
 "Yet your wife will not live with you 1 ?" 
 
 "Call Mrs. Crozier as a witness and see. 
 Meanwhile I am not upon my trial." 
 
 He turned to the judge, who promptly called 
 upon Burlingame to conclude his examination. 
 
 Burlingame asked two questions more. "Why 
 did you change your name when you came here*?" 
 
 "I wanted to obliterate myself." 
 
 "I put it to you, that what you want is to avoid 
 the outraged law of your own country." 
 
 "No I want to avoid the outrageous lawyers 
 of yours." 
 
 Again there was a pause in the proceedings, and 
 on a protest from the crown attorney the judge 
 put an end to the cross-examination with the 
 solemn reminder to a hushed assembly that a man 
 was being tried for his life, and that the present 
 proceedings were a lamentable reflection on the 
 levity of human nature at least of human na- 
 [71]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 ture in Askatoon. Turning with friendly 
 scrutiny to Crozier, he said: 
 
 "In the early stage of his examination the wit- 
 ness informed the court that he had made a heavy 
 loss through a debt of honour immediately before 
 leaving England. Will he say in what way he 
 incurred the obligation 1 ? Are we to assume that 
 it was through gambling card-playing, or other 
 games of chance*?" 
 
 "Through backing the wrong horse," was 
 Crozier's instant reply. 
 
 "That phrase is often applied to mining or 
 other unreal flights for fortune," said the judge 
 with a dry smile. 
 
 "This was a real horse on a real flight to the 
 winning-post," added Crozier with a quirk at the 
 corner of his mouth. 
 
 "Honest contest with man or horse is no crime, 
 but it is tragedy to stake all on the contest and 
 lose," was the judge's grave and pedagogic com- 
 ment. "We shall now hear from the counsel for 
 defence his reason for conducting his cross-ex- 
 amination on such unusual lines. Latitude of 
 this kind is only permissible if it opens up any 
 weakness in the case against the prisoner." 
 
 The judge thus did Burlingame a good turn 
 [72]
 
 THE LOGAN TRIAL 
 
 as well as Crozier, by creating an atmosphere 
 of gravity, even of tragedy, in which Burlingame 
 could make his speech in defence of the prisoner. 
 Burlingame started hesitatingly, got into his 
 stride, assembled the points of his defence with 
 the skill of which he really was capable, when he 
 was not under the influence of morphia, in which 
 he occasionally indulged as a kind of antidote 
 to less occasional bouts of drink. He made a 
 strong appeal for acquittal, but if not complete 
 acquittal, then manslaughter. He showed that 
 the only real evidence which could convict his 
 man of murder was that of the witness Crozier. 
 If he had been content to discredit evidence of the 
 witness by an adroit but guarded misuse of the 
 facts he had brought out regarding Crozier's past ; 
 to emphasize the fact that he was living under an 
 assumed name and that his bona fides was doubt- 
 ful, he might have impressed the jury to some 
 slight degree. He could not, however, control 
 the malice he felt, and he was smarting from 
 Crozier's retorts. He had a vanity easily 
 lacerated, and he was now too savage to abate the 
 ferocity of his forensic attack. He sat down, 
 however, with a sure sense of failure. Every 
 orator knows when he is beating the air, even 
 [73]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 when his audience is quiet and apparently at- 
 tentive. 
 
 The crown attorney was a man of the serenest 
 method and of cold, unforensic logic. He had 
 a deadly precision of speech, a very remarkable 
 memory, and a great power of organising and as- 
 sembling his facts. There was little left of Bur- 
 lingame's appeal when he sat down. He de- 
 clared that to discredit Crozier's evidence because 
 he chose to use another name than his own, be- 
 cause he was parted from his wife, because he 
 left England practically penniless to earn an 
 honest living no one had shown it was not was 
 the last resort of legal desperation. It was an 
 indefensible thing to endeavour to create prej- 
 udice against a man because of his own evidence 
 given with great frankness. Not one single word 
 of evidence had the defence brought to discredit 
 Crozier, save by Crozier's own word of mouth, 
 and if Crozier had cared to commit perjury the 
 defence could not have proved him guilty of it. 
 Even if Crozier had not told the truth as it was, 
 counsel for the defence were incapable of con- 
 victing him of falsehood. But even if Crozier 
 was a perjurer, justice demanded that his evi- 
 dence should be weighed as truth from its own 
 [74]
 
 THE LOGAN TRIAL 
 
 inherent probability and supported by surround- 
 ing facts. In a long experience he had never 
 seen animus against a witness so recklessly ex- 
 hibited as by counsel in this case. 
 
 The judge was not quite so severe in his sum- 
 ming up, but he did say of Crozier that his direct 
 replies to Burlingame's questions, intended to 
 prejudice him in the eyes of the community into 
 which he had come a stranger, bore undoubted 
 evidence of truth; for if he had chosen to say 
 what might have saved him from the suspicions,, 
 ill or well founded of his present fellow citizens, 
 he might have done so with impunity, save for 
 the reproach of his own conscience. On the 
 whole the judge summed up powerfully against 
 the prisoner Logan, with the result that the jury 
 were not out for more than a half-hour. Their 
 verdict was guilty of murder. 
 
 In the scene which followed, Crozier dropped 
 his head into his hand and sat immovable and 
 overcome as the judge put on the black cap and 
 delivered sentence. When the prisoner left the 
 dock, and the crowd began to disperse, satisfied 
 that justice had been done save in that small 
 circle where the Macmahons were supreme Cro- 
 zier rose with other witnesses to leave. As he 
 [75]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 looked ahead of him the first face he saw was that 
 of Kitty Tynan, and something in it startled 
 him. Where had he seen that look before? 
 Yes, he remembered. It was when he was 
 twenty-one and had been sent away to Algiers 
 because he was falling in love with a farmer's 
 daughter. As he drove down a lane with his 
 father towards the railway station, those long 
 years ago, he had seen the girl's face looking at 
 him from the window of a labourer's cottage at 
 the crossroads; and its stupified pain and disap- 
 pointment haunted him for many years, even 
 after the girl had married and gone to live in 
 Scotland that place of torment for an Irish per- 
 son. 
 
 The look in Kitty Tynan's face reminded him 
 of that farmer's lass in his boyhood's history. 
 He was to blame then was he to blame now 4 ? 
 Certainly not consciously, certainly not by any in- 
 tended word or act. Now he met her eyes and 
 smiled at her, not gaily, not gravely, but with a 
 kind of whimsical helplessness; for she was the 
 first to remind him that he was leaving; the court- 
 
 O 
 
 room in a different position (if not a different 
 man) from that in which he entered it. He had 
 -.entered the court-room as James Gathorne 
 
 [76]
 
 THE LOGAN TRIAL 
 
 Kerry, and he was leaving it as Shiel Crozier; 
 and somehow James Gathorne Kerry had always 
 been to himself a different man from Shiel Cro- 
 zier, with different views, different feelings, if 
 not different characteristics. 
 
 He saw faces turned to him, a few with intense 
 curiosity, fewer still with a little furtiveness, 
 some with amusement, and many with unmistak- 
 able approval; for one thing was clear, if his 
 own evidence was correct: he was the son of a 
 baronet, he was heir-presumptive to a baronetcy, 
 and he had scored off Augustus Burlingame in a 
 way which delighted a naturally humorous peo- 
 ple. He noted, however, that the nod which 
 Studd Bradley, the financier, gave him had in it 
 an enigmatic something which puzzled him. 
 Surely Bradley could not be prejudiced against 
 him because of the evidence he had given. 
 There was nothing criminal in living under an as- 
 sumed name, which, anyhow, was his own name 
 in three-fourths of it, and in the other part was 
 the name of the county where he was born. 
 
 "Divils me own, I told you he was up among 
 
 the dukes," said Malachi Deely to John Sibley as 
 
 they came out. "And he's from me own county, 
 
 and I know the name well enough; an' a damn 
 
 [77]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 good name it is. The bulls of Castlegarry was 
 famous in the south of Ireland." 
 
 "I've a warm spot for him. I was right, you 
 see. Backing horses ruined him," said Sibley in 
 reply; and he looked at Crozier admiringly. 
 
 There is the communion of saints, but nearer 
 and dearer is the communion of sinners; for a 
 common danger is their bond, and that is even 
 more than a common hope. 
 
 [78]
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 STRENGTH SHALL BE 
 GIVEN THEE" 
 
 ON the evening of the day of the trial, Mrs. 
 Tynan, having fixed the new blind to the 
 window of Shiel Crozier's room, which was on 
 the ground-floor front, was lowering and raising 
 it to see if it worked properly, when out in the 
 moonlit street she saw a wagon approaching her 
 house surrounded and followed by obviously ex- 
 cited men. Once before she had seen just such 
 a group nearing her door. That was when her 
 husband was brought home to die in her arms. 
 She had a sudden conviction, as, holding the 
 blind in her hand, she looked out into the night, 
 that again tragedy was to cross her threshold. 
 Standing for an instant under the fascination of 
 terror, she recovered herself with a shiver, and, 
 stepping down from the chair where she had been 
 
 [79]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 fixing the blind, with the instinct of real woman, 
 she ran to the bed of the room where she was, 
 and made it ready. Why did she feel that it 
 was Shiel Crozier's bed which should be made 
 ready? Or did she not feel it? Was it only a 
 dazed, automatic act, not connected with the per- 
 son who was to lie in the bed? Was she then a 
 fatalist? Were trouble and sorrow so much her 
 portion that to her mind this tragedy, whatever it 
 was, must touch the man nearest to her and cer- 
 tainly Shiel Crozier was far nearer than Jesse 
 Bulrush. Quite apart from wealth or position, 
 personality plays a part more powerful than all 
 else in the eyes of every woman who has a soul 
 which has substance enough to exist at all. Such 
 men as Crozier have compensations for "whate'er 
 they lack." It never occurred to Mrs. Tynan to 
 go to Jesse Bulrush's room or the room of middle- 
 aged, comely Nurse Egan. She did the instinc- 
 tive thing, as did the woman who sent a man a 
 rope as a gift, on the ground that the fortune in 
 his hand said that he was born not to be drowned. 
 Mrs. Tynan's instinct was right. By the 
 time she had flashed the bed into shape, got a 
 bowl of water ready, lighted a lamp, and drawn 
 the bed out from the wall, there was a knocking 
 [80]
 
 STRENGTH SHALL BE GIVEN 
 
 at the door. In a moment she had opened it, 
 and was faced by John Sibley, whose hat was off 
 as though he were in the presence of death. This 
 gave her a shock, and her eyes strove painfully to 
 see the figure which was being borne feet fore- 
 most over her threshold. 
 
 "It's Mr. Crazier?" she asked. 
 
 "He was shot coming home here by the Mac- 
 mahon mob, I guess," returned Sibley huskily. 
 
 "Is is he dead 1 ?" she asked tremblingly. 
 
 "No. Hurt bad." 
 
 "The kindest man it'd break Kitty's heart 
 and mine," she added hastily, for she might be 
 misunderstood; and John Sibley had shown un- 
 mistakable signs of interest in her daughter. 
 
 "Where's the Young Doctor'?" she asked, 
 catching sight of Crozier's face as they laid him 
 on the bed. 
 
 "He's done the first aid, and he's off getting 
 what's needed for the operation. He'll be here 
 in a minute or so," said a banker who, a few 
 days before, had refused Crozier credit. 
 
 "Gently, gently don't do it that way," said 
 Mrs. Tynan in sharp reproof as they began to 
 take off Crozier's clothes. 
 
 "Are you going to stay while we do it 4 ?" asked 
 [81]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 a maker of mineral waters, who whined at the 
 prayer meetings of a soul saved and roared at his 
 employees like a soul damned. 
 
 "Oh, don't be a fool !" was the impatient reply. 
 "I've a grown-up girl and I've had a husband. 
 Don't pull at his vest like that. Go away. You 
 don't know how. I've had experience my hus- 
 band . . . There, wait till I cut it away with 
 the scissors. Cover him with the quilt. Now, 
 then, catch hold of his trousers under the quilt, 
 and draw them off slowly. There, lift him 
 now slowly off. There you are and nothing to 
 shock the modesty of a grown-up woman or any 
 other when a life's at stake. What does the 
 Young Doctor say 1 ?" 
 
 "Hush! He's coming to," interposed the 
 banker. 
 
 It was as though the quiet that followed the 
 removal of his clothes and the touch of Mrs. 
 Tynan's hand on his head had called Crozier back 
 from unconsciousness. 
 
 The first face he saw was that of the banker. 
 In spite of the loss of blood and his pitiable con- 
 dition, a whimsical expression came to his eyes. 
 "Lucky for you you didn't lend me the money," 
 [82]
 
 STRENGTH SHALL BE GIVEN 
 
 he said with a voice which had but a shadow of 
 its old fulness. 
 
 The banker shook his head. "I'm not think- 
 ing of that, Mr. Crozier," he said. "God knows, 
 I'm not!" 
 
 Crozier caught sight of Mrs. Tynan. "It's 
 hard on you to have me brought here," he mur- 
 mured as she took his hand. 
 
 "Not so hard as if they hadn't," she replied. 
 "That's what a home's for not just a place for 
 eating and drinking and sleeping." 
 
 "It wasn't part of the bargain," he said 
 weakly. 
 
 "It was my part of the bargain," she responded. 
 
 "Here's Kitty," said the maker of mineral 
 waters, as there was the swish of a skirt at the 
 door. 
 
 "Who are you calling 'Kitty' 1 ?" asked the girl 
 herself indignantly, as they motioned her back 
 from the bedside. "There's too many people 
 here," she added abruptly to her mother. "We 
 can take care of him" she jerked her head to- 
 wards the bed. "We don't want any help ex- 
 cept except from John Sibley here, if he will 
 stay, and you, too," she added to the banker. 
 [83]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 She had not yet looked at the figure on the 
 bed. She felt she could not do so while all these 
 people were in the room. She needed time to 
 adjust herself to the situation. It was as though 
 she was the authority in the household and took 
 control even of her mother. Mrs. Tynan under- 
 stood. She had a great belief in her daughter 
 and admired her cleverness, and she was always 
 ready to be ruled by her; it was like being 
 "bossed" by the man she had lost. Besides, she 
 had a true instinct concerning Kitty's feelings at 
 this moment, and she wished to humour her. 
 
 "Yes, you'd all better go," Mrs. Tynan said. 
 "He wants all the air he can get, and I can't 
 make things ready with you all in the room. Go 
 outdoors for a while, anyway. It's summer and 
 you'll not take cold! The Young Doctor has 
 work to do, and my girl and I and these two will 
 help him plenty" she motioned to the banker 
 and the gambling farmer. 
 
 In a moment the room was cleared of all save 
 the four and Crozier, who knew that upon the 
 coming operation depended his life. He had 
 been conscious when the Young Doctor said this 
 was so, and he was thinking, as he lay there watch- 
 ing these two women out of his nearly closed 
 [84]
 
 STRENGTH SHALL BE GIVEN 
 
 eyes, that he would like to be back in County 
 Kerry at Castlegarry with the girl he had mar- 
 ried and had left without a good-bye near five 
 years gone. If he had to die he would like to 
 die at home ; and that could not be. 
 
 Kitty had the courage to turn towards him 
 now. As she caught sight of his face for the first 
 time she had so far kept her head turned 
 away she became very pale. Then, suddenly, 
 she gathered herself together with a courage 
 worthy of the most primitive savage or the high- 
 est aristocrat like those who went to the guillo- 
 tine at the word of Danton. Going over to the 
 bed she took the limp hand lying on the coverlet. 
 
 "Cheer up, soldier," she said in the colloquial- 
 ism her father often used, and she smiled at Cro- 
 zier a great-hearted, helpful smile. 
 
 "You are a brick of bricks, Kitty Tynan," he 
 whispered, and smiled. 
 
 "Here comes the Young Doctor," said Mrs. 
 Tynan as the door opened unceremoniously. 
 
 "Well, I have to take an excursion," Crozier 
 said, "and I mayn't come back. If I don't, au 
 revoir, Kitty." 
 
 "You are coming back, all right," she answered 
 firmly. "It'll take more than a horse-thief's bul- 
 
 [85]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 let to kill you. You've got to come back. 
 You're as tough as nails. And I'll hold your 
 hand all through it yes, I will!" she added to 
 the Young Doctor, who had patted her shoulder 
 and told her to go to another room. 
 
 "I'm going to help you, doctor-man, if you 
 please," she said, as he turned to the box of in- 
 struments which his assistant held. 
 
 "There's another one of my colleagues com- 
 ing, I hope," the Young Doctor replied. 
 
 "That's all right, but I am staying to see Mr. 
 Crozier through. I said I'd hold his hand, and 
 I'm going to do it," she added firmly. 
 
 "Very well; put on a big apron, and see that 
 you go through with us if you start. No non- 
 sense." 
 
 "There'll be no nonsense from me," she an- 
 swered quietly. 
 
 "I want the bed in the middle of the room," 
 the Young Doctor said, and the others gently 
 moved it. 
 
 [86]
 
 CHAPTER V 
 A STORY TO BE TOLD 
 
 A GREAT surgeon said a few years ago that 
 he was never nervous when performing an 
 operation, though there was sometimes a mo- 
 ment when every resource of character, skill, and 
 brain came into play. That was when, having 
 diagnosed correctly and operated, a new and un- 
 expected seat of trouble and peril was exposed, 
 and instant action had to be taken. The great 
 man naturally rose to the situation and dealt 
 with it coolly and implacably; but he paid the 
 price afterwards in his sleep when, night after 
 night, he performed the operation over and over 
 again with the same strain on his subconscious 
 self. 
 
 So it was with Kitty Tynan in her small way. 
 She had insisted on being allowed to help at the 
 operation, and the Young Doctor, who had a 
 [87]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 good knowledge of life and knew the stuff in her, 
 consented; and so far as the operation was con- 
 cerned she justified his faith in her. When the 
 banker had to leave the room at the sight of the 
 carnage, she remained, and she and John Sibtey 
 were as cool as the Young Doctor and his fellow- 
 anatomist, till it was all over, and Shiel Crozier 
 was started again on a safe journey back to 
 health. Then a thing, which would have been 
 amusing if it had not been so deeply human, hap- 
 pened. She and John Sibley went out of the 
 house together into the moonlit night, and the 
 reaction seized them both at the same moment. 
 She gave a gulp and burst into tears, and he, 
 though as tall as Crozier, also broke down, and 
 they sat on the stump of a tree together, her hand 
 in his, and cried like two children. 
 
 "Never since I was a little runt did I never 
 cried in thirty years and here I am leaking 
 like a pail!" 
 
 Thus spoke John Sibley in gasps and squeez- 
 ing Kitty's hand all the time unconsciously, but 
 spontaneously, and as part of what he felt. He 
 would not, however, have dared to hold her hand 
 on any other occasion, while always wanting to 
 hold it, and wanting her also to share his varied 
 [88]
 
 A STORY TO BE TOLD 
 
 and not wholly reputed, though far from pre- 
 carious, existence. He had never got so far as 
 to tell her that; but if she had sense and under- 
 standing she would realise after to-night what 
 he had in his mind. 
 
 She, feeling her arm thrill with the magnetism 
 of his very vital palm, had her turn at explana- 
 tion of the weakness. "I wouldn't have broke 
 down myself it was all your fault," she said. "I 
 saw it yes in your face as we left the house. 
 I'm so glad it's over safe no one belonging to 
 him here, and not knowing if he'd wake up alive 
 or not I just was swamped!" 
 
 He took up the misty excuse and explanation. 
 "I had a feeling for him from the start; and 
 then that Logan Trial to-day, and the way he 
 talked out straight, and told the truth to shame 
 the devil it's what does a man good ! And go- 
 ing bung over a horserace that's what got me, 
 too, where I was young and tender. Swatted 
 that Burlingame every time one eye, two eyes 
 all black, teeth out, nose flattened called him an 
 'outrageous lawyer' my, that last clip was a 
 good one! You bet he's a sport Crozier!" 
 
 Kitty nodded eagerly while still wiping her 
 red eyes. "He made the judge smile I saw it, 
 [89]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 not ten minutes before his honour put on the black 
 cap. You couldn't have believed it, if you 
 hadn't seen it Here, let go my hand," she 
 added, suddenly conscious of the enormity John 
 Sibley was committing by squeezing it recklessly 
 now. 
 
 It is perfectly true that she did not quite 
 realise that he had taken her hand that he had 
 taken her hand. She was conscious in a nice, 
 sympathetic way that her hand had been taken, but 
 it was lost in the abstraction of her emotion. 
 She only realised how far she had committed her- 
 self when his demonstrations became so fervid 
 that her mind must recognise as well as her senses. 
 
 "Oh, here, let it go quick!" she added "and 
 not because mother's coming, either," she added 
 as the door opened and her mother came out not 
 to spy, not to reproach her daughter for sitting 
 with a man in the moonlight at ten o'clock at 
 night, but good, practical soul to bring them 
 each a cup of beef-tea. 
 
 "Here, you two," she said as she hurried to 
 them. "You need something after that business 
 in there, and there isn't time to get supper ready. 
 It's as good for you as supper, anyway. It's 
 made of the best beef this side of the sea. I 
 [90]
 
 A STORY TO BE TOLD 
 
 don't believe in underfeeding. Nothing's too 
 good to swallow." 
 
 She watched them sip the tea slowly like two 
 school-children. 
 
 "And when you've drunk it you must go right 
 to bed, Kitty," she added presently. "You've 
 had your own way, and you saw the thing 
 through; but there's always a reaction, and you'll 
 pay for it. It wasn't fit work for a girl of your 
 age; but I'm proud of your nerve, and I'm glad 
 you showed those doctors what you can do. 
 You've got your father's brains and my grit," she 
 added with a sigh of satisfaction. "Come 
 along bed now, Kitty. If you get too tired 
 you'll have bad dreams." 
 
 Perhaps she was too tired. In any case she 
 had dreams. Just as the great surgeon per- 
 formed his operation over and over in his sleep, 
 so Kitty Tynan, through long hours that night, 
 and for many nights afterwards, saw the swift 
 knives, helped to staunch the blood, held the 
 basin, disinfected the instruments which had made 
 an attack on the man of men in her eyes, 
 and saw the wound stitched up the last act of 
 the business before the Young Doctor turned to 
 [91]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 her and said, "You'll do wherever you're put in 
 life, Miss Kitty Tynan. You're a great girl 
 and now run away and get some fresh air and for- 
 get all about it." 
 
 Forget all about it! So the Young Doctor 
 knew what happened after a terrific experience 
 like that! In truth, he knew only too well. 
 Great surgeons do surgery only and have in- 
 numerable operations to give them skill; but a 
 country physician and surgeon must be a sane be- 
 ing to keep his nerve when called on to use the 
 knife, and he must have a more than usual gift 
 for such business. That is what the Young Doc- 
 tor had; but he knew that it was not easy to for- 
 get those scenes in which man carved the body of 
 fellow man, laying bare the very vitals of exist- 
 ence, seeing "the wheels go round." 
 
 It haunted Kitty Tynan in the nighttime, and 
 perhaps it was that which toned down a little 
 the colour of her face the kind of difference of 
 colouring there is between natural gold and 
 14-carat. But in the daytime she was quite 
 happy, and though there was haunting, it was 
 Shiel Crozier who, first helpless, then convales- 
 cent, was haunted by her presence. It gave him 
 pleasure, but it was a pleasure which brought 
 [92]
 
 A STORY TO BE TOLD 
 
 pain. He was not so blind that he had not 
 caught at her romance in which he was the cen- 
 tral figure a romance which had not vanished 
 since the day he declared in the court-room that 
 he was married or had been married. Kitty's 
 eyes told their own story, and it made him very 
 uneasy and remorseful. Yet he could not re- 
 member when, even for an instant, he had played 
 with her. She had always seemed part of a sim- 
 ple family life for which he and Jesse Bulrush 
 and her mother and the nurse Nurse Egan 
 were responsible. What a blessing Nurse Egan 
 had been ! Otherwise all the nursing would have 
 been performed by Kitty and her mother, and it 
 might well have broken them down, for they were 
 well determined to nurse him themselves. 
 
 When, however, Nurse Egan came back two 
 days after the operation was performed they in- 
 cluded her in the responsibility, as one of the 
 family ; and as she had no other important case on 
 at the time, fortunately she could give Crozier 
 her almost undivided attention. She had been 
 at first disposed to keep Kitty out of the sick- 
 chamber, as no place for a girl, but she soon aban- 
 doned that position, for Kitty was not the girl 
 ever to think of impropriety. Rather primitive 
 
 [93]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 and of a before-the-flood nature she was, but she 
 had not the faintest vulgar strain in her. Her 
 mind was essentially pure, and nothing material 
 in her had been awakened. 
 
 Her greatest joy was to do the many things for 
 the patient which a nurse must do prepare his 
 food, give him drink, adjust his pillows, bathe his 
 face and hands, take his temperature; and on his 
 part he tried hard to disguise from her the appre- 
 hension he felt, and to avoid any hint by word 
 or look that he saw anything save the actions of a 
 kind heart. True, her views as to what was 
 proper and what was improper might possibly be 
 on a different plane from his own. For in- 
 stance, he had seen girls of her station in the West 
 kiss young men freely men whom they never 
 expected to marry and had no thought of marry- 
 ing; and that was not the custom of his own class 
 in his home-country. 
 
 As he got well slowly, and life opened out be- 
 fore him again, he felt that he had to pursue a 
 new course, and in that course he must take ac- 
 count of Kitty Tynan, though he could not de- 
 cide how. He had a deep confidence in the 
 Young Doctor, in his judgment and in his char- 
 acter; and it was almost inevitable that he should 
 
 [94,]
 
 A STORY TO BE TOLD 
 
 tell his life-story to the man whose skill had 
 saved him from death in a strange land, with all 
 undone he wanted to do ere he returned to a land 
 which was not strange. 
 
 The thing happened, as such things do happen, 
 in a quite natural way one day when he and the 
 Young Doctor were discussing the probable ver- 
 dict against the man who had shot him the trial 
 was to come on soon, and once again Augustus 
 Burlingame was to be counsel for the defence; 
 and once again Crozier would have to appear in 
 a witness-box. 
 
 "I think you ought to know, Crozier, that, in 
 view of the trial, Burlingame has written to a 
 firm of lawyers in Kerry to secure full infor- 
 mation about your past," the Young Doctor 
 said. 
 
 Crozier gave one of those little jerks of the 
 head characteristic of him and said, "Why, of 
 course, I knew he would do that after I gave my 
 evidence in the Logan Trial." He raised him- 
 self on his elbow. "I owe you a great deal," 
 he added feelingly, "and I can't repay you in 
 cash or kindness for what you have done; but it 
 is due you to tell you my whole story, and that is 
 what I propose to do now." 
 [95]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "If you think" 
 
 "I do think; and also I want both Mrs. Tynan 
 and her daughter to hear my story. Better, truer 
 friends a man could not have; and I want them 
 to know the worst there is and the best there is, if 
 there is any best. They and you have trusted 
 me, been too good to me, and what I said at the 
 trial is not enough. I want to do what I've never 
 done tell everything. It will do me good; 
 and perhaps as I tell it I'll see myself and every- 
 thing else in a truer light than I've yet seen it 
 all." 
 
 "You are sure you want Mrs. Tynan and her 
 daughter to hear?" 
 
 "Absolutely sure." 
 
 "They are not in your rank in life, you know." 
 
 "They are my friends, and I owe them more 
 than I can say. There is nothing they cannot or 
 should not hear. I can say that at least." 
 
 "Shall I ask them to come?" 
 
 "Yes. Give me a swig of water first. It 
 won't be easy, but " 
 
 He held out his hand and the Young Doctor 
 grasped it. 
 
 Suddenly the latter said : "You are sure you 
 [96]
 
 A STORY TO BE TOLD 
 
 will not be sorry 4 ? You are sure it is not a mood 
 of the moment due to physical weakness 1 ?" 
 
 "Quite sure. I determined on it the day I was 
 shot and before I was shot." 
 
 "All right." The Young Doctor disappeared. 
 
 [97]
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 'HERE ENDETH THE 
 FIRST LESSON" 
 
 THE stillness of a summer's day in Prairie 
 Land has all the characteristics of music. 
 That is not so paradoxical as it seems. The effect 
 of some music is to produce a divine quies- 
 cence of the senses, a suspension of motion and 
 aggressive life, to reduce existence to mere pulsa- 
 tion. It was this kind of feeling which per- 
 vaded that region of sentient being when Shiel 
 Crozier told his story. The sounds that 
 .sprinkled the general stillness were in themselves 
 sleepy notes of the pervasive music of somnolent 
 nature the sough of the pine at the door, the 
 murmur of insect life, the low, thudding beat of 
 the steam-thrasher out of sight hard by, the pur- 
 ring of the cat in the arms of Kitty Tynan as, 
 with fascinated eyes, she listened to a man tell 
 
 [98]
 
 AS STRANGELY MAGNETIC, THIS TALK OF A MAN S I.IFK.
 
 HERE ENDETH THE LESSON 
 
 the tale of a. life as distant from that which she 
 lived as she was from Eve. 
 
 She felt more awed than curious as the tale 
 went on; it even seemed to her she was listening 
 to a theme beyond her sphere, like some shameless 
 eavesdropper at the curtains of a secret cere- 
 monial. Once or twice she looked at her mother 
 and at the Young Doctor, as though to reassure 
 herself that she was not a vulgar intruder. It 
 was far more impressive to her and to the Young 
 Doctor, too, than the scene at the Logan Trial 
 when a man was sentenced to death. It was 
 strangely magnetic, this tale of a man's exist- 
 ence ; and the clock which sounded so loud on the 
 mantelpiece, as it mechanically ticked off the 
 time, seemed only part of some mysterious ma- 
 chinery of life. Once a dove swept down upon 
 the window-sill, and, peering in, filled one of the 
 pauses in the recital with its deep contralto note, 
 and then fled like a small blue cloud into the wide 
 and as it seemed everlasting space beyond the 
 doorway. 
 
 There was nothing at all between themselves 
 and the far sky-line save little clumps of trees 
 here and there, little clusters of buildings and 
 houses no visible animal life. Everything con- 
 
 [99]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 spired to give a dignity in keeping with the drama 
 of failure being unfolded in the commonplace 
 home of the widow Tynan. Yet the home, too, 
 had its dignity. The engineer father had had 
 tastes, and he had insisted on plain, unfigured cur- 
 tains and wall-paper and carpets, when carpets 
 were used; and though his wife had at first pro- 
 tested against the unfigured carpets as more dif- 
 ficult to keep clean and as showing the dirt too 
 easily, she had come to like the one-colour scheme, 
 and in that respect her home had an individuality 
 rare in her surroundings. 
 
 That was why Kitty Tynan had always a 
 good background; for what her bright colouring 
 would have been in the midst of gaudy, cheap 
 chintzes and "axminsters" such as abounded in 
 Askatoon, is better left to the imagination. It 
 was not, therefore, in sordid, mean, or incongru- 
 ous surroundings that Crozier told his tale; as 
 would no doubt have been arranged by a drama- 
 tist, if he had had the making of the story and the 
 setting of it; and if it were not a true tale given 
 just as it happened; as every one in Askatoon now 
 knows. 
 
 Perhaps the tale was the more impressive be- 
 cause of Crozier's deep barytone voice, capable, 
 [100]
 
 HERE ENDETH THE LESSON 
 
 as it was, of much modulation, yet, except when 
 lie was greatly excited, preserving a monotone 
 like the note of a violin with the mute upon the 
 strings. 
 
 This was his tale: 
 
 "Well, to begin with, I was born at Castle- 
 garry, in County Kerry you know the main 
 facts from what I said in court. As a boy I 
 wasn't so bad a sort. I had one peculiarity. I 
 always wanted 'to have something on,' as John 
 Sibley would say. No matter what it was, I must 
 have something on it. And I was very lucky 
 worse luck!" 
 
 They all laughed at the bull. "I feel at home 
 at once," murmured the Young Doctor, for he 
 had come from near Enniskillen years agone, and 
 there is not so much difference between Ennis- 
 killen and Kerry when it comes to Irish bulls. 
 
 "Worse luck, it was," continued Crozier, "be- 
 cause it made me confident of always winning, 
 particularly as I gained in confidence. It's hard 
 to say how early I began to believe that I could 
 see things that were going to happen. By the 
 hour I used to shake the dice on the billiard-table 
 at Castlegarry, trying to see with my eyes shut 
 the numbers that were to come up. Of course 
 
 [101]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 now and then I saw the right numbers; and it 
 deepened the conviction that if I cultivated the 
 gift I'd be able to be right nearly every time. 
 When I went to a horse-race I used to fasten my 
 mind on the signal, and tried to see beforehand 
 the number of the winner. Again sometimes I 
 was very right indeed, and that deepened my con- 
 fidence in myself. I was always at it. I'd try 
 and guess try and see the number of the hymn 
 which was on the paper in the vicar's hand before 
 he gave it out, and I would bet with myself on 
 it. I would bet with myself or with anybody 
 available on any conceivable thing the minutes 
 late a train would be; the pints of milk a cow 
 would give ; the people who would be at the hunt 
 breakfast; the babies that would be christened on 
 n Sunday; the number of eyes in a peck of raw 
 potatoes. I was out against the universe. But 
 it wasn't serious at all just a boy's mania till 
 one day my father met me in London when I 
 came down from Oxford, and took me to Brooks' s 
 Club in St. James's Street. There was the thing 
 that finished me. I was twenty-one, and rest- 
 less-minded, and with eyes wide open. 
 
 "Well, he took me to Brooks's where I was to 
 become a member, and after a little while he left 
 
 [102]
 
 HERE ENDETH THE LESSON 
 
 me to go and have a long powwow with the com- 
 mittee he was a member of it. He told me 
 quite needlessly to make myself at home, and I 
 did so as soon as his back was turned. Almost 
 the first thing with which I became sociable was 
 a book which, as soon as I looked at it, had a 
 fascination for me. The binding was very old, 
 and the leather was worn, as you will see the 
 leather of a pocketbook, till it looks and feels 
 like a nice soap. That book brought me here." 
 
 He paused, and in the silence the Young Doc- 
 tor pushed a glass of milk and brandy toward 
 him. He sipped the contents. The others were 
 in a state of tension. Kitty Tynan's eyes were 
 fixed on him as though hypnotised, and the Young 
 Doctor was scarcely less interested; while the 
 widow of the departed engineer knitted harder 
 and faster than she had ever done, and she could 
 knit very fast indeed. 
 
 "It was the betting-book of Brooks's, and it 
 dated back almost to the time of the conquest of 
 Quebec. Great men dead and gone long ago 
 near a hundred and fifty years ago had put 
 down their bets in the book, for Brooks's was then 
 what it is now, the highest and best sporting club 
 in the world." 
 
 [103]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 Kitty Tynan's face had a curious look, for there 
 was a club in Askatoon, and it was said that all 
 the "sports" assembled there. She had no idea 
 what Brooks's Club in St. James's Street would 
 look like; but that did not matter. She sup- 
 posed it must be as big as the Askatoon Court 
 House at least. 
 
 "Bets bets -bets by men whose names were 
 in every history, and the names of their sons and 
 grandsons and great-grandsons ; and all betting on 
 the oddest things as well as the most natural 
 things in the world. Some of the bets made were 
 as mad as the bets I made myself. Oh! ridicu- 
 lous, some of them were; and then again bets on 
 things that stirred the world to the centre, from 
 the loss of America to the beheading of Louis 
 XVI. 
 
 "It was strange enough to see the half-dozen 
 lines of a bet by a marquis whose great-grandson 
 bet on the Franco-German War, that the govern- 
 ment which imposed the tea-tax in America would 
 be out of power within six months; or that the 
 French Canadians would join the colonists in 
 what is now the United States if they revolted. 
 This would be side by side with a bet that an heir 
 would be born to one new-married couple before 
 [104]
 
 HERE ENDETH THE LESSON 
 
 another couple. The very last bet made on the 
 day I opened the book was that Queen Victoria 
 would make Lord Salisbury a duke, that a certain 
 gentleman known as S. S. could find his own door 
 in St. James's Square blindfolded from the club, 
 and that Corsair would win the Derby. 
 
 "For two long hours I sat forgetful of the 
 world and all in it, while I read that record 
 to me the most interesting the world could offer. 
 Every line was part of the history of the coun- 
 try, a part of the history of many lives, and it was 
 all part of the ritual of the temple of the great 
 god Chance. I was fascinated, lost in a land 
 of wonders. Men came and went, but silently. 
 At last a gentleman came whose picture I 
 had so often seen in the papers a man as 
 well known in the sporting world as was Cham- 
 berlain in the political world. He was dressed 
 spectacularly, but his face oozed good-nature, 
 though his eyes were like bright bits of coal. He 
 bred horses, he raced this, he backed that, he laid 
 against the other; he was one of the greatest 
 plungers, one of the biggest figures on the turf. 
 He had been a kind of god to me a god in a 
 grey frock-coat with a grey top-hat and field- 
 glasses slung over his shoulder; or in a hunting- 
 
 [105]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 suit of the most picturesque kind great pockets 
 in a well-fitting coat, splendid striped waistcoat 
 well, there, I only mention this because it 
 played so big a part in bringing me to Askatoon. 
 
 "He came up to the table where I sat in the 
 room with the beautiful Adam's fireplace and the 
 ceiling like an architrave of Valhalla, and said: 
 'Do you mind for one minute*?' and he reached 
 out a hand for the book. 
 
 "I gave it to him, and I suppose my admiration 
 showed in my eyes, because as he hastily wrote 
 what a generous scrawl it was! he said to me, 
 'Haven't we met somewhere before"? I seem to 
 remember your face.' 
 
 "Great gentleman, I thought, because I knew 
 that he knew he had never seen me before, and 
 I was overcome by the reflection that he wished 
 to be civil in that way to me. 'It's my father's 
 face you remember, I should think,' I answered. 
 'He is a member here. I am only a visitor. I 
 haven't been elected yet.' 'Ah, we must see to 
 that!' he said with a smile, and laid a hand on 
 my shoulder as though he'd known me many a 
 year and I only twenty-one. 'Who is your 
 father?' he asked. When I told him he nodded. 
 'Yes, yes, I know him Crozier of Castlegarry, 
 
 [106]
 
 HERE ENDETH THE LESSON 
 
 but I knew his father much better, though he was 
 so much older than me, and indeed, your grand- 
 father also. Look in this book is the first bet 
 I ever made here after my election to the club, 
 and it was made with your grandfather. There's 
 no age in the kingdom of sport, dear lad,' he 
 added, laughing 'neither age nor sex nor posi- 
 tion nor place. It's the one democratic thing in 
 the modern world. It's a republic inside this old 
 monarchy of ours. Look, here it is, my first bet 
 with your grandfather and I'm only sixty now !' 
 He smoothed the page with his hand in a man- 
 ner such as I have seen a dean do with his sermon- 
 paper in a cathedral pulpit. 'Here it is, thirty- 
 six years ago.' He read the bet aloud. It was 
 on the Derby, he himself having bet that the 
 Prince of Wales's horse would win. 'Your 
 grandfather, dear lad,' he repeated, 'but you'll find 
 no bets of mine with your father. He didn't in- 
 herit that strain, but your grandfather and your 
 great-grandfather had it sportsmen both, afraid 
 of nothing, with big minds, great eyes for seeing, 
 and a sense for a winner almost uncanny. Have 
 you got it by any chance? Yes, yes, by George 
 and by John, I see you have you are your grand- 
 father to a hair ! His portrait is here in the club 
 [107]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 in the next room. Have a look at it. He 
 was only forty when it was done, and you're very 
 like him the cut of the jib is there.' He took 
 my hand. 'Good-bye, dear lad,' he said; 'we'll 
 meet yes, we'll meet often enough if you are 
 like your grandfather. And I'll always like to 
 see you,' he added generously. 
 
 " 'I always wanted to see you,' I answered. 
 'I've cut your pictures out of the papers to keep 
 them at Eton and Oxford.' He laughed in 
 great good-humour and pride. 'So so, so so, and 
 I am a hero I've got one follower ! Well, well, 
 dear lad, I don't often go wrong, or anyhow I'm 
 oftener right than wrong, and you might do worse 
 than follow me but no, I don't want that re- 
 sponsibility. Go on your own go on your 
 own.' 
 
 "A minute more and he was gone with a wave 
 of the hand, and in excitement I picked up the 
 betting-book. It almost took my breath away. 
 He had staked a thousand pounds that the fa- 
 vourite of the Derby would not win the race, and 
 that one of three outsiders would. As I sat over- 
 powered by the magnitude of the bet the door 
 opened, and he appeared with another man not 
 one with whose face I was then familiar, though 
 [108]
 
 HERE ENDETH THE 
 
 as a duke and owner of great possessions, he was 
 familiar to society. 'I've put it down,' he said. 
 'Sign it, if it's all in order.' This the duke did 
 after apologising for disturbing me. He looked 
 at me keenly as he turned away. 'Not the most 
 elevating literature in the library,' he said, smil- 
 ing ironically. 'If you haven't got a taste for it 
 beyond control, don't cultivate it.' He nodded 
 kindly, and left; and again, till my father came 
 and found me, I buried myself in that book of 
 fate to me. I found many entries in my grand- 
 father's name, but not one in my father's name. 
 I have an idea that when a vice or virtue skips 
 one generation, it appears with increased violence 
 or persistence in the next, for passing over my 
 father into my defenceless breast, the spirit of 
 sport went mad in me or almost so. No miser 
 ever had a more cheerful and happy hour than I 
 had as I read the betting-book at Brooks's. That 
 is where it all started, the train of events which 
 brought me here. 
 
 "I became a member of Brooks's soon after I 
 left Oxford. As some men go to the Temple, 
 some to the Stock Exchange, some to Parliament, 
 I went to Brooks's. It was the centre of my in- 
 terest, and I took chambers in Park Place, St. 
 [109]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 James's Street, a few steps away. Here I met 
 again constantly the great sportsman who had no- 
 ticed me so kindly, and I became his follower, his 
 disciple. I had started with him on a wave of 
 prejudice in his favour; because that day when 
 I read in the betting-book what he had staked 
 against the favourite, I laid all the cash and credit 
 I could get with his outsiders and against the fa- 
 vourite, and I won five hundred pounds. What 
 he won to my youthful eyes was fabulous. 
 There's no use saying what you think you good 
 friends, who've always done something in life 
 that I was a good-for-nothing creature to give my- 
 self up to the turf, to horses and jockeys, and the 
 janissaries of sport. You must remember that 
 for generations my family had run on a very nar- 
 rov/ margin of succession, there seldom if ever 
 eing more than two born in any generation of 
 the family, so that there was always enough for 
 the younger son or daughter; and to take up a 
 profession was not necessary for livelihood. If 
 my mother, who was an intellectual and able 
 woman, had lived, it's hard to tell what I should 
 have become; for steered aright, given true ideas 
 of what life should mean to a man, I might have 
 become ambitious and forged ahead in one direc- 
 
 [110]
 
 HERE ENDETH THE LESSON 
 
 tion or another. But there it was she died when 
 I was ten, and there was no one to mould me. At 
 Eton, at Oxford well, they are not preparatory 
 schools to the business of life. And when at 
 twenty-four I inherited the fortune my mother 
 left me, I had only one idea to live the life of 
 a sporting gentleman. I had a name as a 
 cricketer " 
 
 "Ah I remember, Crozier of Lammis!" in- 
 terjected the Young Doctor involuntarily. "I'm 
 a north of Ireland man, but I remember " 
 
 "Yes, Lammis," the sick man went on. "Cas- 
 tlegarry was my father's place, but my mother 
 left me Lammis. When I got control of it, and 
 of the securities she left, I felt my oats, as they 
 say; and I wasn't long in making a show of cour- 
 age, not to say rashness, in following my leader. 
 He gave me luck for a time, indeed so great that 
 I could even breed horses of my own. But the 
 luck went against him at last, and then, of course, 
 against me; and I began to feel that suction 
 which, as it draws the cash out of your pocket, 
 the credit out of your bank, seems to draw also 
 the whole internal economy out of your body a 
 ghastly, empty, collapsing thing." 
 
 Mrs. Tynan gave a great sigh. She had once 
 [ill]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 put two hundred dollars in a mine on paper 
 and it ended in a lawsuit; and on the verdict in 
 the lawsuit depended the two hundred dollars 
 and more. When she read a fatal telegram to 
 her saying that all was lost she had had that 
 empty, collapsing feeling. 
 
 Pausing for a moment in which he sipped some 
 milk, Crozier then continued: "At last my leader 
 died, and the see-saw of fortune began for me; 
 and a good deal of my sound timber was sawed 
 into logs and made into lumber to build some 
 one else's fortune on the turf. You never 
 know who it is that eats up your porridge! 
 When things were balancing pretty easily, I 
 married. It wasn't a sordid business to restore 
 my fortunes I'll say that for myself; but it 
 wasn't the thing to do, for I wasn't secure in my 
 position. I might go on the rocks ; but was there 
 ever a gambler who didn't believe that he'd pull 
 it off in a big way next time, and that the turn 
 of the wheel against him was only to tame his 
 spirit*? Was there ever a gambler or sportsman 
 of my class who didn't talk about the 'law of 
 chances,' on the basis that if red, as it were, came 
 up three times, black stood a fair chance of com- 
 ing up the fourth time*? A silly enough con- 
 
 [112]
 
 HERE ENDETH THE 
 
 elusion; for on the law of chances there's no rea- 
 son why red shouldn't come up three hundred 
 times; and so I found that your run of bad luck 
 may be so long that you can not have a chance to 
 recover, and are out of it before the wheel turns 
 in your favour. I oughtn't to have married." 
 
 His voice had changed in tone, his look become 
 most grave, there was something very like a look 
 of awe in his face, of deprecating submission in 
 his eyes. His fingers fussed with the rug that 
 covered his knees. 
 
 "God help the man that's afraid of his own 
 wife!" remarked the Young Doctor to himself, 
 not erroneously reading the expression of Cro- 
 zier's face and the tone of his voice. "There's 
 nothing so unnerving." 
 
 "No, I oughtn't to have done it," Crozier went 
 on. "But I will say again it wasn't a sordid 
 marriage, though she had expectations, great ex- 
 pectations but not immediate; and she was a 
 girl of great character. She was able and bril- 
 liant and splendid and far-seeing, and she knew 
 her own mind, and was radiantly handsome." 
 
 Kitty Tynan almost sniffed. Through a whole 
 -fortnight she had, with a courage and a right- 
 mindedness quite remarkable, fought her infatua- 
 [113]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 tion for this man, and as she fought she had imag- 
 ined a hundred times what his wife was like. She 
 had pictured to herself a gossamer kind of woman, 
 delicate, and in contour like one of the fashion- 
 plate figures she saw in the picture-papers. She 
 had imagined her with a wide, drooping hat, with 
 a soft, clinging gown, and a bodice like a great 
 white handkerchief crossed on her breast, holding 
 a basket of flowers, while a King Charles spaniel 
 gambolled at her feet. 
 
 This was what she had imagined with a kind 
 of awe; but the few words Crozier had said of 
 her gave the impression of a Juno commanding 
 and exacting, bullying, sailing on with this man 
 of men in her wake, who was afraid of stepping 
 on her train. Why shouldn't she think that 1 ? 
 She was only a simple prairie girl who drew her 
 own comparisons according to her kind and from 
 what she knew of life. So she imagined Crozier's 
 wife to have been a sort of person like Zenobia 
 Queen of Palmyra, who swept up the dust of the 
 universe with her skirts, and gave no chance at all 
 to the children of nature called Kitty, who wore 
 skirts scarcely lower than their ankles. She al- 
 most sniffed, and she became angry, too, that a 
 man like Crozier, who had faced the offensive 
 
 [114]
 
 HERE ENDETH THE 
 
 Augustus Burlingame in the witness-box as he 
 did; who took the bullet of the assassin with such 
 courage; who broke a horse like a Mexican; who 
 could ride like a leech on a filly's flank; should 
 crumple up at the thought of a woman who, any- 
 how, couldn't be taller than Crozier himself was, 
 and hadn't a hand like a piece of steel and the 
 skin of an antelope. It was enough to make a 
 cat laugh or a woman cry with rage. 
 
 "Able and brilliant and splendid and far-seeing 
 and radiantly handsome!" There the picture 
 was of a high, haughty, and overbearing woman, 
 in velvet, or brocade, or poplin yes, something 
 stiff and overbearing like grey poplin. Kitty 
 looked at herself suddenly in the mirror the 
 half-length mirror on the opposite wall and she 
 felt her hands clench and her bosom beat hard 
 under her pretty and inexpensive calico frock a 
 thing for Chloe, not for Juno. 
 
 She was very angry with Crozier, for it was 
 absurd, that look of deprecating homage, that re- 
 cumbent respect in his face, that "Hush she is 
 coming" in his eyes. What a fool a man was 
 where a woman was concerned! Here she had 
 been fighting herself for a fortnight to conquer 
 a useless passion for her man of all the world, 
 
 [115]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 fit to command an array of giants; and she saw 
 him now almost breathless as he spoke of a great 
 wildcat of a woman who ought to be by his side 
 now. What sort of a woman was she anyhow, 
 who could let him go away as he had done and 
 live apart from her all these years, while he 
 "slogged away" that was the Western phrase 
 which came to her mind to pull himself level 
 with things again? Her feet shuffled unevenly on 
 the floor, and it would have been a joy to shake 
 the invalid there with the rapt look on his face. 
 Unable to bear the situation without some 
 demonstration, she got to her feet and caught up 
 the glass of brandy and milk with a little ex- 
 clamation. 
 
 "Here," she said, holding the glass to his lips; 
 "here, keep up your strength, soldier. You don't 
 need to be afraid at a five-thousand-mile 
 range." 
 
 The Young Doctor started, for she had said 
 what was in his own mind, but what he would 
 not have said for a thousand dollars. It was 
 fortunate that Crozier was scarcely conscious of 
 what she was saying. His mind was far away. 
 Yet, when she took the glass from him again, he 
 touched her arm. 
 
 [116]
 
 HERE ENDETH THE LESSON 
 
 "Nothing is good enough for your friends, is 
 it?' he said. 
 
 "That wouldn't be an excuse for not getting 
 them the best there was at hand," she answered 
 with a little laugh, and at least the Young Doc- 
 tor read the meaning of her words. 
 
 Presently Crozier, with a sigh, continued: "If 
 I had done what my wife wanted from the start 
 I shouldn't have been here. I'd have saved what 
 was left of a fortune, and I'd have had a home 
 of my own." 
 
 "Is she earning her living too 1 ?" asked Kitty 
 softly, and Crozier did not notice the irony under 
 the question. 
 
 "She has a home of her own," answered Cro- 
 zier almost sharply, certainly with a little nerv- 
 ousness. "Just before the worst came to the 
 worst she inherited her fortune plenty of it, as 
 I got near the end of mine. One thing after an- 
 other had gone. I was mortgaged up to the eyes. 
 I knew the money-lenders from Newry to Jewry 
 and Jewry to Jerusalem. Then it was I prom- 
 ised her I'd bet no more never again; I'd give 
 up the turf; I'd try and start again. Down in 
 my soul I knew I couldn't start again not just 
 then. But I wanted to please her. She was re-
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 markable in her way one of the most imposing 
 intelligences I have ever known. So I promised. 
 I promised I'd bet no more." 
 
 The Young Doctor caught Kitty Tynan's eyes 
 by accident, and there was the same look of un- 
 derstanding in both. They both knew that here 
 was the real tragedy of Crozier's life. If he had 
 had less reverence for his wife, less of that ob- 
 vious prostration of soul, he probably would 
 never have come to Askatoon or would have left 
 Ireland. 
 
 "I broke my promise," he murmured. "It was 
 a horse well, never mind. I was as sure of 
 Flamingo as that the sun would rise by day and 
 set by night. It was a certainty; and it was a 
 certainty. The horse could win, it would win 
 I had it from a sure source. My judgment was 
 right, too. I bet heavily on Flamingo, intending 
 it for my last fling, and to save what I had left, 
 to get back what I had lost. I could get big odds 
 on him. It was good enough. From what I 
 knew it was like picking up a gold-mine. And I 
 was right right as could be. There was no 
 chance about it. It was being out where the rain 
 fell to get wet. It was just being present when 
 they called the roll of the good people that God 
 
 [118]
 
 HERE EXDETH THE LESSON 
 
 meant to be kind to. It meant so much to me. 
 I couldn't bear to have nothing and my wife to 
 have all. I simply couldn't stand " 
 
 The Young Doctor met again the glance of 
 Kitty Tynan, and there was again a new and 
 sudden look of comprehension in the eyes of both. 
 They began to see light where their man w r as con- 
 cerned. 
 
 After a moment of struggle to control himself, 
 Crozier proceeded. "It didn't seem like betting. 
 Besides, I had planned it, that when I showed her 
 what I had won, she would shut her eyes to the 
 broken promise, and I'd make another and keep 
 it ever after. I put on all the cash there was to 
 put on all I could raise on what I had left of 
 my property." 
 
 He paused as though to get strength to go on. 
 Then a look of intense excitement suddenly pos- 
 sessed him, and there passed over him a wave of 
 feeling which transformed him. The naturally 
 grave mediaeval face became fired, the eyes blazed, 
 the skin shone, the mouth almost trembled with 
 agitation. He was the dreamer, the enthusiast, 
 the fanatic almost, with that look which the pio- 
 neer, the discoverer, the adventurer has when he 
 sees the end of his quest. 
 
 [119]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 His voice rose, vibrated. "It was a day to 
 make you thank Heaven the world was made. 
 Such days only come once in a while in England, 
 but when they do come what price Arcady or 
 Askatoon ! Never had there been so big a Derby. 
 Everybody had the fever of the place at its worst. 
 I was happy. I meant to pouch my winnings and 
 go straight to my wife and say 'Peccavi,' and I 
 should hear her say to me, 'Go and sin no more.' 
 Yes I was happy. The sky, the green of the 
 fields, the still, homelike, comforting trees, the 
 mass of glorious colour, the hundreds of horses 
 that weren't running, and the scores that were to 
 run, sleek and long, and made like shining silk and 
 steel, it all was like heaven on earth to me a 
 horse-race heaven on earth ! There you have the 
 state of my mind in those days, the kind of man 
 I was." 
 
 Sitting up he gazed straight in front of him as 
 though he saw Epsom Downs before his eyes; as 
 though he was watching the fateful race that bore 
 him down. He was terribly, exhaustingly alive. 
 Something possessed him, and he possessed his 
 hearers. 
 
 "It was just as I said and knew my horse, 
 Flamingo, stretched away from the rest at Tat- 
 [120]
 
 HERE ENDETH THE LESSON 
 
 tenham Corner and came sailing away home two 
 lengths ahead. It was a sight to last a lifetime, 
 and that was what I meant it to be for me. The 
 race was all Flamingo's own, and the mob was 
 going wild, when all of a sudden a woman she 
 was the widow of a racing-man gone suddenly 
 mad she rushed out in front of the horse, 
 snatched at its bridle with a shrill cry, and down 
 she came, and down Flamingo and the jockey 
 came, a melee of crushed humanity. And that 
 was how I lost my last two thousand five hun- 
 dred pounds, as I said at the Logan Trial." 
 
 "Oh ! Oh !" said Kitty Tynan, her face aflame, 
 her eyes like topaz suns, her hands wringing. 
 "Oh, that was oh, poor Flamingo!" she added. 
 
 A strange smile shot into Crozier's face, and 
 the dark passion of reminiscence fled away from 
 his eyes. "Yes, you are right, little friend," he 
 said. "That was the real tragedy after all. 
 There was the horse doing his best, his most 
 beautiful best, as though he knew so much de- 
 pended on him, stretching himself with the last 
 ounce of energy that he could summon, feeling 
 the proud song of success in his heart yes, he 
 knows, he knows what he has done, none so well ! 
 and out comes a black, hateful thing against 
 
 [121]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 him, and down he goes, his game over, his course 
 run. I felt exactly as you do, and I felt that be- 
 fore everything else when it happened. Then I 
 felt for myself afterward, and I felt it hard, as 
 you can think." 
 
 The break went from his voice, but it rang with 
 reflective, remembered misery. "I was ruined. 
 One thing was clear to me. I would not live on 
 my wife's money. I would not eat and drink 
 what her money bought. No, I would not live 
 on my wife. Her brother, a good enough im- 
 pulsive lad, with a tongue of his own and too 
 small to thrash, came to me in London the night 
 of the race. He said his sister had been in the 
 country down to Epsom and that she bitterly 
 resented my having broken my promise and lost 
 all I had. He said he had never seen her so an- 
 gry, and he gave me a letter from her. On her 
 return to town she had been obliged to go away 
 at once to see her sister taken suddenly ill. He 
 added, with an unfeeling jibe, that he wouldn't 
 like the reading of the letter himself. If he 
 hadn't been such a chipmunk of a fellow I'd have 
 wrung his neck. I put the letter her letter 
 in my pocket, and next day gave my lawyer full 
 instructions and a power of attorney. Then I 
 
 [122]
 
 HERE ENDETH THE LESSON 
 
 went straight to Glasgow, took steamer for Can- 
 ada, and here I am. That was near five years ago." 
 
 "And the letter from your wife*?" asked Kitty 
 Tynan demurely and slyly. The Young Doctor 
 looked at Crozier, surprised at her temerity, but 
 Crozier only smiled gently. "It is in the desk 
 there. Bring it to me, please," he said. 
 
 In a moment Kitty was beside him with the 
 letter. He took it, turned it over, examined it 
 carefully as though seeing it for the first time, 
 and laid it on his knee. 
 
 "I have never opened it," he said. "There it 
 is, just as it was handed to me." 
 
 "You don't know what is in it 1 ?" asked Kitty 
 in a shocked voice. "Why, it may be that " 
 
 "Oh, yes, I know what is in it!" he replied. 
 "Her brother's confidences were enough. I 
 didn't want to read it. I can imagine it all." 
 
 "It's pretty cowardly," remarked Kitty. 
 
 "No, I think not. It would only hurt, and the 
 hurting could do no good. I can hear what it 
 says, and I don't want to see it." 
 
 He held the letter up to his ear whimsically. 
 Then he handed it back to her and she replaced 
 it in the desk. 
 
 "So, there it is, and there it is," he sighed. 
 
 [123]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "You have got my story, and it's bad enough, 
 but you can see it's not what the unwholesome 
 Burlingame suggested." 
 
 "Burlingame but Burlingame's beneath no- 
 tice," rejoined Kitty. "Isn't he, mother?" 
 
 Mrs. Tynan nodded. Then, as though with 
 sudden impulse, Kitty came forward to Crozier 
 and leaned over him. The look of a mother was 
 in her eyes. Somehow she seemed to herself 
 twenty years older than this man with the heart 
 of a boy, who was afraid of his own wife. 
 
 "It's time for your beef- tea, and when you've 
 had it you must get your sleep," she said with a 
 hovering solicitude in her voice. 
 
 "I'd like to give him a thrashing first, if you 
 don't mind," said the Young Doctor to her. 
 
 "Please let a little good advice satisfy you," 
 Crozier remarked ruefully. "It will seem like 
 old times," he added rather bitterly. 
 
 "You are too young to have had 'old times,' ' 
 said Kitty with gentle scorn. "I'll like you bet- 
 ter when you are older," she added. 
 
 "Naughty jade," exclaimed the Young Doc- 
 tor, "you ought to be more respectful to those 
 older than yourself." 
 
 "Oh, grandpapa!" she retorted mockingly. 
 
 [124]
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 A WOMAN'S WAY TO 
 KNOWLEDGE 
 
 THE harvest was over. The grain was cut, 
 the prairie no longer waved like a golden 
 sea, but the smoke of the incense of sacrifice still 
 rose in innumerable spirals in the circle of the 
 eye. The ground appeared bare and ill-treated, 
 like a sheep first shorn; but yet nothing could 
 take away from it the look of plenty, even as 
 the fat sides of the shorn sheep invite the satisfied 
 eye of the expert. The land now, all stubble, 
 still looked good for anything. If bare, it did 
 not seem starved. It was naked and unshaven; 
 it was stripped like a boxer for the rubbing down 
 after the fight. Not so refined and suggestive 
 and luxurious as when it was clothed with the 
 coat of ripe corn in the ear, it still showed the 
 muscle and fibre of its being to no disadvantage. 
 
 [125]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 And overhead the joy of the prairie grew 
 apace. 
 
 September saw the vast prairie spaces around 
 Askatoon shorn and shrivelled of its glory of rip- 
 ened grain, but with a new life come into the 
 air sweet, stinging, vibrant life, which had the 
 suggestion of nature recreating her vitality, in- 
 flaming itself with Edenic strength, a battery 
 charging itself, to charge the world in turn with 
 its force and energy. Morning gave pure ela- 
 tion, as though all created being must strive ; noon 
 was the pulse of existence at the top of its activ- 
 ity; evening was glamorous; and all the lower 
 sky was spread with those colours which Titian 
 stole from the joyous horizon that filled his eyes. 
 There was in that evening light somehow just a 
 touch of pensiveness the triste delicacy of helio- 
 trope, harbinger of the Indian summer soon to 
 come, when the air would make all sensitive souls 
 turn to the past and forget that to-morrow was 
 all in all. 
 
 Sensitive souls, however, are not so many as to 
 crowd each other unduly in this world, and they 
 were not more multitudinous in Askatoon than 
 elsewhere. Not everybody was taking joy of 
 sunrises and losing himself in the delicate con- 
 
 [126]
 
 A WOMAN S WAY TO KNOWLEDGE 
 
 tentment of the sunset. There were many who 
 took it all without thought, who absorbed it un- 
 consciously, and got something from it; though 
 there were many others who got nothing out of 
 it at all, save the health and comfort brought 
 by a precious climate whose solicitous friend is 
 the sun. These heeded it little, even though a 
 good number of them came from the damp is- 
 lands lying between the north Atlantic and the 
 German Ocean. From Erin and England and the 
 land o' cakes they came, had a few days of star- 
 ing bright-eyed happy incredulity as to the per- 
 manency of such conditions, and then settled 
 down to take it as it was endless days of sun- 
 shine and stirring vivacious air as though they 
 had always known it and had it. 
 
 There were exceptions, and these had joy in 
 what they saw and felt according to the measure 
 of their temperament. Shiel Crozier saw and 
 felt much of it, and probably the Young Doctor 
 saw and felt it as much as any one; stray peo- 
 ple here and there who take no part in this vera- 
 cious tale, had it in greater or less degree; fat 
 Jesse Bulrush was so sensitive to it that he, as 
 he himself said, "almost leaked sentimentality," 
 and Kitty Tynan had it in rare measure. She 
 [127]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 was beating with life, as a bird drunken with 
 the air's sweetness sings itself into an abandon- 
 ment of motion. 
 
 Before Crozier came she had enjoyed existence 
 as existence, wondering often why it was she 
 wanted to spring up from the ground with the 
 idea that she could fly, if she chose to try. Once 
 when she was quite a little girl she had said to 
 her mother, "I'm going to ile away," and her 
 mother, puzzled, asked her what she meant. 
 Her reply was, "It is in the hymn." Her mother 
 persisted in asking what hymn ; and was told with 
 something like scorn that it was the hymn she 
 herself had taught her only child "I'll away, I'll 
 away to the Promised Land." 
 
 She had thought that "I'll away" meant that 
 there was some delicious motion which was to 
 ile, and she had visions of something between 
 floating and flying as being that blessed means 
 of transportation. 
 
 As the years grew, she still wanted to "ile 
 away" whenever the spirit of elation came upon 
 her, and it had increased greatly since Shiel Cro- 
 zier came. Out of her star as he was, she still 
 felt near to him, and as though she understood 
 him and he comprehended her. He had almost 
 [128]
 
 A WOMAN S WAY TO KNOWLEDGE 
 
 at once become to her an admired and splendid 
 mystery which, however, at first she did not dare 
 wish to solve. She had been content to be a kind 
 of handmaiden to a generous and adored master. 
 She knew that where he had been she could in 
 one sense never go, and yet she wanted to be near 
 him just the same. This was intensified after 
 the Logan Trial and the shooting of the man who 
 somehow seemed to have made her live in a new 
 way. 
 
 As long ago as she could recall she had, in a 
 crude, untutored way, been fond of the things 
 that nature made beautiful; but now she seemed 
 to see them in a new light; but not because any 
 one had deliberately taught her. Indeed, it 
 bored her almost to hear books read as Jesse Bul- 
 rush and Nurse Egan and the Young Doctor, and 
 even her mother, read them to Crozier after his 
 operation, to help him pass away the time. The 
 only time she ever cared to listen at school, 
 though quick and clever, she had never cared for 
 the printed page was when, by chance, poetry 
 or verses were read or recited. Then she would 
 listen eagerly, not attracted by the words, but by 
 the music of the lines, by the rhyme and rhythm, 
 by the underlying feeling; and she got something 
 [129]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 out of it which had in one sense nothing to do 
 with the verses themselves or with the conception 
 of the poet. 
 
 Curiously enough, she most liked to hear Jesse 
 Bulrush read, and he was the only man who read 
 poems of his own initiative. He was a born sen- 
 timentalist, and this became by no means subtly 
 apparent to Kitty during Crozier's illness. 
 Whenever Nurse Egan was on duty Jesse con- 
 trived to be about, and to make himself useful 
 and ornamental too; for he was a picturesque 
 figure, with a taste for figured waistcoats and 
 clean linen he always washed his own white 
 trousers and waistcoats, and he had a taste in 
 ties which he made for himself out of silk bought 
 by the yard. He was, in fact, a clean, whole- 
 some man, with a flair for material things, as he 
 had shown in the land proposal on which Shiel 
 Crozier's fortunes hung, but with no gift for car- 
 rying them out, having neither constructive abil- 
 ity nor continuity of purpose. Yet he was an 
 agreeable, humorous, sentimental soul, who at 
 fifty years of age found himself "an old bach," 
 as he called himself, in love at last with a middle- 
 aged nurse with dark-brown hair and set figure, 
 [180]
 
 A WOMAN'S WAY TO KNOWLEDGE 
 
 keen, intelligent eyes, and a most cheerful, orderly 
 and soothing way with her. 
 
 Before Shiel Crozier was taken ill their ro- 
 mance began; but it grew in volume and intensity 
 after the trial and the shooting, when they met 
 by the bedside of the wounded man. Jesse had 
 been away so much in different parts of the coun- 
 try before then that their individual merits never 
 had had a real chance to make permanent impres- 
 sion. By accident, however, his business made 
 it necessary for him to be much in Askatoon at 
 the moment, and it was a propitious time for the 
 growth of the finer feelings. 
 
 It had given Jesse Bulrush real satisfaction 
 that Kitty Tynan listened to his reading of poetry 
 Longfellow, Byron, Tennyson, Whyte Mel- 
 ville, and Adam Lindsay Gordon chiefly with 
 such absorbed interest. His content was the 
 greater because his lovely nurse he did think 
 she was lovely, as Rubens thought his painted 
 ladies beautiful, though their cordial, ample, os- 
 tentatious proportions are not what Raphael re- 
 garded as the lines of the divine human figure 
 because his lovely nurse listened to his fat, 
 happy voice rising and falling, swelling and re- 
 [131]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 ceding on the waves of verse; though it meant 
 nothing to her beyond the fact that his voice 
 very pleasant to hear was having a good chance 
 for display. 
 
 This was not apparent to her Bulrush, though 
 Crozier and Kitty understood. Jesse only saw 
 in the blue-garbed, clear-visaged woman a mis- 
 tress of his heart, who had all the virtues and 
 graces and who did not talk. That, to him, was 
 the best thing of all. She was a superb listener, 
 and he was a prodigious talker was it not all 
 appropriate^ 
 
 One day he went searching for Kitty at her 
 favourite retreat, a little knoll behind and to the 
 left of the house where a half-dozen trees made 
 a pleasant resting-place at a fine lookout point. 
 He found her in her usual place, with a look al- 
 most pensive on her face. He did not notice 
 that, for he was visibly excited and elated. 
 
 "I want to read you something I've written," 
 he said, and he drew from his pocket a paper. 
 
 "If it's another description of the timberland 
 you have for sale please, not to me," she an- 
 swered provokingly, for she guessed well what 
 he held in his hand. She had seen him writing 
 it. She had even seen some of the lines scrawled 
 
 [132]
 
 A WOMAN S WAY TO KNOWLEDGE 
 
 and rescrawled on bits of paper, showing careful 
 if not swift and skilful manufacture. One of 
 these crumpled-up bits of paper she had in her 
 pocket now, having recovered it that she might 
 tease him by quoting the lines at a provoking 
 opportunity. 
 
 "It's not that. It's some verses I've written," 
 he said with a wave of his hand. 
 
 "All your own"?" she asked with an air of as- 
 sumed innocent interest, and he did not see the 
 frivolous gleam in her eyes, or notice the touch 
 of aloes on her tongue. 
 
 "Yes. Yes. I've always written verses more 
 or less I write a good many advertisements in 
 verse," he added cheerfully. "They are very 
 popular not genius, quite, but there it is, the 
 gift; and it has its uses in commerce as in affairs 
 of the heart. But if you'd rather not, if it makes 
 you tired " 
 
 "Courage, soldier, bear your burden !" she said 
 gaily. "Mount your horse and get galloping," 
 she added, motioning him to sit. 
 
 A moment later he was pouring out his soul 
 through a succulent and pleasing voice, from fat 
 lips, flanked by a high-coloured, healthy cheek 
 like a russet apple: 
 
 [133]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "Like jewels of the sky they gleam, 
 
 Your eyes of light, your eyes of fire; 
 In their dark depths behold the dream 
 
 Of Life's glad hope and Love's desire. 
 
 "Above your quiet brow, endowed 
 
 With Grecian charm to crown your grace, 
 Your hair in one soft Titian cloud 
 
 Throws heavenly shadows on your face." 
 
 "Well, I've never had verses written to me 
 before," Kitty remarked demurely when he had 
 finished and sat looking at her questioningly. 
 "But 'dark depths' that isn't the right thing to 
 say of my eyes! And Titian cloud of hair 
 is my hair Titian? I thought Titian hair was 
 bronzy tawny was what Mr. Burlingame called 
 it when he was spouting," her upper lip curled 
 in contempt. 
 
 "It isn't you, and you know it," he replied 
 jerkily. 
 
 She bridled. "Do you mean to say that you 
 come and read to me without a word of explana- 
 tion, so that I shouldn't misunderstand, verses 
 written for another 1 ? Do you mean to say that 
 my eyes aren't eyes of light and eyes of fire, that 
 I haven't got a Grecian brow*? Do you mean to 
 say those verses don't fit me except for the Titian 
 [134]
 
 A WOMANS WAY TO KNOWLEDGE 
 
 hair and heavenly shadows"? And that I've got 
 no right to think they're not meant for me? Is 
 it so, that a man that's lived in my mother's 
 house for years, eating at the same table with 
 the family, and having his clothes mended free, 
 with supper to suit him and no questions asked 
 is it so, that he takes up my time with poetry, 
 four lines at a stretch, and a rhyme every other 
 line, and then tells me it isn't for me!" 
 
 Her eyes flashed, her bosom palpitated, her 
 hand made passionate little gestures, and she 
 really seemed a little fury let loose. For a mo- 
 ment he was quite deceived by her acting; he did 
 not see the lurking grin in the depths of her eyes. 
 
 Her voice shook with assumed passion. "Be- 
 cause I didn't show what I felt all these years, 
 and only forgot myself and exposed my real feel- 
 ings when you read these verses to me, do you 
 think any man who was a gentleman wouldn't in 
 the circumstances say, 'These verses are for you, 
 Kitty Tynan' ? You betrayed me into showing 
 you what I felt, and then you tell me your verses 
 are for another girl !" 
 
 "Girl! Girl! Girl!" he burst out. "Nurse 
 is thirty-seven she told me so herself, and how 
 could I tell that you why, it's absurd! I've 
 
 [135]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 only thought of you always as a baby in long 
 skirts " she spasmodically drew her skirts down 
 over her pretty, shapely ankles, while she kept 
 her eyes covered with one hand "and you've 
 seen me makin' up to her ever since Crozier got 
 the bullet. Ever since he was operated on, 
 I've" 
 
 "Yes, yes, that's right," she interrupted. 
 "That's manly! Put the blame on him him 
 that couldn't help himself, struck by a horse- 
 thief's bullet in the dark; him that's no more to 
 blame for your carryings on while death was 
 prowling about the door there " 
 
 "Carryings on! Carryings on!" Jesse Bul- 
 rush was thoroughly deceived and thoroughly ex- 
 cited and indignant the little devil to put him 
 in a hole like this! "Carryings on! I've acted 
 like a man all through never anything else in 
 your house, and it's a shame that I've got to lis- 
 ten to things that have never been said of me 
 in all my life. My mother was a good, true 
 woman, and she brought me up " 
 
 "Oh, that's it, put it on your mother now, poor 
 woman! who isn't here to stretch out her hand 
 and stop you from playing a double game with 
 two girls so placed they couldn't help themselves 
 
 [136]
 
 A WOMAN S WAY TO KNOWLEDGE 
 
 just doing kind acts for a sick man." Suddenly 
 she got to her feet. "I tell you, Jesse Bulrush, 
 that you're a man you're a man " 
 
 But she could keep it up no longer. She burst 
 out laughing, and the false tears of the actress 
 she dashed from her eyes as she added: "That 
 you're a man after my own heart. But you can't 
 have it, even if you are after it, and you are wel- 
 come to the thirty-seven-year-old seraph in 
 there!" She tossed a hand towards the house. 
 
 By this time he was on his feet, too, almost 
 bursting. "Well, you wicked little rip you 
 Ellen Terry at twenty-two, to think you could 
 play it up like that! Why, never on the stage 
 was there such !" 
 
 "It's the poetry made me do it it inspired 
 me," she gurgled. "I felt why, I felt here" 
 she pressed her hand to her heart "all the pangs 
 of unrequited love oh, go away, go back to the 
 house and read that to her ! She's in the sitting- 
 room, and my mother's away down-town. 
 Now's your chance, Claude Melnotte!" 
 
 She put both hands on his big, panting chest 
 
 and pushed him backward towards the house. 
 
 "You're good enough for anybody, and if I 
 
 wasn't so young and daren't leave mother till I 
 
 [137]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 get my wisdom-teeth cut, and till I'm thirty- 
 seven oh, oh, oh!" She laughed till the tears 
 came into her eyes. "This is as good as as a 
 play." 
 
 "It's the best acted play I ever saw from Ten 
 Nights in a Barroom' to 'Struck Oil,' " rejoined 
 Jesse Bulrush with a face still half-ashamed yet 
 beaming. "But, tell me, you heartless little 
 woman, are the verses worth anything 4 ? Do you 
 think she'll like them?" 
 
 Kitty grew suddenly serious, and a curious look 
 he could not read deepened in her eyes. 
 "Nurse '11 like them of course she will," she 
 said gently. "She'll like them because they are 
 you. Read them to her as you read them to me, 
 and she'll only hear your voice, and she'll think 
 them clever and you a wonderful man, even if 
 you are fifty and weigh five hundred pounds. It 
 doesn't matter to a woman what a man's saying 
 or doing, or whether he's so much cleverer than 
 she is, if she knows that under everything he's 
 saying, 'I love you.' A man isn't that way, but 
 a woman is. Now go." Again she pushed him 
 with a small, brown hand. 
 
 "What a girl you are !" he said admiringly. 
 
 "Then be a father to me," she said teasingly. 
 
 [138]
 
 A WOMANS WAY TO KNOWLEDGE 
 
 "I can't marry both your mother and nurse." 
 
 "P'r'aps you can't marry either," she replied 
 sarcastically, "and I know that in any case you'll 
 never be any relative of mine by marriage. Get 
 going!" she said almost impatiently. 
 
 He turned to go, and she said after him, as 
 he rolled away: "I'll let you hear some of my 
 verses one day when you're older and can bear 
 them and understand them." 
 
 "I'll bet they beat mine," he called back. 
 
 "You'll win your bet," she answered, and 
 stood leaning against a tree with a look that re- 
 quired interpretation emerging and receding in 
 her eyes. When he had disappeared, sitting 
 down, she drew from her breast a slip of paper, 
 unfolded it, and laid it on her knee. "It is bet- 
 ter," she said. "It's not good poetry, of course, 
 but it's truer, and it's not done according to a 
 pattern like his. Yes, it's real, real, real, and 
 he'll never see it never see it now, for I've 
 fought it all out, and I've won." 
 
 Then she slowly read the verses aloud. 
 
 "Yes, I've won," she said with determination. 
 So many of her sex have said things just as de- 
 cisively, and while yet the exhilaration of their 
 decision was inflaming them, have done what they 
 
 [139]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 said they would never, never, never do. Still 
 there was a look in the fair face which meant a 
 new force awakened in her character. 
 
 For a long time she sat brooding, forgetful of 
 the present and of the little comedy of elderly 
 lovers going on inside the house. She was think- 
 ing of the way conventions hold and bind us; of 
 the lack of freedom in the lives of all, unless 
 they live in wild places beyond the social pale. 
 Within the past few weeks she had had visions 
 of such a world beyond this active and ordered 
 civilisation, where the will and the conscience of 
 a man or woman was the only law. She was not 
 lawless in mind or spirit. She was only rebell- 
 ing against a situation in which she was bound 
 hand and foot, and could not follow her honest 
 and exclusive desire, if she wished to do so. 
 
 Here was a man who was married, yet in a 
 real sense he had no wife. Suppose that man 
 cared for her, what a tragedy it would be for 
 them to be kept apart! This man did not love 
 her ; and so there was no tragedy for both ; yet all 
 was not over yet yes, all was "over and over 
 and over," she said to herself as she sprang to her 
 feet with a sharp exclamation of disgust with 
 herself. 
 
 [140]
 
 A WOMAN S WAY TO KNOWLEDGE 
 
 Her mother was coming hurriedly towards her 
 from the house. There was a quickness in hei 
 walk suggesting excitement, yet from the look 
 in her face it was plain that the news she brought 
 was not painful. 
 
 "He told me you were here, and " 
 
 "Who told you I was here?" 
 
 "Mr. Bulrush." 
 
 "So it's all settled," she said with a little quirk 
 of her shoulders. 
 
 "Yes, he's asked her, and they're going to be 
 married. It's enough to make you die laughing 
 to see the two middle-aged doves cooing in there." 
 
 "I thought perhaps it would be you. He said 
 he would like to be a father to me." 
 
 "That would prevent me if nothing else 
 would," answered the widow of Tyndall Tynan. 
 "A stepfather to an unmarried girl both eying 
 each other for a chance to find fault if you 
 please, no thank you!" 
 
 "That means you won't get married till I'm 
 out of the way?" asked Kitty with a look which 
 was as much touched with myrrh as with mirth. 
 
 "It means I wouldn't get married till you are 
 married, anyway," was the complacent answer. 
 
 "Is there any one special that "
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "Don't talk nonsense. Since your father died 
 I've thought only of his child and mine, and I've 
 not looked where I might. Instead, I've done my 
 best to prove that two women could live and suc- 
 ceed without a man to earn for them; though of 
 course without the pension it couldn't have been 
 done in the style we've done it. We've got our 
 place!" 
 
 There is a dignity attached to a pension which 
 has an influence quite its own, and in the most 
 primitive communities it has an aristocratic char- 
 acter which commands general respect. In Aska- 
 toon people gave Mrs. Tynan a better place so- 
 cially because of her pension than they would 
 have done if she had earned double the money 
 which the pension brought her. 
 
 "Everybody has called on us," she added with 
 reflective pride. 
 
 "Principally since Mr. Crozier came," added 
 Kitty. "It's funny, isn't it, how he made people 
 respect him before they knew who he was 1 ?" 
 
 "He would make Satan stand up and take off 
 his hat, if he paid Hades a visit," said Mrs. Ty- 
 nan admiringly. "Anybody'd do anything for 
 him." 
 
 Kitty eyed her mother closely. There was a 
 
 [142]
 
 A WOMAN S WAY TO KNOWLEDGE 
 
 strange, far-away, brooding look in Mrs. Ty- 
 nan's eyes, and she seemed for a moment lost in 
 thought. 
 
 "You're in love with him," said Kitty sharply. 
 
 "I was, in a way," answered her mother 
 frankly. "I was, in a way a kind of way, till 
 I knew he was married. But it didn't mean any- 
 thing. I never thought of it except as a thing 
 that couldn't be." 
 
 "Why couldn't it be 4 ?" asked Kitty, smother- 
 ing an agitation rising in her breast. 
 
 "Because I always knew he belonged to where 
 we didn't, and because if he was going to be in 
 love himself it would be with some girl like you. 
 He's young enough for that, and it's natural he 
 should get as his profit the years of youth that 
 i young woman has yet to live." 
 
 "As though it was a choice between you and 
 me, for instance!" 
 
 Mrs. Tynan started, but recovered herself. 
 "Yes. If there had been any choosing, he'd not 
 have hesitated a minute. He'd have taken you, 
 of course. But he never gave either of us a 
 thought that way." 
 
 "I thought that till till after he'd told us his 
 story," replied Kitty boldly. 
 
 [143]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "What has happened since then'?" asked her 
 mother with sudden apprehension. 
 
 "Nothing has happened since. I don't under- 
 stand it, but it's as though he'd been asleep for 
 a long time and was awake again." 
 
 Mrs. Tynan gravely regarded her daughter, 
 and a look of fear came into her face. "I knew 
 you kept thinking of him always," she said; "but 
 you had such sense, and he never showed any feel- 
 ing for you and young girls get over things. 
 Besides, you always showed you knew he wasn't 
 a possibility. But since he told us that day 
 about his being married and all, has has he been 
 different towards you 4 ?" 
 
 "Not a thing, not a word," was the reply; 
 "but but there's a difference with him in a 
 way. I feel it when I go in the room where he 
 is." 
 
 "You've got to stop thinking of him," insisted 
 the elder woman querulously. "You've got to 
 stop it at once. It's no good. It's bad for you. 
 You've too much sense to go on caring for a man 
 that" 
 
 "I'm going to get married," said Kitty firmly. 
 "I've made up my mind. If you have to think 
 about one person, you should stop thinking about 
 [ 144]
 
 A WOMANS WAY TO KNOWLEDGE 
 
 another; anyhow, you've got to make yourself 
 stop. So I'm going to marry and stop." 
 
 "Who are you going to marry, Kitty? You 
 don't mean to say it's John Sibley!" 
 
 "P'r'aps. He keeps coming." 
 
 "That gambling and racing fellow !" 
 
 "He owns a big farm, and it pays, and he 
 has got an interest in a mine, and " 
 
 "I tell you, you sha'n't," peevishly interjected 
 Mrs. Tynan. "You sha'n't. He's vicious. He's 
 vicious. He's oh, you sha'n't! I'd rather " 
 
 "You'd rather I threw myself away on a mar- 
 ried man?" asked Kitty covertly. 
 
 "My God oh, Kitty!" said the other, break- 
 ing down. "You can't mean it oh, you can't 
 mean that you'd " 
 
 "I've got to work out my case in my own way," 
 broke in Kitty calmly. "I know how I've got to 
 do it. I have to make my own medicine and 
 take it. You say John Sibley is vicious. He 
 has only got one vice." 
 
 "Isn't it enough? Gambling " 
 
 "That isn't a vice; it's a sport. It's the same 
 
 as Mr. Crozier had. Mr. Crozier did it with 
 
 horses only, the other does it with cards and 
 
 horses. The only vice John Sibley's got is me." 
 
 [145]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "Is you*?" asked her mother bewilderedly. 
 
 "Well, when you've got an idea you can't con- 
 trol and it makes you its slave, it's a vice. I'm 
 John's vice, and I'm thinking of trying to cure 
 him of it and cure myself, too," Kitty added, 
 folding and unfolding the paper in her hand. 
 
 "Here comes the Young Doctor," said her 
 mother, turning towards the house. "I think 
 you don't mean to marry Sibley, but if you do, 
 make him give up gambling." 
 
 "I don't know that I want him to give it up," 
 answered Kitty musingly. 
 
 A moment later she was alone with the Young 
 Doctor. 
 
 [H6]
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ALL ABOUT AN UNOPENED 
 LETTER 
 
 "TY THAT'S this you've been doing?" asked 
 
 VV the Young Doctor, with a quizzical 
 smile. "We never can tell where you'll break 
 out." 
 
 "Kitty Tynan's measles!" she rejoined, swing- 
 ing her hat by its ribbon. "Mine isn't a one- 
 sided character, is it?" 
 
 "I know one of the sides quite well," returned 
 the Young Doctor. 
 
 "Which, please, sir?" 
 
 The Young Doctor pretended to look wise. 
 "The outside. I read it like a book. It fits the 
 life in which it moves like the paper on the wall. 
 But I'm not sure of the inside. In fact, I don't 
 think I know that at all." 
 
 [147]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "So I couldn't call you in if my character was 
 sick inside, could I?" she asked obliquely. 
 
 "I might have an operation and see what's 
 wrong with it," he answered playfully. 
 
 Suddenly she shivered. "I've had enough of 
 operations to last me a while," she rejoined. "I 
 thought I could stand anything, but your opera- 
 tion on Mr. Crozier taught me a lesson. I'd 
 never be a doctor's wife if I had to help him cut 
 up human beings." 
 
 "I'll remember that," the Young Doctor re- 
 plied mockingly. 
 
 "But if it would help put things on a right 
 basis, I'd make a bargain that I wasn't to help 
 do the carving," she rejoined wickedly. The 
 Young Doctor always incited her to say daring 
 things. They understood each other well. "So 
 don't let that stand in the way," she added slyly. 
 
 "The man that gets you will be glad to get 
 you without the anatomy," he returned gallantly. 
 
 "I wasn't talking of a man; I was talking of 
 a doctor." 
 
 He threw up a hand and his eyebrows. "Isn't 
 a doctor a man*?" 
 
 "Those I've seen have been mostly fish." 
 
 "No feelings eh?" 
 
 [148]
 
 ABOUT AN UNOPENED LETTER 
 
 She looked him in the eyes and he felt a kind 
 of shiver go through him. "Not enough to no- 
 tice I never observed you had any," she replied. 
 "If I saw that you had, I'd be so frightened I'd 
 fly. I've seen pictures of an excited whale turn- 
 ing a boat full of men over. No, I couldn't bear 
 to see you show any feeling." 
 
 The dark eyes of the Young Doctor suddenly 
 took on a look which was a stranger to them. In 
 his relations with women he was singularly im- 
 personal, but he was a man, and he was young 
 enough to feel the Adam stir in him. The hid- 
 den or controlled thing suddenly emerged. It 
 was not the look which would be in his eyes if 
 he were speaking to the woman he wanted to 
 marry. Kitty saw it and she did not understand 
 it, for she had at heart a feeling that she could 
 go to him in any trouble of life and be sure of 
 healing. To her he seemed wonderful; but she 
 thought of him as she would have thought of her 
 father, as a person of authority and knowledge 
 that operation showed him a great man, she 
 thought, so skilful and precise and splendid; and 
 the whole countryside had such confidence in him. 
 
 She regarded him as a being apart; but for a 
 moment, an ominous moment, he was almost one 
 
 [149]
 
 with that race of men who feed in strange pas- 
 tures. She only half saw the reddish glow which 
 came swimming into his eyes, and she did not 
 realise it, for she did not expect to find it there. 
 For an instant, however, he saw with new eyes 
 that primary eloquence of woman life, the un- 
 spent splendour of youth, the warm joy of the ma- 
 terial being, the mystery of maidenhood in all 
 its efflorescence. It was the emergence of his 
 own youth again, as why should it not, since he 
 had never married and had never dallied! But 
 in a moment it was gone again driven away. 
 
 "What a wicked little flirt you are!" he said, 
 with a shake of the head. "You'll come to a 
 bad end, if you don't change your ways." 
 
 "Perform an operation, then, if you think you 
 know what's the matter with me," she retorted. 
 
 "Sometimes in operating for one disease we 
 come on another, and then there's a lot of think- 
 ing to be done," he suggested. 
 
 The look in her face was quizzical, yet there 
 was a strange, elusive gravity in her eyes, an al- 
 most pathetic appealing. "If you were going to 
 operate on me what would it be for 1 ?" she asked 
 more flippantly than her face showed. 
 
 "Well, it's obscure, and the symptoms are not 
 [150]
 
 ABOUT AN UNOPENED LETTER 
 
 usual, but I should strike for the cancer love," 
 he answered, with a direct look. 
 
 She flushed and changed on the instant. "Is 
 love a cancer?" she asked. All at once she felt 
 sure that he read her real story, and something 
 very like anger quickened in her. 
 
 "Unrequited love is," he answered deliberately. 
 
 "How do you know it is unrequited 1 ?" she 
 asked sharply. 
 
 "Well, I don't know it," he answered, dis- 
 mayed by the look in her face. "But I certainly 
 hope I'm right. I do, indeed." 
 
 "And if you were right what would you do 
 as a surgeon?" she questioned with an undertone 
 of meaning. 
 
 "I would remove the cause of the disease." 
 
 She came close and looked him straight in the 
 eyes. "You mean that he should go? You 
 think that would cure the disease? Well, you 
 are not going to interfere. You are not going to 
 manoeuvre anything to get him away I know 
 doctor's tricks. You'd say he must go away east 
 or west to the sea for change of air to get well. 
 That's nonsense, and it isn't necessary. You are 
 absolutely wrong in your diagnosis if that's 
 what you call it. He is going to stay here. 
 
 [151]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 You aren't going to drive away one of our board- 
 ers and take the bread out of our mouths. Any- 
 how, you're wrong. You think because a girl 
 worships a man's ability that she's in love with 
 him. I adore your ability, but I'd as soon fall 
 in love with a lobster and be boiled with the 
 lobster in a black pot. Such conceit men have !" 
 
 He was not convinced. He had a deep-seeing 
 eye, and he saw that she was boldly trying to di- 
 vert his belief or suspicion. He respected her 
 for it. He might have said he loved her for it 
 with a kind of love which can be spoken of with- 
 out blushing or giving cause to blush, or reason 
 for jealousy, anger or apprehension. 
 
 He smiled down into her gold-brown eyes and 
 he thought what a real woman she was. He felt, 
 too, that she would tell him something that would 
 give him further light if he spoke wisely now. 
 
 "I'd like to see some proof that you are right, 
 if I am wrong," he answered cautiously. 
 
 "Well, I'm going to be married," she said with 
 an air of finality. 
 
 He waved a hand deprecatingly. "Impossible 
 there's no man worth it. Who is the undeserv- 
 ing wretch 4 ?" 
 
 "I'll tell you to-morrow," she replied. "He 
 
 [152]
 
 ABOUT AN UNOPENED LETTER 
 
 doesn't know yet how happy he's going to be. 
 What did you come here for*? Why did you 
 want to see me?" she added. "You had some- 
 thing you were going to tell me. Hadn't you 1 ?" 
 
 "That's quite right," he replied. "It's about 
 Crozier. This is my last visit to him profession- 
 ally. He can go on now without my care 
 yours will be sufficient for him. It has been all 
 along the very best care he could have had. It 
 did more for him than all the rest, it " 
 
 "You don't mean that," she interrupted, with 
 a flush and a bosom that leaped under her pretty 
 gown. "You don't mean that I was of more use 
 than the nurse than the future Mrs. Jesse Bul- 
 rush?' 
 
 "I mean just that," he answered. "Nearly 
 every sick person, every sick man, I should say, 
 has his mascot, his ministering angel, as it were. 
 It's a kind of obsession, and it often means life 
 or death, whether the mascot can stand the strain 
 of the situation. I knew an old man down by 
 Dingley's Flat it was, and he wanted a boy his 
 grand-nephew beside him always. He was get- 
 ting well, but the boy took sick and the old man 
 died the next day. The boy had been his medi- 
 cine. Sometimes it's a particular nurse that does 
 
 [153]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 the trick; but whoever it is, it's a great vital fact. 
 Well, that's the part you played to Mr. Shiel 
 Crozier of Lammis and Castlegarry aforetime. 
 He owes you much." 
 
 "I am glad of that," she said softly, her eyes 
 on the distance. 
 
 "She is in love with him in spite of what she 
 says," remarked the Young Doctor to himself. 
 "Well," he continued aloud, "the fact is, Cro- 
 zier's almost well in a way, but his mind is in a 
 state, and he is not going to get wholly right as 
 things are. Since things came out in court, since 
 he told us his whole story, he has been different. 
 It's as though " 
 
 She interrupted him hastily and with sup- 
 pressed emotion. "Yes, yes, do you think I've 
 not noticed that 1 ? He's been asleep in a way for 
 five years, and now he's awake again. He is 
 not James Gathorne Kerry now; he is James 
 Shiel Gathorne Crozier, and oh, you under- 
 stand: he's back again where he was before be- 
 fore he left her!" 
 
 The Young Doctor nodded approvingly. 
 "What a little brazen wonder you are! I de- 
 clare you see more than " 
 [154]
 
 ABOUT AN UNOPENED LETTER 
 
 "Yet you won't have me*?" she asked mock- 
 ingly. 
 
 "You're too clever for me," he rejoined with 
 spirit. "I'm too conceited. I must marry a girl 
 that'd kneel to me and think me as wise as Socra- 
 tes. But he's back again, as you say, and, in 
 my view his wife ought to be back again also." 
 
 "She ought to be here" was Kitty's swift re- 
 ply, "though I think mighty little of her mighty 
 little, I can tell you. Stuck-up, great tall stork 
 of a woman, that lords it over a man as though 
 she was a goddess. Wears diamonds in the mid- 
 dle of the day, I suppose, and cold-blooded as 
 as a fish." 
 
 "She ought to have married me, according to 
 your opinion of me. You said I was a fish," re- 
 marked the Young Doctor, with a laugh. 
 
 "The whale and the catfish !" 
 
 "Heavens, what spite!" he rejoined. "Cat- 
 fish what do you know about Mrs. Crozier'? 
 You may be brutally unjust waspishly unjust, 
 I should say." 
 
 "Do I look like a wasp?" she asked half tear- 
 fully. She was in a strange mood. 
 
 "You look like a golden busy bee," he an- 
 
 [155]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 swered. "But tell me, how did you come to 
 know enough about her to call her a cat 1 ?" 
 
 "Because, as you say, I was a busy golden 
 bee," she retorted. 
 
 "That information doesn't get me much fur- 
 ther," he answered. 
 
 "I opened that letter" she replied. 
 
 " 'That letter' you mean you opened the let- 
 ter he showed us which he had left sealed as it 
 came to him five years ago 4 ?" The Young Doc- 
 tor's face wore a look of tiouble and dismay. 
 
 "I steamed the envelope open how else could 
 I have done it! I steamed it open, saw what I 
 wanted, and closed it up again." 
 
 The Young Doctor's face was pale now. This 
 was a terrible revelation. He had a man's view 
 of such conduct. He almost shrank from her, 
 though she stood there as inviting and pretty and 
 innocent a specimen of girlhood as the eye could 
 wish to see. She did not look dishonourable. 
 
 "Do you realise what that means'?" he asked in 
 a cold, hard tone. 
 
 "Oh, come, don't put on that look and don't 
 talk like John the Evangelist!" she retorted. "I 
 did it, not out of curiosity, and not to do any one 
 harm, but to do her good his wife." 
 
 [156]
 
 ABOUT AN UNOPENED LETTER 
 
 "It was dishonourable wicked and dis- 
 honourable." 
 
 "If you talk like that, Mr. Piety, I'm off," she 
 rejoined, and she started away. 
 
 "Wait wait," he said, laying firm fingers on 
 her arm. "Of course you did it for a good pur- 
 pose. I know. You cared enough for him for 
 that." 
 
 He had said the right thing, and she halted and 
 faced him. "I cared enough to do a good deal 
 more than that if necessary. He has been like 
 a second father to me, and " 
 
 Suddenly a light of humour shot into the eyes 
 of both. Shiel Crozier as a "father" to her was 
 too gaily artificial not to provoke their natural 
 sense of the grotesque. 
 
 "I wanted to find out his wife's address to write 
 to her and tell her to come quick," she ex- 
 plained. "It was when he was at the worst. 
 And then, too, I wanted to know the kind of 
 woman she was before I wrote to her. So " 
 
 "You mean to say you read that letter 
 which he had kept unopened and unread for five 
 long years *?" The Young Doctor was certainly 
 shocked and disturbed again. 
 
 "Every word of it," Kitty answered shame- 
 [157]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 lessly, "and I'm not sorry. It was in a good 
 cause. If he had said 'Courage, soldier,' and 
 opened it five years ago, it would have been good 
 for him. Better to get things like that over." 
 
 "It was that kind of a letter, was it a catfish 
 letter?' 
 
 Kitty laughed a little scornfully. "Yes, just 
 like that, Mr. Easily Shocked. Great, showy, 
 purse-proud creature !" 
 
 "And you wrote to her*?" 
 
 "Yes, a letter that would make her come if 
 anything would. Talk of tact, I was as smooth 
 as a billiard-ball. But she hasn't come." 
 
 "The day after the operation I cabled to her," 
 said the Young Doctor. 
 
 "Then you steamed the letter open and read 
 it, too*?" asked Kitty sarcastically. 
 
 "Certainly not. Ladies first and last," was 
 the equally sarcastic answer. "I cabled to Cas- 
 tlegarry, his father's place, also to Lammis that 
 he mentioned when he told us his story Crozier 
 of Lammis, he was." 
 
 "Well, I wrote to the London address in the 
 letter," added Kitty. "I don't think she'll come. 
 I asked her to cable me, and she hasn't. I wrote 
 such a nice letter, too. I did it for his sake." 
 [158]
 
 ABOUT AN UNOPENED LETTER 
 
 The Young Doctor laid his hands on both her 
 shoulders. "Kitty Tynan, the man who gets 
 you will get what he doesn't deserve," he re- 
 marked. 
 
 "That might mean anything," she answered. 
 
 "It means that he owes you more than he can 
 guess." 
 
 Her eyes shone with a strange, soft glow. 
 "In spite of opening the letter 1 ?" 
 
 The Young Doctor nodded, then added hu- 
 morously: "That letter you wrote her I'm 
 not sure that my cable wouldn't have far more 
 effect than your letter." 
 
 "Certainly not. You tried to frighten her, 
 but I tried to coax her to make her feel 
 ashamed. I wrote as though I was fifty." 
 
 The Young Doctor regarded her quizzically 
 and even dubiously. "What was the sort of 
 thing you said to her 9" 
 
 "For one thing, I said that he had every com- 
 fort and attention two loving women and one 
 fond nurse could give him; but that, of course, 
 his legitimate wife would naturally be glad to 
 be beside him when he passed away, and that 
 if she made haste she might be here in 
 time." 
 
 [159]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 The Young Doctor leaned against a tree shak- 
 ing with laughter. 
 
 "What are you smiling at 1 ?" Kitty asked 
 ironically. 
 
 "Oh, she'll be sure to come nothing will keep 
 her away after being coaxed like that!" he said 
 when he could get breath. 
 
 "Laughing at me as though I was a clown in 
 a circus!" she exclaimed. "Laughing when, as 
 you say yourself, the man that she the cat 
 wrote that fiendish letter to is in trouble." 
 
 "It was a fiendish letter, was it*?" he asked, 
 suddenly sobered again. "No, no, don't tell 
 me," he added with a protesting gesture. "I 
 don't want to hear. I don't want to know. I 
 oughtn't to know. Besides, if she comes, I don't 
 want to be prejudiced against her. He is trou- 
 bled, poor fellow." 
 
 "Of course he is. There's the big land deal 
 his syndicate. He's got a chance of making a 
 fortune, and he can't do it because but Jesse 
 Bulrush told me in confidence, so I can't ex- 
 plain." 
 
 "I have an idea, a pretty good idea Askatoon 
 is small." 
 
 "And mean sometimes." 
 
 [160]
 
 ABOUT AN UNOPENED LETTER 
 
 "Tell me what you know. Perhaps I can 
 help him," urged the Young Doctor. "I have 
 helped more than one good man turn a sharp 
 corner here." 
 
 She caught his arm. "You are as good as 
 gold," she said. 
 
 "You are impossible," he replied. 
 
 They talked of Crozier's land deal and syn- 
 dicate as they walked slowly towards the house. 
 Mrs. Tynan met them at the door, a look of ex- 
 citement in her face. 
 
 "A telegram for you, Kitty," she said. 
 
 "For me!" exclaimed Kitty eagerly. "It's 
 a year since I had one." 
 
 j 
 
 She tore open the yellow envelope. A light 
 shot up in her face. She thrust the telegram 
 into the Young Doctor's hands. 
 
 "She's coming; his wife's coming she's in 
 Quebec now. It was my letter my letter, not 
 your cable, that brought her," Kitty added tri- 
 umphantly. 
 
 [161]
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 NIGHT SHADE AND 
 MORNING GLORY 
 
 IT was as though Crozier had been told of 
 the coming of his wife, for when night came, 
 on the day Kitty had received her telegram, he 
 could not sleep. He was the sport of a consum- 
 ing restlessness. His brain would not be still. 
 He could not discharge from it the thoughts of 
 the day and make it vacuous. It would not re- 
 lax. It seized with intentness on each thing in 
 turn which was part of his life at the moment 
 and gave it an abnormal significance. In vain 
 he tried to shake himself free of the successive 
 obsessions which stormed down the path of the 
 night, dragging him after them, a slave lashed 
 to the wheels of a chariot of flame. 
 
 Now it was the great land deal and syndicate 
 on which his future depended, and the savage 
 [162]
 
 NIGHT SHADE 
 
 fate which seemed about to snatch his fortune 
 away as it had done so often before; as it had 
 done on the day when Flamingo went down near 
 the post at the Derby with a madwoman drag- 
 ging at the bridle. He had had a sure thing 
 then, and it was whisked away just when it 
 would have enabled him to pass the crisis of his 
 life. Wife, home, the old fascinating, crowded 
 life they had all vanished because of that vile 
 trick of destiny; and ever since then he had 
 been wandering in the wilderness through years 
 that brought no fruit of his labours. Yet here 
 was his chance, his great chance to get back what 
 he had and was in the old misspent days, with 
 new purposes in life to follow and serve; and it 
 was all in cruel danger of being swept away 
 when almost within his grasp. 
 
 If he could but achieve the big deal, he could 
 return to wife and home, he could be master in 
 his own house, not a dependent on his wife's 
 bounty. That very evening Jesse Bulrush, 
 elated by his own good fortune in capturing 
 Cupid, had told him as sadly as was possible, 
 while his own fortunes were, as he thought, soar- 
 ing, that every avenue of credit seemed closed, 
 that neither bank nor money-lender, trust or loan 
 
 [163]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 company, would let him have the ten thousand 
 dollars necessary for him to hold his place in the 
 syndicate; while each of the other members of 
 the clique had flatly and cheerfully refused, say- 
 ing they had all they could carry as it was. Cro- 
 zier had commanded Jesse not to approach them, 
 but the fat sentimentalist had an idea that his 
 tongue had a gift of wheedling, and he believed 
 that he could make them "shell out," as he put 
 it. He had failed, and he was obliged to say 
 so, when Crozier, suspecting, brought him to 
 book. 
 
 "They mean to crowd you out that's their 
 game," Bulrush had said. "They've closed up 
 all the ways to cash or credit. They mean to do 
 you out of your share. Unless you put up the 
 cash within the four days left they'll put it 
 through without you. They told me to tell you 
 that." 
 
 And Crozier had not even cursed them. He 
 said to Jesse Bulrush that it was an old game to 
 get hold of a patent that made a fortune for a 
 song while the patentee died in the poor-house. 
 Yet that four days was time enough for a live 
 man to do a "flurry of work," and he was fit 
 enough to walk up their backs yet with hobnailed 
 [164]
 
 NIGHT SHADE 
 
 boots, as they said in Kerry when a man was out 
 for war. 
 
 Over and over again this hovering tragedy 
 drove sleep from his eyes; and in the spaces be- 
 tween there were a hundred fleeting visions of lit- 
 tle and big things to torture him remembrances 
 of incidents when debts and disasters dogged his 
 footsteps; and behind them all, floating among 
 the elves and gnomes of ill-luck and disappoint- 
 ment, was a woman's face. It was not his wife's 
 face, not a face that belonged to the old life, but 
 one which had been part of his daily existence 
 for over four years. It was the first face he saw 
 when he came back from consciousness after the 
 operation which saved his life the face of Kitty 
 Tynan. 
 
 And ever since the day when he had told the 
 story of his life this face had kept passing before 
 his eyes with a disturbing persistence. Kitty 
 had said to her mother and to the Young Doctor 
 that he had seemed like one who had awakened 
 after he had told his story; and in a sense it was 
 startlingly true. It was as though, while he was 
 living under an assumed name, the real James 
 Shiel Gathorne Crozier did not exist, or was in 
 the far background of the doings and sayings of 
 
 [165]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 J. G. Kerry. His wife and the past had been 
 shadowy in a way, had been as part of a life 
 lived out, which would return in some distant 
 day, but was not vital to the present. Much as 
 he had loved his wife, the violent wrench away 
 from her had seemed almost as complete as death 
 itself; but the resumption of his own name and 
 the telling of his story had produced a complete 
 psychological change in him mentally and bodily. 
 The impersonal feeling which had marked his re- 
 lations with the two women of this household, 
 and with all women, was suddenly gone. He 
 longed for the arms of a woman round his neck 
 it was five years since any woman's arms had 
 been there, since he had kissed any woman's lips. 
 Now in the hour when his fortunes were again 
 in the fatal balance, when he would be started 
 again for a fair race with the wife from whom 
 he had been so long parted, another face came 
 between. 
 
 All at once the question Burlingame asked him 
 as to whether his wife was living came to him. 
 He had never for an instant thought of her as 
 dead, but now a sharp and terrifying anxiety 
 came to him. If his wife was living! Living? 
 Her death had never been even a remote possi- 
 
 [166]
 
 NIGHT SHADE 
 
 bility to his mind, though the parting had had 
 the decisiveness of death. Beneath all his 
 shrewdness and ability he was at heart a dreamer, 
 a romancist to whom life was an adventure in a 
 half-real world. 
 
 It was impossible to sleep. He tossed from 
 side to side. Once he got up in the dark and 
 drank great draughts of water; once again as he 
 thought of Mona, his wife, as she was in the first 
 days of their married life, a sudden impulse 
 seized him. He sprang from his bed, lit a can- 
 dle, went to the desk where his unopened letter 
 lay, and took it out. With the feeling that he 
 must destroy this record, this unread but, as he 
 knew, ugly record of their differences, and so 
 clear her memory of any cruelty, of any act of 
 anger, he was about to hold it to the flame of 
 the candle when he thought he heard a sound be- 
 hind him as of the door of his room gently clos- 
 ing. Laying the letter down, he went to the 
 door and opened it. There was no one stirring. 
 Yet he had a feeling as though some one was 
 there in the darkness. His lips framed the 
 words, "Who is it? Is any one there?" but he 
 did not utter them. 
 
 A kind of awe possessed him. He was Celtic; 
 [167]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 he had been fed on the supernatural when he was 
 a child; he had had strange, indefinable experi- 
 ences or hallucinations in the days when he lived 
 at Castlegarry, and all his life he had been a 
 friend of the mystical. It is hard to tell what 
 he thought as he stood there and peered into the 
 darkness of the other room the living-room of 
 the house. He was in a state of trance, almost 
 the victim of the night. But as he closed the 
 door softly the words of the song that Kitty 
 Tynan had sung to him the day when he found 
 her brushing his coat came to him and flooded his 
 brain. The last two verses of the song kept 
 drowning his sense of the actual, and he was 
 swayed by the superstition of bygone ancestors: 
 
 "Whereaway goes my lad tell me, has he gone alone? 
 
 Never harsh word did I speak, never hurt I gave; 
 Strong he was and beautiful; like a heron he has flown 
 
 Hereaway, hereaway will I make my grave. 
 
 "When once more the lad I loved hereaway, hereaway, 
 Comes to lay his hand in mine, kiss me on the brow, 
 
 I will whisper down the wind, he will weep to hear me 
 
 say 
 'Whereaway, whereaway goes my lover now !' " 
 
 [168]
 
 NIGHT SHADE 
 
 He went to bed again, but sleep would not 
 come. The verses of the lament kept singing in 
 his brain. He tossed from side to side, he sought 
 to control himself, but it was of no avail. Sud- 
 denly he remembered the bed of boughs he had 
 made for himself at the place where Kitty had 
 had her meeting with the Young Doctor the 
 previous day. Before he was shot he used to 
 sleep in the open in the summer time. If he 
 could get to sleep anywhere it would be there. 
 
 Hastily dressing himself in flannel shirt and 
 trousers, and dragging a blanket from the bed, 
 he found his way to the bedroom door, went into 
 the other room, and felt his way to the front door 
 which would open into the night. All at once 
 he was conscious of another presence in the room, 
 but the folk-song was still beating in his brain, 
 and he reproved himself for succumbing to fan- 
 tasy. Finding the front door in the dark, he 
 opened it and stepped outside. There was no 
 moon, but there were millions of stars in the blue 
 vault above, and there was enough light for 
 him to make his way to the place where he had 
 slept "hereaway and oft." 
 
 He knew that the bed of boughs would be dry, 
 [169]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 but the night would be his, and the good, cool 
 ground and the soughing of the pines and the 
 sweet infinitesimal and innumerable sounds of the 
 breathing earth, itself asleep. He found the 
 place and threw himself down. Why, here were 
 green boughs under him, not the dried remains 
 of what he had placed there! Kitty it was 
 Kitty, dear, gay, joyous, kind Kitty, who had 
 done this thing, thinking that he might want to 
 sleep in the open again after his illness. Kitty 
 it was she who had so thoughtfully served him; 
 Kitty, with the instinct of true, unselfish woman- 
 hood, with the gift of the outdoor life, with the 
 unpurchasable gift of friendship. What a girl 
 she was! How rich she could make the life of 
 a man! 
 
 "Hereaway my heart was soft ; when he kissed my happy 
 
 eyes, 
 Held my hand, and laid his cheek warm against my 
 
 brow, 
 Home I saw upon the earth, heaven stood there in the 
 
 skies 
 Whereaway, whereaway goes my lover now?" 
 
 How different she was, this child of the West, 
 of nature, from the woman he had left behind 
 in England the sophisticated, well-appointed, 
 [170]
 
 NIGHT SHADE 
 
 well-controlled girl too well-controlled even in 
 the first days of married life too well-con- 
 trolled for him who had the rushing impulses of 
 a Celtic warrier of olden days. Delicate, refined, 
 perfectly poised, and Kitty to her like a sun- 
 flower to a sprig of heliotrope. Mona Kitty, 
 the two names, the two who, so far, had touched 
 his life, each in her own way as none others had 
 done, they floated before his eyes till sight and 
 feeling grew dim. With a last effort he strove 
 to eject Kitty from his thoughts, for there was 
 the wife he had won in the race of life, and he 
 must stand by her, play the game, ride honestly, 
 even in exile from her, run straight, even with 
 that unopened, bitter, upbraiding letter in the 
 
 He fell asleep, and soon and slowly and ever 
 so dimly the opal light of the prairie dawn came 
 stealing over the landscape. With it came steal- 
 ing the figure of a girl towards the group of 
 trees where lay the man of Lammis on the bed 
 of green boughs which she had renewed for him. 
 She had followed him from the dark room where 
 she had waited near him through the night near 
 him, to be near him for the last time; alone with 
 him and the kind, holy night before the morrow 
 
 '
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 came which belonged to the other woman, who 
 had written to him as she never could have 
 written to any man in whose arms she ever had 
 lain. And the pity and the tragedy of it was 
 that he loved his wife the catfish wife. The 
 sharp, pitiless instinct of love told her that the 
 stirring in his veins which had come of late to 
 him, which beat higher, even poignantly, when 
 she was near him now, was only the reflection of 
 what he felt for his wife. She knew the unmerci- 
 ful truth, but it only deepened what she felt for 
 him, yet what she must put away from herself 
 after to-morrow. Those verses she wrote they 
 were to show that she had conquered herself! 
 Yet, but a few hours after, here she was kneel- 
 ing outside his door at night, here she was pur- 
 suing him to the place where he slept. The com- 
 ing of the other woman she knew well that she 
 was something to this man of men had roused 
 in her all she had felt, had terribly intensified 
 it. 
 
 She trembled, but she drew near, accompanied 
 by the heavenly odors of the freshened herbs and 
 foliage and the cool tenderness of the river close 
 by. In her white dress and loosened hair she was 
 like some spirit of a new-born world finding her 
 [172]
 
 NIGHT SHADE 
 
 way to the place she must call home. It was all 
 so dim, so like clouded silver, the trees and the 
 grass and the bushes and the night. Noiselessly 
 she stole over the grass and into the shadows of 
 the trees where he lay. Again aid again she 
 paused. What would she do if he was awake 
 and saw her'? She did not know. The moment 
 must take care of itself. She longed to find him 
 sleeping. 
 
 It was so. The hazy light showed his face up- 
 ward to the skies, his breast rising and falling in 
 a heavy, luxurious sleep. 
 
 She drew nearer and nearer till she was kneel- 
 ing beside him. His face was warm with colour 
 even in the night air warmer than she had ever 
 seen it. One hand lay across his chest and one 
 was thrown back over his head with the abandon 
 of perfect rest. All the anxiety and restlessness 
 which had tortured him had fled, and his man- 
 hood showed bold and serene in the lightening 
 dusk. 
 
 A sob almost broke from her as she gazed her 
 fill, then slowly she leaned over and softly 
 pressed her lips to his the first time that ever in 
 love they had been given to any man. She had 
 the impulse to throw her arms round him, but 
 [173]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 she mastered herself. He stirred, but he did not 
 wake. His lips moved as she withdrew hers. 
 
 "My darling," he said in the quick, broken way 
 of the dreamer. 
 
 She rose swiftly and fled away among the trees 
 towards the house. 
 
 What he had said in his sleep was it in 
 reality the words of unconsciousness, or was it 
 subconscious knowledge"? they kept ringing in 
 her ears. 
 
 "My darling!" he had said when she kissed 
 him. There was a light of joy in her eyes now, 
 though she felt that the words were meant for 
 another. Yet it was her kiss, her own kiss which 
 had made him say it. If but with happy eyes 
 she stole to her room. 
 
 [174]
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 "S. O. S." 
 
 AT breakfast next morning Kitty did not ap- 
 pear. Had it been possible she would have 
 fled into the far prairie and set up a lonely taber- 
 nacle there; for with the day came a reaction 
 from the courage possessing her the night before 
 and in the opal wakening of the dawn. When 
 broad daylight came she felt as though her bones 
 were water and her body a wisp of straw. She 
 could not bear to meet Shiel Crozier's eyes, and 
 thus it was she had an early breakfast on the plea 
 that she had ironing to do. She was not, how- 
 ever, prepared to see Jesse Bulrush drive up with 
 a buggy after breakfast and take Crozier away. 
 When she did see them at the gate the impulse 
 came to cry out to Crozier what to say she did 
 not know, but still to cry out. The cry on 
 her lips was that which she had seen in the news- 
 [175]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 paper the day before, the cry of the shipwrecked 
 seafarers, the signal of the wireless telegraphy, 
 "S. O. S." the piteous call, "Save Our Souls!" 
 It sprang to her lips, but it got no further save 
 in an unconscious whisper. On the instant she 
 felt so weak and shaken and lonely that she 
 wanted to lean upon some one stronger than her- 
 self; as she used to lean against her father while 
 he sat with one arm round her studying his rail- 
 way problems. She had been self-sufficient 
 enough all her life, "an independent little bird 
 of freedom," as Crozier had called her but she 
 was like a boat tossed on mountainous waves 
 now. 
 
 "S. O. S.! Save our souls!" 
 
 As though she really had made this poignant 
 call Crozier turned round in the buggy where he 
 sat with Jesse Bulrush, pale but erect; and, with 
 a strange instinct, he looked straight to where 
 she was. When he saw her his face flushed, he 
 could not have told why. Was it that there had 
 passed to him in his sleep the subconscious knowl- 
 edge of the kiss which Kitty had given him; and, 
 after all, had he said "My darling" to her and not 
 to the wife far away across the seas, as he 
 thought*? A strange feeling, as of secret inti- 
 [176]
 
 s . o . s . 
 
 macy, never felt before where Kitty was con- 
 cerned, passed through him now, and he was sud- 
 denly conscious that things were not as they had 
 ever been, that the old impersonal comradeship 
 had vanished. It disturbed, it almost shocked 
 him. Whereupon he made a valiant effort to 
 recover the old ground, to get out of the new at- 
 mosphere into the old, cheering air. 
 
 "Come and say good-bye, won't you?" he 
 called to her. 
 
 "S. O. S. S. O. S. S. O. S. !" was the cry 
 in her heart, but she called back to him from 
 her lips, "I can't. I'm too busy. Come back 
 soon, soldier." 
 
 With a wave of the hand he was gone. "Not 
 a care in the world she has," Crozier said to Jesse 
 Bulrush. "She's the sunniest creature Heaven 
 ever made." 
 
 "Too skittish for me," responded the other with 
 a sidelong look, for he had caught a note in Cro- 
 zier's voice which gave him a sudden suspicion. 
 
 "You want the kind you can drive with an 
 oat-straw and a chirp eh, my friend?" 
 
 "Well, I've got what I want," was the reply. 
 "Neither of us '11 kick over the traces." 
 
 "You are a lucky man," replied Crozier. 
 [177]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "You've got a remarkably big prize in the lot- 
 tery. She is a fine woman, is Nurse Egan, and 
 I owe her a great deal. I only hope things turn 
 out so well that I can give her a good, fat wed- 
 ding-present. But I sha'n't be able to do any- 
 thing that's close to my heart if I can't get the 
 cash for my share in the syndicate." 
 
 "Courage, soldier, as Kitty Tynan says," re- 
 sponded Jesse Bulrush cheerily. "You never 
 know your luck. The cash is waiting for you 
 somewhere, and it'll turn up, be sure of that." 
 
 "I'm not sure of that. I can see as plain as 
 your nose how Bradley and his clique have 
 blocked me everywhere from getting credit, 
 and I'd give five years of my life to beat 
 them in their dirty game. If I fail to get it at 
 Aspen Vale I'm done. But I'll have a try a 
 good, big try. How far exactly is it"? I've 
 never gone by this trail." 
 
 Bulrush shook his head reprovingly. "It's too 
 long a journey for you to take after your knock- 
 out. You're not fit to travel yet. I don't like 
 it a bit. Lydia said this morning it was a crime 
 against yourself, going off like this, and " 
 
 "Lydia? oh, yes, pardonnez moi^ m'sieu' ! I 
 did not know her name was Lydia." 
 [178]
 
 '8. O. S . ' 
 
 "I didn't either till after we were engaged." 
 
 Crozier stared in blank astonishment. "You 
 didn't know her name till after you were en- 
 gaged 4 ? What did you call her before that or 
 then 1 ?" 
 
 "Why, I called her Nurse," answered the fat 
 lover. "We all called her that, and it sounded 
 comfortable and homelike and good for every 
 day. It sounded as though you had confidence 
 and your life was in her hands a first-class you- 
 and-me kind of feeling." 
 
 "Why don't you stick to it, then?" 
 
 "She doesn't want it. She says it sounds so 
 old, and that I'd be calling her 'mother' next." 
 
 "And won't you*?" asked Crozier slyly. 
 
 "Everything in season," beamed Jesse, and he 
 shone, and was at once happy and composed. 
 
 Crozier relapsed into silence, for he was think- 
 ing that the lost years had been barren of chil- 
 dren. He turned back to the home they had 
 left. It was some distance away now, but he 
 could see Kitty still at the comer of the house 
 with a small harvest of laundered linen in her 
 hand. 
 
 "She made that fresh bed of boughs for me 
 ah, but I had a good sleep last night!" he added 
 [179]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 aloud. "I feel fit for the fight before me." He 
 drew himself up and began to nod here and there 
 to people who greeted him. 
 
 In the house behind them at that moment Kitty 
 was saying to her mother, "Where is he going, 
 mother?' 
 
 "To Aspen Vale," was the reply. "If you'd 
 been at breakfast you'd have heard. He'll be 
 gone two days, perhaps three." 
 
 Three days! She regretted now that she had 
 not said to herself, "Courage, soldier," and gone 
 to say good-bye to him when he called to her. 
 Perhaps she would not see him again till after 
 the other woman till after the wife came. 
 Then then the house would be empty; then the 
 house would be so still. And then John Sibley 
 would come and 
 
 [180]
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 IN THE CAMP OF THE 
 DESERTER 
 
 THREE days passed, but before they ended 
 there came another telegram from Mrs. Cro- 
 zier stating the time of her expected arrival at 
 Askatoon. It was addressed to Kitty, and Kitty 
 almost savagely tore it up into little pieces and 
 scattered it to the winds. She did not even wait 
 to show it to the Young Doctor; but he had a 
 subtle instinct as to why she did not; and he was 
 rather more puzzled than usual at what was pass- 
 ing before his eyes. In any case, the coming of 
 the wife must alter all the relations existing in 
 the household of the widow Tynan. The old, 
 unrestrained, careless friendship could not con- 
 tinue. The newcomer would import an element 
 of caste and class which would freeze mother 
 and daughter to the bones. Crozier was the es- 
 
 [181]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 sence of democracy, which in its purest form is 
 akin to the most aristocratic element and is easily 
 affiliated with it. He had no fear of Crozier. 
 Crozier would remain exactly the same; but 
 would not Crozier be whisked away out of Aska- 
 toon to a new fate, reconciled to being a receiver 
 of his wife's bounty*? 
 
 "If his wife gets her arms round his neck, and 
 if she wants to get them there, she will, and once 
 there he'll go with her like a gentleman," said 
 the Young Doctor sarcastically. Admiring 
 Crozier as he did, he also had underneath all his 
 knowledge of life a wholesome fear or an un- 
 reasonable apprehension of man's weakness where 
 a woman was concerned. The man who would 
 face a cannon's mouth would falter before the 
 face of a woman whom he could crumple with 
 one hand. 
 
 The wife arrived before Crozier returned, and 
 he and Kitty met the train. The local telegraph- 
 ist had not divulged to any one the contents of 
 the telegram to Kitty, and there were no staring 
 spectators on the platform. As the great express 
 stole in almost noiselessly, like a tired serpent, 
 Kitty watched its approach with outward cheer- 
 
 [182]
 
 THE CAMP OF THE DESERTER 
 
 fulness. She had braced herself to this moment 
 till she looked the most buoyant, joyous thing 
 in the world. It had not come easily. With 
 desperation she had fought a fight during these 
 three lonely days, till at last she had conquered, 
 sleeping each night on Crozier's bed of boughs 
 under the stars, and coming in with the opal light 
 of dawn. Now she leaned forward with heart 
 beating fast, but with smiling face and with 
 eyes so bright that she deceived the Young Doc- 
 tor. 
 
 There wai no sign of inward emotion, of hid- 
 den troubles, as she leaned forward to see the 
 great lady step from the train great in every 
 sense was this lady in her mind; imposing in stat- 
 ure, a Juno, a tragedy queen, a Zenobia, a daugh- 
 ter of the gods who would not stoop to conquer. 
 She looked in vain, however, for the Mrs. Cro- 
 zier she had imagined made no appearance from 
 the train. She hastened down the platform still 
 with keen eyes scanning the passengers who were 
 mostly alighting to stretch their legs and get a 
 breath of air. 
 
 "She's not here," she said at last darkly to the 
 Young Doctor who had followed her. 
 
 Then suddenly she saw emerge from a little 
 [183]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 group at the steps of a car a child in a long 
 dress so it seemed to her, the being was so 
 small and delicate and come forward, having 
 hastily said good-bye to her fellow-passengers. 
 As the Young Doctor said afterwards, "She 
 wasn't bigger than a fly," and she certainly was as 
 graceful and pretty and piquante as a child- 
 woman could be. 
 
 Now, with her alert, rather assertive blue eyes 
 she saw Kitty, and came forward. "Miss 
 Tynan 1 ?" she asked with a smile and an encom- 
 passing look. 
 
 Now Kitty was idiomatic in her speech at 
 times, and she occasionally used slang of the best 
 brand, but she avoided those colloquialisms which 
 were merely part of the vocabulary of the un- 
 educated. Indeed, she had had no inclination to 
 use them, for her father had set her a good 
 example, and she liked to hear good English 
 spoken. That was why Crozier's talk had been 
 like music to her; and she had been keen to dis- 
 tinguish between the studied rhetorical method 
 of Augustus Burlingame, who modelled himself 
 on the orators of all the continents, and was 
 what might be called a synthetic elocutionist. 
 Kitty herself was as simple and natural as a girl 
 
 [184]
 
 THE CAMP OF THE DESERTER 
 
 could be, and as a rule had herself in perfect com- 
 mand; but she was so stunned by the sight of 
 this petite person before her that in reply to Mrs. 
 Grazier's question she only said abruptly 
 
 "The same!" 
 
 Then she came to herself and could have bitten 
 her tongue out for that plunge into the vernacu- 
 lar of the West; and forthwith a great prejudice 
 was set up in her mind against Mona Crozier, in 
 whose eyes she caught a look of quizzical criti- 
 cism or, as she thought, contemptuous comment. 
 That for one instant she had been caught un- 
 awares and so had put herself at a disadvantage 
 angered her; but she had been embarrassed and 
 confounded by this miniature Juno, and her reply 
 was a vague echo of talk she heard around her 
 every day, purely mechanical and involuntary. 
 Also she could have choked the Young Doctor, 
 whom she caught looking at her with wondering 
 humour, as though he was trying to see "what 
 her game was" as he said to her afterwards. 
 
 It was all due to the fact that from the day 
 of the Logan Trial, and particularly from the day 
 when Shiel Crozier had told his life-story, she 
 had always imagined his wife as a stately 
 Amazonian being with the bust of a Juno and 
 
 [185]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 the carriage of a Boadicea. She had looked for 
 an empress in splendid garments, and and here 
 was a humming-bird of a woman, scarcely bigger 
 than a child, with the buzzing energy of a bee, 
 but with a queer sort of manfulness, too; with a 
 square, slightly projecting chin, as Kitty came 
 to notice afterwards; together with some small 
 lines about the mouth and at the eyes which were 
 indicative of trouble endured and suffering under- 
 gone. Kitty did not notice that, but the Young 
 Doctor took it in with his embracing glance as the 
 wife encompassed Kitty with her inward com- 
 ment, which was 
 
 "So this is the chit who wrote to me like a 
 mother !" 
 
 But Mona Crozier did not underestimate Kitty 
 for all that, and she wondered why it was that 
 Kitty had written as she did. One thing was 
 quite clear: Kitty had had good intentions, else 
 why have written at all 1 ? 
 
 All these thoughts had passed through the 
 mind of each with a good many others while they 
 were shaking hands, and the Young Doctor sum- 
 moned his man to carry Mona's hand luggage to 
 the extra buggy he had brought to the station. 
 One of the many other thoughts that were passing 
 [186]
 
 THE CAMP OF THE DESERTER 
 
 through three active minds was Kitty's inward 
 comment : 
 
 "Just think; this is the woman that he talked 
 of as if she was a sort of moving mountain which 
 would fall on you and crush you, if you didn't 
 look out!" 
 
 No doubt Crozier would have repudiated this 
 description of his conversation, but the fact was 
 he had unconsciously talked of Mona with a sort 
 of hush in his voice, as expressing his own awe; 
 for a woman to him was always something out- 
 side his real understanding. He had a romantic 
 mediaeval view, which translated weakness and 
 beauty into a miracle, and what psychologists 
 call "an inspired control." 
 
 "She's no bigger than than a wasp," said 
 Kitty to herself, after the Young Doctor had as- 
 sured Mrs. Crozier that her husband was almost 
 well again; that he had recovered more quickly 
 than was expected, and had gained strength won- 
 derfully after the crisis was passed. 
 
 "An elephant can crush you, but a wasp can 
 sting you," was Kitty's further inward comment, 
 "and that's why he was always nervous when he 
 spoke of her." Then, as the Young Doctor had 
 already done, she noticed the tiny lines about the 
 [187]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 tiny mouth, and the fine-spun webs about the 
 bird-bright eyes. 
 
 The Young Doctor attributed these lines 
 mostly to anxiety and inward suffering, but 
 Kitty set them down as the outward signs of an 
 inward fretfulness and quarrelsomeness, which 
 was rendered all the more offensive in her eyes 
 by the fact that Mona Crozier was the most spot- 
 less thing she had ever seen, at the end of a jour- 
 ney and this, a journey across a continent. 
 Orderliness and prim exactness, taste and fas- 
 tidiousness, tireless tidiness were seen in every 
 turn, in every fold of her dress, in the way every- 
 thing she wore had been put on, in the decision of 
 every step and gesture. 
 
 Kitty noticed all this, and she said to herself, 
 "Wound up like a watch, cut like a cameo," and 
 she instinctively felt the little dainty cameo 
 brooch at her own throat, the only jewelry she 
 ever wore, or had ever worn. 
 
 "Sensible of her not to bring a maid," com- 
 mented the Young Doctor inwardly. "That 
 would have thrown Kitty into a fit. But how 
 she manages to look like this after six thousand 
 miles of sea and land going is beyond me and 
 Crozier so rather careless in his ways! Not 
 
 [188]
 
 THE CAMP OF THE DESERTER 
 
 what you would call two notes in the same key 
 she and Crozier," he added as he told her she 
 need not trouble about her luggage, and took 
 charge of the checks for it. 
 
 "My husband was not well enough to come 
 to the train?" Mrs. Crozier asked, as the two- 
 seated "rig" started away with the ladies in the 
 back seat. 
 
 "Certainly, if he had known of your coming," 
 was Kitty's reply. 
 
 "You have not told him I was coming 1 ?" 
 
 "Wasn't it better to have a talk with you 
 first?" asked Kitty meaningly. 
 
 Mrs. Crozier almost nervously twitched the lit- 
 tle jet bag she carried, then she looked Kitty in 
 the eyes. 
 
 "You will, of course, have reason for thinking 
 so, if you say it," was her enigmatical reply. 
 "And of course you will tell me. You did not 
 say to him that you had written to me, or that 
 the doctor had cabled me?" 
 
 "Oh, you got his cable?" questioned Kitty 
 with a little ring of triumph in her voice, meant 
 to reach the ears of the Young Doctor. It did 
 reach him, and he replied to the question. 
 
 "We thought it better not; chiefly because he 
 
 [189]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 had for so many years held no communication 
 with you, and had lived well, you may say he 
 had lived a life that did not, unfortunately, take 
 you into account." 
 
 The little lady blushed, or flushed. "May I 
 ask how you know this to be so if it is so," she 
 asked, and there was the sharpness of the wasp 
 in her tone, as it seemed to Kitty. 
 
 "The Logan Trial I mentioned it in my let- 
 ter to you," interposed Kitty. "He was shot for 
 the evidence he gave at the trial. Well, at the 
 trial a great many questions were asked by a 
 lawyer who wanted to hurt him, and he an- 
 swered them." 
 
 "Why did the lawyer want to hurt him?" 
 Mona Crozier asked quickly. 
 
 "Just mean-hearted envy and spite and 
 deviltry," was Kitty's answer. "They were both 
 handsome men, and perhaps that was it." 
 
 "I never thought my husband handsome, 
 though he was always distinguished looking," 
 was the quiet reply. 
 
 "Ah, but you haven't seen him or heard from 
 him for so long!" remarked Kitty a little spite- 
 fully. 
 
 "How do you know that*?" Mrs. Crozier was 
 
 [190]
 
 THE CAMP OF THE DESERTER 
 
 nettled, though she did not show it; but Kitty 
 felt it was so, and was glad. 
 
 "He said so at the Logan Trial." 
 
 "Was that the kind of question asked at the 
 trial?" the wife quickly interjected. 
 
 "Yes, lots of that kind," returned Kitty. 
 
 "What was the object?" 
 
 "To make him look not so distinguished like 
 nothing. If a man wasn't handsome, but only 
 distinguished" Kitty's mood was dangerous 
 "and you make him look cheap, that's one advan- 
 tage, and " 
 
 Here the Young Doctor, having observed the 
 rising tide of antagonism in the tone of the voices 
 behind him, gently interposed, and made it clear 
 that the purpose was to throw a shadow on the 
 past of her husband in order to discredit his evi- 
 dence; to which Mrs. Crozier nodded her under- 
 standing. She liked the Young Doctor, as who 
 did not who came in contact with him, except 
 those who had fear of him, and who had an idea 
 that he could read their minds as he read their 
 bodies. And even this girl at her side Mona 
 Crozier realised that the part she had played was 
 evidently an unselfish one, though she felt with 
 strange accuracy and piercing intuition that what- 
 
 [191]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 ever her husband thought of the girl, the girl 
 thought too much of her husband. Somehow, 
 all in a moment, it made her sorry for the girl's 
 sake. The girl had meant well by her husband 
 in sending for his wife that was certain; and 
 she did not look bad. She was too neat, too 
 sedately and reservedly dressed, in spite of her 
 auriferous face and head and her burnished tone, 
 to be bad: too fearless in eye, too concentrated 
 to be the rover in fields where she had no tenure 
 or right. 
 
 She turned and looked Kitty squarely in the 
 eyes, and a new, softer look came into her own, 
 subduing what to Kitty was the challenging alert- 
 ness and selfish inquisitiveness and superficiality. 
 
 "You have been very good to Shiel you two 
 kind people," she said, and there came a sudden 
 faint mist to her eyes. 
 
 That was her lucky moment, and she spoke as 
 she did just in time, for Kitty was beginning to 
 resent her deeply; to dislike her far more than 
 was reasonable and certainly without any jus- 
 tice. 
 
 Kitty spoke up quickly. "Well, you see, he 
 was always kind and good to other people, and 
 that was why " 
 
 [192]
 
 THE CAMP OF THE DESERTER 
 
 "But that Mr. Burlingame did not like him"?" 
 The wife had a strange intuition regarding Mr. 
 Burlingame. She was sure that there was a 
 woman in the case the girl beside her? 
 
 "That was because Mr. Burlingame was not 
 kind or good to other people," was Kitty's sedate 
 response. 
 
 There was an undertone of reflection in the 
 voice which did not escape Mrs. Crozier's senses, 
 and it also caught the ear of the Young Doctor, 
 to whom there came a sudden revelation of the 
 reason why Burlingame had left Mrs. Tynan's 
 house. 
 
 "Oh !" exclaimed Mrs. Crozier enigmatic- 
 ally. Presently with a quick impulse of sup- 
 pressed excitement as she saw the Young Doctor 
 reining in the horses slowly, she added: "My 
 husband when have you arranged that I should 
 see him?" 
 
 "When he gets back home," Kitty replied 
 with an accent on the last word. 
 
 Mrs. Crozier started visibly. "When he gets 
 back home back from where he is not here 1 ?" 
 she asked with a look of anxiety and in a tone of 
 chagrin. She had come a long way, and she had 
 pictured this meeting at the end of the journey 
 [193]
 
 yOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 with a hundred variations, but never with this 
 one that she should not see him at once when 
 the journey was over. Was it hurt pride or dis- 
 appointed love which spoke in her face, in her 
 words? After all, it was bad enough that her 
 private life and affairs should be dragged out 
 in a court of law; that these two kind strangers 
 whom she had never seen till a few minutes ago, 
 should be in the inner circle of knowledge of the 
 life of her husband and herself, without her 
 self-esteem being hurt like this. She was very 
 woman, and the look of the thing was not nice to 
 her eyes, while it must belittle her in theirs. 
 Had this girl done it on purpose 4 ? Yet why 
 should she she who had so appealed to her to 
 come to him, have sought to humiliate her? 
 
 Kitty was not quite sure what she ought to 
 say. "You see, we expected him back before 
 this. He is very exact " 
 
 "Very exact?" asked Mrs. Crozier in astonish- 
 ment. This was a new phase of Shiel Crozier's 
 character. He must, indeed, have changed since 
 he had caused her so much anxiety in days gone 
 by. 
 
 "Usen't he to be so?" asked Kitty a little 
 viciously. "He is so very exact now," she added. 
 
 [194]
 
 THE CAMP OF THE DESERTER 
 
 "He expected to be back home before this" 
 how she loved to use that word home "and so 
 we thought he would be here when you arrived. 
 But he has been detained at Aspen Vale. He 
 had a big business deal on " 
 
 "A big business deal*? Is he is he in a large 
 way of business?" Mona asked almost incredu- 
 lously and breathlessly. Shiel Crozier in a large 
 way of business, in a big business deal it did 
 not seem possible. His had ever been the game 
 of chance. Business business? 
 
 "He doesn't talk himself, of course; that 
 wouldn't be like him" Kitty had joy in giving 
 this wife the character of her husband "but they 
 say that if he succeeds in what he's trying to do 
 now he will make a great deal of money." 
 
 "Then he has not made it yet?" asked Mrs. 
 Crozier. 
 
 "He has always been able to pay his board 
 regularly, with enough left for a pew in church," 
 answered Kitty with dry malice; for she mistook 
 the light in the other's eyes, and thought it was 
 avarice; and the love of money had no place in 
 Kitty's make-up. She herself would never have 
 been influenced by money where a man was con- 
 cerned. 
 
 [195]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "Here's the house," she quickly added; "our 
 home where Mr. Crozier lives. He has the 
 best room, so yours won't be quite so good. It's 
 mother's she's giving it up to you. I suppose 
 with your trunks and things you'll want a room 
 to yourself," added Kitty, not at all unconscious 
 that she was putting a phase of the problem of 
 Crozier and his wife in a very common-place way ; 
 but she did not look into Mrs. Crozier's face as 
 she said it. 
 
 Mrs. Crozier, however, was fully conscious of 
 the poignancy of the remark, and once again her 
 face flushed slightly though she retained outward 
 composure. 
 
 "Mother, mother, are you there 1 ?" Kitty called 
 as she escorted the wife up the garden walk. 
 
 An instant later Mrs. Tynan cheerfully wel- 
 comed the disturber of the peace of the home 
 where Shiel Crozier had been the central figure 
 for so long. 
 
 [196]
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 AT THE RECEIPT OF 
 CUSTOMS 
 
 "T T 7 HAT are you laughing at, Kitty? You 
 W cackle like a young hen with her first 
 egg." So spoke Mrs. Tynan to her daughter, 
 who alternately swung backwards and forwards 
 in a big rocking-chair, silently gazing into the dis- 
 tant sky, or sat still and "cackled" as her mother 
 had remarked. 
 
 A person of real observation and astuteness, 
 however, would have noticed that Kitty's laugh- 
 ter told a story which was not joy and gladness 
 neither good humour nor the abandonment of a 
 luxurious nature. It was reflectively scornful, it 
 was tinged with bitterness and had the smart of 
 the nettle. 
 
 Her mother's question only made her laugh the 
 [ 197 ]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 more, and at last Mrs. Tynan stooped over her 
 and said, "I could shake you, Kitty. You'd 
 make a snail fidget, and I've got enough to do to 
 keep my senses steady with all the house work 
 and now her in there!" She tossed a hand be- 
 hind her fretfully. 
 
 Quick with love for her mother as she always 
 was, Kitty caught the other's trembling hand. 
 "You've always had too much to do, mother 
 always been slaving for others. You've never 
 had time to think whether you're happy or not, 
 or whether you've got a problem that's what 
 people call things, when they've got so much time 
 on their hands that they make a play of their 
 inside feelings and work it up till it sets them 
 crazy." 
 
 Mrs. Tynan's mouth tightened and her brow 
 clouded. "I've had my problems too, but I al- 
 ways made quick work of them. They never had 
 a chance to overlay me like a mother overlays her 
 baby and kills it." 
 
 "Not 'like a mother overlays,' but 'as a mother 
 overlays,' " returned Kitty with a queer note to 
 her voice. "That's what they taught me at 
 school. The teacher was always picking us up 
 on that kind of thing. I said a thing worse than 
 [198]
 
 AT THE RECEIPT OF CUSTOMS 
 
 that when Mrs. Crozier " her fingers motioned 
 towards another room "came to-day. I don't 
 know what possessed me. I was off my trolly, 
 I suppose, as John Sibley puts it. Well, when 
 Mrs. James Shiel Gathorne Crozier said oh, so 
 sweetly and kindly 'You are Miss Tynan ?' 
 what do you think I replied 1 ? I said to her, 
 The same' !" 
 
 Rather an acidly satisfied smile came to Mrs. 
 Tynan's lips. "That was like the Slatterly 
 girls," she replied. "Your father would have 
 said it was the vernacular of the rail-head. He 
 was a great man for odd words, but he knew al- 
 ways just what he wanted to say and he said it 
 out. You've got his gift. You always say the 
 right thing, and I don't know why you made that 
 break with her of all people." 
 
 A meditative look came into Kitty's eyes. 
 "Mr. Crozier says every one has an imp that 
 loves to tease us, and trip us up, and make us 
 appear ridiculous before those we don't want to 
 have any advantage over us." 
 
 "I don't want Mrs. Crozier to have any ad- 
 vantage over you and me, I can tell you that. 
 Things'll never be the same here again, Kitty 
 dear, and we've all got on so well with him so 
 
 [199]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 considerate of every one, and a good friend al- 
 ways, and just one of us, and his sickness mak- 
 ing him seem like our own, and " 
 
 "Oh, hush will you hush, mother!' 1 inter- 
 posed Kitty sharply. "He's going away with 
 her back to the old country, and we might just 
 as well think about getting other boarders, for 
 I suppose Mr. Bulrush and his bonny bride will 
 set up a little bulrush tabernacle on the banks 
 of the Nile" she nodded in the direction of the 
 river outside "and they'll find a little Moses 
 and will treat it as their very own." 
 
 "Kitty, how can you!" 
 
 Kitty shrugged a shoulder. "It would be ri- 
 diculous for that pair to have one of their own. 
 It's only the young mother with a new baby that 
 looks natural to me." 
 
 "Don't talk that way, Kitty," rejoined her 
 mother sharply. "You aren't fit to judge of such 
 things." 
 
 "I will be before long," retorted her daughter. 
 "Anyway, Mrs. Crozier isn't any better able to 
 talk than I am," she added irrelevantly. "She 
 never was a mother." 
 
 "Don't blame her," said Mrs. Tynan severely. 
 "That's God's business. I'd be sorry for her, so 
 [200]
 
 AT THE RECEIPT OF CUSTOMS 
 
 far as that was concerned if I were you. It's not 
 her fault." 
 
 "It's an easy way of accounting for good un- 
 done," returned Kitty. "P'r'aps it was God's 
 fault, and p'r'aps if she had loved him more " 
 
 Mrs. Tynan's face flushed with sudden irrita- 
 tion and that fretful look came to her eyes which 
 accompanies a lack of comprehension. "Upon 
 my word, well, upon my word, of all the vixens 
 that ever lived, and you looking like a yellow 
 pansy and too sweet for daily use! Such 
 thoughts in your head who'd have believed that 
 you!" 
 
 Kitty made a mocking face at her mother. 
 "I'm more than a girl, I'm a woman, mother, who 
 sees life all around me from the insect to the 
 mountain, and I know things without being told. 
 I always did. Just life and living tell me things, 
 and maybe, too, the Irish in me that father was." 
 
 "It's so odd. You're such a mixture of fun 
 and fancy at least you always have been; but 
 there's something new in you these days. Kitty, 
 you make me afraid yes, you make your mother 
 afraid. After what you said the other day about 
 Mr. Crozier I've had bad nights, and I get nerv- 
 ous thinking." 
 
 [201]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 Kitty suddenly got up, put her arm round her 
 mother and kissed her. "You needn't be afraid 
 of me, mother. If there'd been any danger, any 
 real danger, I wouldn't have told you. Mr. 
 Crozier's away, and when he comes back he'll 
 find his wife here, and there's the end of anything 
 or any thinking. If there'd been danger, it 
 would have been settled the night before he went 
 away. I kissed him that night as he was sleep- 
 ing out there under the trees." 
 
 Mrs. Tynan sat down weakly and fanned her- 
 self with her apron. "Oh, oh, oh, dear Lord!" 
 she said. 
 
 "I'm not afraid to tell you anything I ever did, 
 mother," declared Kitty firmly; "though I'm not 
 prepared to tell you everything I've felt. I 
 kissed him as he slept. He didn't wake, he just 
 lay there sleeping sleeping." A strange dis- 
 tant dreaming look came into her eyes. She 
 smiled like one who saw a happy vision, and an 
 eerie expression stole into her face. "I didn't 
 want him to wake," she continued. "I asked 
 God not to let him wake. If he'd waked oh, 
 I'd have been ashamed enough till the day I died 
 in one way! Still he'd have understood, and 
 he'd have thought no harm. But it wouldn't have 
 
 [202]
 
 AT THE RECEIPT OF CUSTOMS 
 
 been fair to him and there's his wife in there," 
 she added, breaking off into a different tone. 
 "They're a long way above us up among the 
 peaks, and we're at the foot of the foothills, 
 mother; but he never made us feel that, did he*? 
 The difference between him and most of the men 
 I've ever seen! The difference!" 
 
 "There's the Young Doctor," said her mother 
 reproachfully. 
 
 "He him ! He's by himself, with some- 
 thing of every sort in him from the top to the 
 bottom. There's been a ditcher in his family, 
 and there may have been a duke. But Shiel 
 Crozier Shiel" she flushed as she said the name 
 like that, but a little touch of defiance came into 
 her face, too "he is all of one kind. He's not 
 a blend. And he's married to her in there!" 
 
 "You needn't speak in that tone about her. 
 She's as fine as can be." 
 
 "She's as fine as a bee!" retorted Kitty. 
 Again she laughed that mocking, almost mirth- 
 less laugh for which her mother had called her 
 to account a little while before. "You asked 
 me a while ago what I was laughing at, mother," 
 she continued. "Why, can't you guess*? Mr. 
 Crozier talked of her always as though she was 
 
 [203 ]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 well, like the pictures you've seen of Britannia, all 
 swelling and spreading, with her hand on a shield 
 and her face saying, 'Look at me and be good,' 
 and her eyes saying, 'Son of man, get upon thy 
 knees!' Why, I expected we all expected to 
 see a sort of great-goodness-gracious goddess, 
 that kept him frightened to death of her. Bless 
 you, he never opened her letter, he was so afraid 
 of her; and he used to breathe once or twice 
 hard like that, when he mentioned her" she 
 breathed with such mock awe that her mother 
 laughed with a little touch of kindly malice, too. 
 
 "Even her letter," Kitty continued remorse- 
 lessly; "it was as though she that little sprite 
 wrote it with a rod of chastisement, as the Bible 
 says. It " 
 
 "What do you know of the inside of that let- 
 ter*?" asked her mother staring. 
 
 "What the steam of the tea-kettle could let 
 me see," responded Kitty defiantly; and then, to 
 her shocked and astonished mother, she told what 
 she had done, and what the nature of the letter 
 was. 
 
 "I wanted to help him if I could, and I think 
 I'll be able to do it I've thought it all out," 
 Kitty added eagerly with a glint of steel in the 
 
 [204]
 
 AT THE RECEIPT OF CUSTOMS 
 
 gold of her eyes and a strange fantastic kind of 
 wisdom in her look. 
 
 "Kitty," said her mother severely and anx- 
 iously, "it's madness interfering with other peo- 
 ple's affairs of that kind. It never was any 
 use." 
 
 "This will be the exception to the rule," re- 
 turned Kitty. "There she is" again she 
 flicked a hand toward the other room "after 
 they've been parted five years. Well, she came 
 after she read my letter to her, and after I'd read 
 that unopened letter to him, which made me 
 know how to put it all to her. I've got intui- 
 tion that's Celtic and mad," she added with her 
 chin thrusting out at her mother, to whom the 
 Irish that her husband had been, which was so 
 deep in her daughter was ever a mystery to her, 
 and of which she was more or less afraid. 
 
 "I've got a plan, and I believe I know it 
 will work," Kitty continued. "I've been think- 
 ing and thinking, and if there's trouble between 
 them; if he says he isn't going on with her till 
 he's made his fortune ; if he throws that unopened 
 letter in her face, I'll bring in my invention to 
 deal with the problem, and then you'll see ! But 
 all this fuss for a little tiny button of a thing 
 [205 ]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 like that in there pshaw! Mr. Crozier is 
 worth a real queen with the beauty of one of the 
 Rhine maidens how he used to tell that story 
 of the Rhinegold do you remember! Wasn't 
 it grand*? Well, I am glad now that he's go- 
 ing yes, whatever trouble there may be, still he 
 is going. I feel it in my heart." 
 
 She paused and her eyes took on a sombre tone. 
 Presently with a slight husky pain in her voice, 
 like the faint echo of a wail, she went on: 
 "Now that he's going I'm glad we've had the 
 things he gave us, things that can't be taken away 
 from us. What you have enjoyed is yours for- 
 ever and ever. It's memory; and for one mo- 
 ment or for one day or one year of those things 
 you loved, there's fifty years, perhaps, for mem- 
 ory. Don't you remember the verses I cut out 
 of the newspaper: 
 
 'Time, the ruthless idol-breaker, 
 
 Smileless, cold iconoclast, 
 Though he rob us of our altars, 
 
 Cannot rob us of the past.' " 
 
 "That's the way your father used to talk," re- 
 plied her mother rather helplessly. "There's a 
 lot of poetry in you, Kitty." 
 [206]
 
 AT THE RECEIPT OF CUSTOMS 
 
 "More than there is in her*?" asked Kitty, 
 again indicating the region where Mrs. Crozier 
 was. 
 
 "There's as much poetry in her as there is in 
 in me. But she can do things that little bit of 
 a baby-woman can do things, Kitty. I know 
 women, and I tell you that if that woman hadn't 
 a penny, she'd set to and earn it; and if her hus- 
 band hadn't a penny, she'd make his home com- 
 fortable just the same somehow, for she's as ca- 
 pable as capable can be. She had her things un- 
 packed, her room in order herself she didn't 
 want your help or mine and herself with a 
 fresh dress on before you could turn round." 
 
 Kitty's eyes softened still more. "Well, if 
 she'd been poor he would never have left her, and 
 then they wouldn't have lost five years, think of 
 it, five years of life with the man you love lost 
 to you! and there wouldn't be this tough old 
 knot to untie now." 
 
 "She has suffered that little sparrow has suf- 
 fered, I tell you, Kitty. She has a grip on her- 
 self like like " 
 
 "Like Mr. Crozier with a bronco under his 
 hand," interjected Kitty. "She's too neat for 
 me too eternally spick and span for me, mother. 
 [207]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 It's as though the Being that made her said, 
 'Now I'll try and see if I can produce a model 
 of a grown-up, full-sized piece of my work.' 
 Mrs. Crozier is an exhibition model, and Shiel 
 Crozier's over six feet three, and loose and free, 
 and like a wapiti in his gait. If he was a wapiti 
 he'd carry the finest pair of antlers ever was." 
 
 "Kitty, you make me laugh," responded the 
 puzzled woman. "I declare, you're the most 
 whimsical creature, and " 
 
 At that moment there came a tapping at 
 the door behind them, and a small silvery voice 
 said, "May I come in*?" as the door opened and 
 Mrs. Crozier, very neatly and precisely yet pret- 
 tily dressed, entered. 
 
 "Please make yourself at home no need to 
 rap," answered Mrs. Tynan. "Out in the West 
 here we live in the open like. There's no room 
 closed to you, if you can put up with what there 
 is, though it's not what you're used to." 
 
 "For five months in the year during the past 
 five years I've lived in a house about half as large 
 as this," was Mrs. Crozier's reply. "With my 
 husband away there wasn't the need of much 
 room." 
 
 "Well, he only has one room here," responded 
 [208]
 
 AT THE RECEIPT OF CUSTOMS 
 
 Mrs. Tynan. "He never seemed too crowded 
 in it." 
 
 "Where is it*? Might I see it?" asked the 
 small, dark-eyed, dark-haired wife, with the little 
 touch of nectarine bloom and a little powder 
 also; and though she spoke in a matter-of-fact 
 tone there was a look of wistfulness in her eyes, 
 a gleam of which Kitty caught ere it passed. 
 
 "You've been separated, Mrs. Grozier," an- 
 swered the elder woman, "and I've no right to 
 let you into his room without his consent. 
 You've had no correspondence for five years 
 isn't that so?" 
 
 "Did he tell you that?" the regal little lady 
 asked composedly, but with an underglow of 
 anger in her eyes. 
 
 "He told the court that at the Logan Trial," 
 was the reply. 
 
 "At the murder trial he told that?" Mrs. 
 Crozier asked almost mechanically, her face gone 
 pale and a little haggard. 
 
 "He was obliged to answer when that wolf 
 Gus Burlingame was after him," interposed 
 Kitty with kindness in her tone, for, suddenly, 
 she saw through the outer walls of the little 
 wife's being into the inner courts. She saw that 
 [209]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 Mrs. Crozier loved her husband now, whatever 
 she had done in the past. The sight of love does 
 not beget compassion in a loveless heart, but 
 there was love in Kitty's heart; and it was even 
 greater than she would have wished any human 
 being to see; and by it she saw with radium clear- 
 ness behind the veil of the other woman's being. 
 
 "Surely he could have avoided answering 
 that," urged Mona Crozier bitterly. 
 
 "Only by telling a lie," Kitty quickly an- 
 swered, "and I don't believe he ever told a lie in 
 his life. Come," she added, "I will show you 
 his room. My mother needn't do it, and so she 
 won't be responsible. You have your rights as 
 a wife until they're denied you. You mustn't 
 come, mother," she said to Mrs. Tynan, and she 
 put a tender, golden hand on her arm. "This 
 way," she added to the little person in the pale 
 blue, which suited well her very dark hair, blue 
 eyes, and rose-touched cheeks. 
 
 [210]
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 KITTY SPEAKS HER MIND 
 AGAIN 
 
 A MOMENT later they stood inside Shiel 
 Crozier's room. The first glance his wife 
 gave encompassed the walls, the table, the 
 bureau, and the desk which contained her own 
 unopened letter. She was looking for a photo- 
 graph of herself. 
 
 There was none in the room, and a parched 
 and arid look came into her face. The glance 
 and its sequel did not escape Kitty's notice. 
 She knew well as who would not what Mona 
 Crozier was hoping to see, and she was human 
 enough to feel a kind of satisfaction in the wife's 
 evident chagrin and disappointment; for the un- 
 opened letter in the baize-covered desk which 
 she had read was sufficient warrant for a punish- 
 ment and penalty due the little lady, and not 
 [211]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 the less because it was so long delayed. Had not 
 Shiel Crozier had his bitter herbs to drink over 
 the past five years! 
 
 Moreover Kitty was sure beyond any doubt 
 at all that Shiel Crozier's wife, when she wrote 
 the letter, did not love her husband, or at least 
 did not love him in the right or true way. She 
 loved him only so far as her then selfish nature 
 permitted her to do; only in so far as the pride 
 of money which she had, and her husband had 
 not, allowed her to do; only in so far as the na- 
 ture of a tyrant could love (though the tyranny 
 was pink and white and sweetly perfumed and 
 had the lure of youth). In her primitive way 
 Kitty had intuitively apprehended the main 
 truth, and that was sufficient to justify her in 
 contributing to Mona Crozier's punishment. 
 
 Kitty's perceptions were true. At the start 
 Mona was in nature proportionate to her size; 
 and when she married she had not loved Crozier 
 as he had loved her. Maybe that was why 
 though he may not have admitted it to him- 
 self he could not bear to be beholden to her 
 when his ruin came. Love makes all things pos- 
 sible, and there is no humiliation in taking from 
 one who loves and is loved that uncapitalised 
 
 [212]
 
 KITTY SPEAKS HER MIND AGAIN 
 
 and communal partnership which is not of the 
 earth earthy. Perhaps that was why, though 
 Shiel loved her, he had had a bitterness which 
 galled his soul, why he had a determination to 
 win sufficient wealth to make himself independ- 
 ent of her. Down at the bottom of his chival- 
 rous Irish heart he had learned the truth, that to 
 be dependent on her would beget in her contempt 
 for him, and he would be only her paid paramour 
 and not her husband in the true sense. Quixotic 
 he had been, but under his quixotism there was at 
 least the shadow of a great tragical fact, and it 
 had made him a matrimonial deserter. Whether 
 tragedy or comedy would emerge was all on the 
 knees of the gods. 
 
 "It's a nice room, isn't it*?" asked Kitty when 
 there had passed from Mona Crozier's eyes the 
 glaze or mist not of tears, but stupefaction 
 which had followed her inspection of the walls, 
 the bureau, the table, and the desk. 
 
 "Most comfortable, and so very clean quite 
 spotless," the wife answered admiringly, and yet 
 a little drearily. It made her feel humiliated 
 that her man could live this narrow life of one 
 room without despair, with sufficient resistance 
 to the lure of her hundred and fifty thousand 
 
 [213]
 
 yOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 pounds and her own delicate and charming per- 
 son. Here, it would seem, he was content. One 
 easy chair made out of a barrel, a couch, a bed 
 a very narrow bed, like a soldier's, a bed for 
 himself alone a small table, a shelf on the wall 
 with a dozen books, a little table, a bureau, and 
 an old-fashioned, sloping- topped, shallow desk 
 covered with green baize, on high legs, so that 
 he could stand as he wrote (Crozier had made 
 that high stand for the desk himself) like a sol- 
 dier, too. That was what the room conveyed to 
 her the spirit of the soldier, bare, clean, strong, 
 sparse, a workshop and a chamber of sleep in 
 one, like the tent of an officer on the march. 
 After the feeling had come to her, to heighten the 
 sensation, she espied a little card hung under the 
 small mirror on the wall. There was writing on 
 it, and going nearer she saw in red pencil the 
 words, "Courage, soldier!" 
 
 These were the words which Kitty was so fond 
 of using, and Kitty had a thrill of triumph now as 
 she saw the woman whom Crozier had fled from 
 looking at the card. She herself had come and 
 looked at it many times since Crozier went away, 
 for he had only put it there just before he left 
 on this last expedition to Aspen Vale to carry 
 
 [214]
 
 KITTY SPEAKS HER MIND AGAIN 
 
 through his deal. It had brought a great joy 
 to Kitty's heart. It had made her feel that she 
 had some share in his life; that, in a way, she 
 had helped him on the march, the vivandiere who 
 carried the water-bag which would give him drink 
 when parched, battle-worn, or wounded. 
 
 Mona Crozier turned away from the card, 
 sadly reflecting that nothing in the room recalled 
 herself; that she was not here in the very core 
 of his life in even the smallest way. Yet this 
 girl, this sunny creature with the call of youth 
 and passion in her eyes, this Ruth of the wheat- 
 fields, came and went from this room as though 
 she was a part of it. She did this and that for 
 him, and no doubt was on such terms of intimacy 
 with him that they were part of each other's life 
 in a scheme of domesticity which was unlike any 
 boarding-house scheme or organisation she had 
 ever known. Here in everything there was the 
 air and the decorum and the unartificial comfort 
 of home. Visions of apartments and lodgings 
 and boarding-houses in the old land rose up be- 
 fore her, and the contrast was immeasurable. 
 
 This was why he could live without his wedded 
 wife and her gold and her brocade, and the silk 
 and the Persian rugs, and the grand piano and 
 [215]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 the carriages and the high silk hat from Picca- 
 dilly. Her husband had had the luxuries of 
 wealth, and here he was living like a Spartan 
 on his hill and alone; though he had a wife 
 whom men had besieged both before and after 
 marriage. A feeling of impotent indignation and 
 anger suddenly took possession of her. Here he 
 was with two women, unattached, one interest- 
 ing and good and agreeable and good looking, 
 and the other almost a beauty who were part 
 of the whole rustic scheme in which he lived. 
 They made him comfortable, they did the hun- 
 dred things that a valet or a fond wife would 
 do; they no doubt hung on every word he ut- 
 tered and he could be interesting beyond most 
 men. She had realised terribly how interesting 
 he was after he had fled; when men came about 
 her and talked to her in many ways, with many 
 variations, but always with the one tune behind 
 all they said; always making for the one goal, 
 no matter the point from which they started or 
 how circuitous their route. 
 
 As time went on she had hungrily longed to 
 
 see her husband, and other men had no power to 
 
 interest her; but still she had not sought to find 
 
 him. At first it had been offended pride, injured 
 
 [216]
 
 KITTY SPEAKS HER MIND AGAIN 
 
 self-esteem, in which the value of her own de- 
 sirable self and of her very desirable gold, was 
 not lost; then it became the pride of a wife in 
 whom the spirit of the eternal woman was work- 
 ing; and she would have died rather than have 
 sought to find him. Five years and not a word 
 from him. 
 
 Five years and not a letter from him! Her 
 eyes involuntarily fell on the high desk with the 
 green baize top. Of all the letters he had writ- 
 ten at that desk not one had been addressed to 
 her. Slowly, and with an unintentional solem- 
 nity, she went up to it and laid a hand upon it. 
 Her chin only cleared the edge of it he was a 
 tall man, her husband. 
 
 "This is the place of secrets, I suppose," she 
 said with a bright smile and at attempt at gaiety 
 to Kitty, who had watched her with burning 
 eyes; for she had felt the thrill of the moment. 
 She was as sensitive to atmosphere of this sad 
 play of life as nearly and as vitally as the de- 
 serted wife. 
 
 "I shouldn't think it a place of secrets," Kitty 
 answered after a moment. "He seldom locks it, 
 and when he does I know where the key is." 
 
 "Indeed?" Mona Crozier stiffened. A look of 
 [217]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 reproach and reprobation came into her eyes. It 
 was as though she was looking down from a great 
 height upon a poor creature who did not know 
 the first rudiments of personal honour, the fine 
 elemental customs of life. 
 
 Kitty saw and understood, but she did not 
 hasten to reply, or to set things right. She met 
 the lofty look unflinchingly, and she had pride 
 and some little malice too it would do Mrs. Cro- 
 zier good, she thought in saying, as she looked 
 down on the humming-bird trying to be an eagle : 
 
 "I've had to get things for him papers and 
 so on, and send them on when he was away, and 
 even when he was at home I've had to act for 
 him; and so even when it was locked I had to 
 know where the key was. He asked me to help 
 him that way." 
 
 Mona noted the stress laid upon the word 
 "home," and for the first time she had a suspicion 
 that this girl knew more than even the Logan 
 Trial had disclosed, and that she was being sa- 
 tirical and suggestive. 
 
 "Oh, of course," she returned cheerfully in re- 
 sponse to Kitty "you acted as a kind of clerk 
 for him!" 
 
 There was a note in her voice which she might 
 [218]
 
 KITTY SPEAKS HER MIND AGAIN 
 
 better not have used. If she but knew it, she 
 needed this girl's friendship very badly; and she 
 might have remembered that she would not have 
 been here in her husband's room had it not been 
 for the letter Kitty had written a letter which 
 had made her heart beat so hard when she re- 
 ceived it, that she had sunk helpless to the floor 
 on one of those soft rugs, representing the soft 
 comfort which money can bring. 
 
 The reply was like a slap in the face. 
 
 "I acted for him in any way at all that he 
 wished me to," Kitty answered with quiet bold- 
 ness and shining face. 
 
 Mona's hand fell away from the green baize 
 desk, and her eyes again lost their sight for a mo- 
 ment. Kitty was not savage by nature. She 
 had been goaded as much by the thought of the 
 letter Crozier's wife had written to him in the 
 hour of his ruin as by the presence of the woman 
 in this house, where things would never be as 
 they had been before. She had struck hard, and 
 now she was immediately sorry for it: for this 
 woman was here in response to her own appeal; 
 and, after all, she might well be jealous of the 
 fact that Crozier had had close to him for so long 
 and in such conditions a girl like herself, younger 
 [219]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUQK 
 
 than his own wife and prettier yes, certainly 
 prettier, she admitted to herself. 
 
 "He is that kind of a man. What he asked 
 for, any good woman could give and not be sorry," 
 Kitty added presently when the knife had gone 
 deep enough. 
 
 "Yes, he was that kind of a man," responded 
 the other gently now, and with a great sigh of 
 relief. Suddenly she came nearer and touched 
 Kitty's arm. "And thank you for saying so," 
 she added. "He and I have been so long parted, 
 and you have seen so much more of him than I 
 have of late years! You know him better as 
 he is. If I said something sharp just now, please 
 forgive me. I am indeed, I am grateful to you 
 and your mother." 
 
 She paused. It was hard for her to say what 
 she felt she must say, for she did not know how 
 her husband would receive her he had done 
 without her for so long; and she might need this 
 girl and her mother sorely. The girl was a 
 friend in the best sense, or she would not have 
 sent for her. She must remind herself of this 
 continually lest she should take wrong views. 
 
 Kitty nodded, but for a moment she did not 
 reply. Her hand was on the baize-covered desk. 
 
 [220]
 
 KITTY SPEAKS HER MIND AGAIN 
 
 All at once, with determination in her eyes, she 
 said: "You didn't use him right or you'd not 
 have been parted for five years. You were rich 
 and he was poor, he is poor now, though he may 
 be rich any day and he wouldn't stay with you 
 because he wouldn't take your money to live on. 
 If you had been a real wife to him he wouldn't 
 have seen that he'd be using your money; he'd 
 have taken it as though it was his own, out of 
 the purse which was always open and belonged 
 to both, just as if you were partners. You must 
 feel" 
 
 "Hush, for pity's sake, hush !" interrupted the 
 other. 
 
 "You are going to see him again," Kitty per- 
 sisted. "Now, don't you think it just as well to 
 know what the real truth is 1 ?" 
 
 "How do you know what is the truth 1 ?" asked 
 the trembling little stranger with a last attempt 
 to hold her position, to conceal from herself the 
 actual facts. 
 
 "The Young Doctor and my mother and I were 
 with him all the time he was ill after he was shot, 
 and the trial had only told half the truth. He 
 wanted us, his best friends here, to know the 
 whole truth, so he told us that he left you because 
 
 [221]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 he couldn't bear to live on your money. It was 
 you made him feel that, though he didn't say so. 
 All the time he told his story he spoke of you as 
 though you were some goddess, some great 
 queen " 
 
 A look of hope, of wonder, of relief came into 
 the tiny creature's eyes. "He spoke like that of 
 me; he said *?" 
 
 "He said what no one else would have said, 
 probably; but that's the way with people in love 
 they see what no one else sees, they think what 
 no one else thinks. He talked with a sort of hush 
 in his voice about you till we thought you must 
 be some stately, tall, splendid Helen of Troy 
 with a soul like an ocean, instead of " she was 
 going to say something that would have seemed 
 unkind, and she stopped herself in time "in- 
 stead of a sort of fairy, one of the little folk that 
 never grow up; the same as my father used to 
 tell me about." 
 
 "You think very badly of me, then 1 ?" returned 
 the other with a sigh. Her courage, her pride, 
 her attempt to control the situation had vanished 
 suddenly, and she became for the moment almost 
 the child she looked. 
 
 [222]
 
 KITTY SPEAKS HER MIND AGAIN 
 
 "We've only just begun. We're all his 
 friends here, and we'll judge you and think of 
 you according to what happens between you and 
 him. Ton wrote him that letter!" 
 
 She suddenly placed her hand on the desk as 
 the inspiration came to her to have this matter of 
 the letter out now, and to have Mrs. Crozier 
 know exactly what the position was, no matter 
 what might be thought of herself. She was only 
 thinking of Shiel Crozier and his future now. 
 
 "What letter did I write ?" There was real 
 surprise and wonder in her tone. 
 
 "That last letter you wrote to him the letter 
 in which you gave him fits for breaking his prom- 
 ise, and talked like a proud, angry angel from the 
 top of the stairs." 
 
 "How do you know of that letter"? He, my 
 husband, told you what was in that letter; he 
 showed it to you 4 ?" The voice was indignant, 
 low, and almost rough with anger. 
 
 "Yes, your husband showed me the letter un- 
 opened." 
 
 "Unopened I do not understand." Mona 
 steadied herself against the foot of the bed and 
 looked in a helpless way at Kitty. Her com- 
 
 [223]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 posure was gone, though she was very quiet, and 
 she had that look of a vital absorption which 
 possesses human beings in crises of their lives. 
 
 Suddenly Kitty took from behind a book on 
 a shelf a key, opened the desk, and took out the 
 letter which Crozier had kept sealed and unopened 
 all the years, which he had never read. 
 
 "Do you know that?" Kitty said, and held it 
 out for Mrs. Crozier to see. 
 
 Two dark-blue eyes stared confusedly at the 
 letter at her own handwriting. Kitty turned it 
 over. "You see it is sealed as it was when you 
 sent it to him. He has never opened it. He 
 does not know what is in it." 
 
 "He has kept it five years unopened," 
 Mona said in broken phrases scarce above a whis- 
 per. 
 
 "He has never opened it, as you see." 
 
 "Give give it to me," the wife said, stepping 
 forward to stay Kitty's hand as she opened the 
 lid of the desk to replace the letter. 
 
 "It's not your letter no, you shall not," said 
 Kitty fiimly as she jerked aside the hand laid 
 upon her wrist, and threw one arm on the lid, 
 holding it down as Mrs. Crozier tried to keep it 
 open. Then with a swift action of the other 
 
 [224.]
 
 KITTY SPEAKS HER MIND AGAIN 
 
 hand she locked the desk and put the key in her 
 pocket. 
 
 "If you destroyed this letter he would never 
 believe but that it was worse than it is; and it is 
 a bad enough letter, Heaven knows, for any 
 woman to have written to her husband or to 
 any one else's husband. You thought you were 
 the centre of the world when you wrote that let- 
 ter. Without a penny, he would be a great man, 
 with a great future, but you are only a pretty 
 little woman with a fortune, who has thought a 
 great lot of herself, and far too much of herself 
 only, when she wrote that letter." 
 
 "How do you know what is in that letter?" 
 There was agony and challenge at once in the 
 other's voice. 
 
 "Because I read it oh, don't look so shocked! 
 I'd do it again. I knew just how to act when 
 I'd read it. I steamed it open and closed it up 
 again. Then I wrote to you. I'm not sorry I 
 did it. My motive was a good one. I wanted 
 to help him. I wanted to understand everything, 
 so that I'd know best what to do. Though he's 
 so far above us in birth and position, he seemed 
 in one way like our own. That's the way it is 
 in new countries like this. We don't think of 
 [ 225 ]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 lots of things that you finer people in the old 
 countries do, and we don't think evil till it trips 
 us up. In a new country all are strangers among 
 the pioneers, and they have to come together. 
 This town is only twenty years old, and scarcely 
 anybody knew each other at the start. We had 
 to take each other on trust, and we think the best 
 as long as we can. Mr. Crozier came to live with 
 us, and soon he was just part of our life not a 
 boarder ; not some one staying the night who paid 
 you what he owed you in the morning. He was 
 a friend you could say your prayers with, or eat 
 your meals with, or ride a hundred miles with, 
 and just take it as a matter of course; for he was 
 part of what you were part of, all this out here 
 don't you understand*?" 
 
 "I am trying hard to do so," was the reply in 
 a hushed voice. Here was a world, here were 
 people of whom Mona Crozier had never 
 dreamed. They were so much of an antique 
 time far behind the time that her old land rep- 
 resented; not a new world, but the oldest world 
 of all. She began to understand the girl also, 
 and her face took on an understanding look, as 
 with eyes like bronze suns Kitty continued: 
 
 "So, though it was wrong wicked in one 
 [226]
 
 KITTY SPEAKS HER MIND AGAIN 
 
 way, I read the letter, as a mother would read 
 a letter written to her child, to do the child some 
 good by it, if it could be done. If I hadn't read 
 that letter you wouldn't be here. Was it worth 
 while my doing it 1 ?" 
 
 At that moment there was a knock at the outer 
 door of the other room, or, rather, on the lintel 
 of it. Mona started. Suppose it was her hus- 
 band that was her thought. 
 
 Kitty read the look. "No, it isn't Mr. Cro- 
 zier. It's the Young Doctor. I know his knock. 
 Will you come and see him"?" 
 
 The wife was trembling, she was very pale, 
 her eyes were rather staring, but she fought to 
 control herself. It was evident that Kitty ex- 
 pected her to do so. It was also quite certain 
 that Kitty meant to settle things now, in so far 
 as it could be done and in so far as the wife was 
 concerned. 
 
 "He loiows as much as you do 4 ?" asked Mrs. 
 Crozier. 
 
 "He has not read the letter and I haven't told 
 him what's in it; but he knows that I read it, 
 and what he doesn't know he guesses. He is Mr. 
 Grazier's honest, clever friend. I've got an idea 
 an invention to put this thing right. It's a 
 [227]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 good one. You'll see. But I want the Young 
 Doctor to know about it. He never has to think 
 twice. He knows what to do the very first 
 time/' 
 
 A moment later they were in the other room, 
 with the Young Doctor smiling down at "the lit- 
 tle spot of a woman," as he called Crozier's wife. 
 
 1 228 ]
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 AWAITING THE VERDICT 
 
 "A/'OU look quite settled and at home," the 
 A Young Doctor remarked, as he offered 
 Mrs. Crozier a chair. 
 
 She took it, for never in her life had she felt 
 so small physically since coming to the great, new 
 land. The islands where she was born wen in 
 themselves so miniature that the minds of their 
 people, however small, were not made to feel 
 insignificant. But her mind, which was, after all, 
 vastly larger in proportion than the body enshrin- 
 ing it, felt suddenly that both were lost in a uni- 
 verse. Her impulse was to let go and sink into 
 the helplessness of tears, to be overwhelmed by 
 an unconquerable loneliness; but the Celtic cour- 
 age in her, added to that ancient native pride 
 which prevents one woman from giving way be- 
 fore another woman towards whom she bears jeal- 
 
 [229]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 ousy or a desire to dominate, prevented her from 
 showing the weakness she felt. Instead, it 
 roused her vanity and made her choose to sit 
 down, so disguising perceptibly the disparity of 
 height which gave Kitty an advantage over her 
 and made the Young Doctor like some menacing 
 Polynesian god. 
 
 Both these people had an influence and au- 
 thority in Mona Crozier's life which was infinitely 
 greater than her fortune. Her fortune had not 
 kept her husband beside her when her delicate 
 and perfumed tyranny began to flutter its ban- 
 ners of control over him. Her fortune had 
 driven him forth when her beauty and her 
 love ought to have kept him close to her, no 
 matter what fate brought to their door, or what 
 his misfortune or the catastrophe falling on him. 
 It was all deeply humiliating, and the inward de- 
 jection made her now feel that her body was the 
 last effort of a failing creative power. So she 
 sat down instead of standing up in a vain effort 
 at retrieval. 
 
 The Young Doctor sat down also, but Kitty 
 
 did not, and she seemed Amazonian to Mona's 
 
 eyes. It must be said for Kitty that she remained 
 
 standing only because she felt she could not stay 
 
 [ 230]
 
 AWAITING THE VERDICT 
 
 fixed to one spot. A restlessness seized her which 
 did not exist when she was in Crozier's room with 
 Mona. It was now as though something was go- 
 ing to happen which she must face standing; as 
 though something was coming out of the unknown 
 and forbidding future and was making itself felt 
 before its time. Her eyes were almost painfully 
 bright as she moved about the room doing little 
 things. Presently she began to lay a cloth and 
 place dishes silently on the table long before 
 the proper time, as her mother, with a chid- 
 ing look, reminded her when she entered for a 
 moment and then quickly passed on into the 
 kitchen, at a warning glance from Kitty that 
 the Young Doctor and Mona were not to be dis- 
 turbed. 
 
 "Well, Askatoon is a place where one feels at 
 home quickly," added the Young Doctor, as 
 Mona did not at once respond to his first remark. 
 "Every one who comes here always feels as if 
 he or she owns the place. It's the way the 
 place is made. The trouble with most of us is 
 that we want to put the feeling into practice and 
 take possession of 'all and sundry.' Isn't that 
 true, Miss Tynan?" 
 
 "As true as most things you say," retorted 
 [231]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 Kitty, as she flicked the white tablecloth. "If 
 mother and I hadn't such wonderful good health 
 I suppose you'd come often enough here to give 
 you real possession. Do you know, Mrs. Crozier," 
 she added, with her wistful eyes vainly trying to 
 be merely mischievous, "he once charged me five 
 dollars for torturing me like a red Indian. I had 
 put my elbow out of joint, and he put it in again 
 with his knee and both hands, as though it was 
 the wheel of a wagon and he was trying to put 
 on a tire." 
 
 "Well, you were running round soon after," 
 answered the incorrigible joker. "But as for the 
 five dollars, I only took it to keep you quiet. So 
 long as you had a grievance you would talk in 
 spite of everything, and you never were so sur- 
 prised as when I took that five dollars." 
 
 "I've taken care never to dislocate my elbow 
 since." 
 
 "No, not your elbow" remarked the Young 
 Doctor dryly and meaningly, and turned to 
 Mona, who had now regained her composure. 
 
 "I sha'n't call you in to reduce the dislocation 
 that's the medical term, isn't it 1 ?" persisted 
 Kitty, with fire in her eyes. 
 
 "What is the dislocation*?" asked Mona, with 
 [232]
 
 AWAITING THE VERDICT 
 
 a subtle, inquiring look, but as socially as though 
 in her own drawing-room. 
 
 The Young Doctor smiled. "It's only her 
 way of saying that my mind is unhinged and 
 that I ought to be sent to a private hospital for 
 two." 
 
 "No only one," returned Kitty. 
 
 "Marriage means common catastrophe, doesn't 
 it*?" he asked quizzically. 
 
 "Generally it means that one only is perma- 
 nently injured," replied Kitty, lifting a tumbler 
 and looking through it at him as though to see 
 if the glass were properly polished. 
 
 Mona was mystified. At first she thought 
 there had been oblique references to her husband, 
 but these remarks about marriage would certainly 
 exclude him. Yet, would they exclude him? 
 During the time in which Shiel's history was not 
 known might there not have been but no, it 
 could not have been so, for it was Kitty who had 
 sent the letter which had brought her to Aska- 
 toon. 
 
 "Are you going to be married soon?" she 
 asked of Kitty, with a friendly yet trembling 
 smile, for her agitation was, after all, troubling 
 every nerve. 
 
 [233]
 
 yOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "I've thought of it quite lately," responded 
 Kitty calmly, seating herself now and looking 
 straight into the eyes of the woman, who was 
 suggesting more truth than she knew. 
 
 "May I congratulate you*? Am I justified on 
 such slight acquaintance*? I am sure you have 
 chosen wisely," was the smooth rejoinder. 
 
 Kitty did not shrink from looking Mona in 
 the eyes. "I'm not ready to receive congratula- 
 tions yet, and I'm not sure I've chosen wisely. 
 Some of my family strongly disapprove- I car': 
 help that, of course, and I may have to elope anc 
 take the consequences." 
 
 "It takes two to elope," interposed the Young 
 Doctor, who thought that Kitty, in her humor- 
 ous extravagance, was treading very dangerous 
 ground indeed. He only thought of Crozier and 
 Kitty; but Kitty was thinking of Crozier, but 
 meaning John Sibley. Somehow she could not 
 help playing with this torturing thing in the pres- 
 ence of the wife of the man who was the real 
 "man in possession" so far as her life was con- 
 cerned. 
 
 "But he is waiting on the door-step," replied 
 Kitty daringly and referring only to John Sib- 
 ley. 
 
 [234]
 
 AWAITING THE VERDICT 
 
 At that minute there was the crunch of gravel 
 on the pathway and the sound of a quick foot- 
 step. Kitty and Mona were on their feet at 
 once. Both recognised the step of Shiel Crozier. 
 Presently the Young Doctor also recognised it, 
 but in the presence of a situation so suddenly 
 matured he rose with more deliberation. 
 
 At that instant a voice calling from the road 
 arrested Crozier's steps to the open door of the 
 room where they were. It was Jesse Bulrush 
 asking a question. Crozier paused in his prog- 
 ress, and in the moment's time it gave, Kitty, 
 with a swift look of inquiry and with a burst of 
 the real soul in her, caught the hand of Crozier's 
 wife and gave it a swift pressure. Then, with 
 a face flushed and eyes that determinedly looked 
 straight ahead of her, she left the room as the 
 Young Doctor advanced to the doorway and 
 stepped outside. Within ten feet of the door he 
 met Crozier. 
 
 "How goes it, patient*?" he said, standing in 
 Crozier's way. Being a man who thought much 
 and wisely for other people, he wanted to give 
 the wife time to gather herself together. 
 
 "Right enough in your sphere of operations," 
 answered Crozier. 
 
 [235]
 
 YOU NE-VER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "And not so right in other fields, eh 4 ?" 
 "I've come back after a fruitless hunt. 
 They've got me, the thieves!" said Crozier, with 
 a look which gave his long face an almost tragic 
 austerity. Then suddenly the look changed, the 
 mediaeval remoteness passed, and a thought 
 flashed up into his eyes which made his expres- 
 sion alive with humour. 
 
 "Isn't it wonderful that just when a man feels 
 he wants a rope to hang himself with, the rope 
 isn't to be had?" he exclaimed. "Before he can 
 lay his hands on it he wants to hang somebody 
 else, and then he has to pause whether he will 
 or no. Did I ever tell you the story of the old 
 Irishwoman who lived down at Kenmare, in 
 County Kerry*? Well, she used to sit at her 
 doorway and lament the sorrows of the world 
 with a depth of passion that you'd think never 
 could be assuaged. 'Oh, I fale so bad, I am so 
 wake oh, I do fale so bad,' she used to say. 'I 
 wish some wan would take me by the ear and 
 lade me round to the ould shebeen, and set me 
 down, and fill a noggen of whisky and make me 
 dhrink it whether I would or no!' Whether 
 I would or no I have to drink the cup of self- 
 denial," Crozier continued, "though Bradley and 
 
 [236]
 
 AWAITING THE VERDICT 
 
 his gang have closed every door against me here, 
 and I've come back without what I went for at 
 Aspen Vale, for my men were away. I've come 
 back without what I went for, but I must just 
 grin and bear it." He shrugged his shoulders 
 and gave a great sigh. 
 
 "Perhaps you'll find what you went for here," 
 returned the Young Doctor meaningly. 
 
 "There's a lot here enough to make a man 
 think life worth while" inside the room the wife 
 shrank at the words, for she could hear all "but 
 I'm not thinking the thing I went to look for is 
 here just the same." 
 
 "You never know your luck," was the reply. 
 " 'Ask and you shall find, knock and it shall be 
 opened unto you' !" 
 
 The long face blazed up with humour again. 
 "Do you mean that I haven't asked you yet 1 ?" 
 Crozier remarked, with a quizzical look, which 
 had still that faint hope against hope which is 
 a painful thing for a good man's eyes to see. 
 
 The Young Doctor laid a hand on Crozier's 
 arm. "No, I didn't mean that, patient. I'm in 
 that state when every penny I have is out to keep 
 me from getting a fall. I'm in that Starwhon 
 coal mine down at Bethbridge, and it's like a 
 [237]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 suction-pump. I couldn't borrow a thousand 
 dollars myself now I can't, or I'd stand in with 
 you, Crozier. No, I can't help you a bit; but 
 step inside. There's a room in this house where 
 you got back your life by the help of a knife. 
 There's another room in there where you may 
 get back your fortune by the help of a wife." 
 
 Stepping aside he gave the wondering Crozier 
 a slight push forward into the doorway, then 
 left him and hurried round to the back of the 
 house, where he hoped he might see Kitty. 
 
 The Young Doctor found Kitty pumping 
 water on a pail of potatoes and stirring them with 
 a broom-handle. 
 
 "A most unscientific way of cleaning potatoes," 
 he said, as Kitty did not look at him. "If you 
 put them in a trough where the water could run 
 off, the dirt would go with the water, and you 
 wouldn't waste time and intelligence, and your 
 fingers would be cleaner in the end." 
 
 The only reply Kitty made was to flick the 
 broom-head at him. It had been dipped in water 
 and the spray from it slightly spattered his face. 
 
 "Will you never grow up 1 ?" he exclaimed as 
 he applied a handkerchief to his ruddy face. 
 
 [238]
 
 AWAITING THE VERDICT 
 
 "I'd like you so much better if you were 
 younger will you never be young *?" she asked. 
 
 "It makes a man old before his time to have 
 to meet you day by day and live near you." 
 
 "Why don't you try living with me 1 ?" she re- 
 torted. 
 
 "Ah, then, you meant me when you said to 
 Mrs. Crozier that you were going to be married? 
 Wasn't that a bit 'momentary,' as my mother's 
 cook used to remark. I think we haven't 'kept 
 company' you and I." 
 
 "It's true you haven't been a beau of mine 
 but I'd rather marry you than be obliged to live 
 with you," was the paradoxical retort. 
 
 "You have me this time," he said, trying in 
 vain to solve her reply. 
 
 Kitty tossed her head. "No, I haven't got 
 you this time, thank Heaven, and I don't want 
 you; but I'd rather marry you than live with 
 you, as I said. Isn't it the custom for really 
 nice-minded people to marry to get rid of each 
 other for five years, or for ever and ever and 
 ever." 
 
 "What a girl you are, Kitty Tynan!" he said 
 reprovingly. He saw that she meant Crozier 
 and his wife. 
 
 [239]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 Kitty ceased her work for an instant and, look- 
 ing away from him into the distance, said: 
 "Three people said those same words to me all 
 in one day a thousand years ago. It was Mr. 
 Crozier, Jesse Bulrush, and my mother; and now 
 you've said it a thousand years after; as with 
 your inexpensive education and slow mind you'd 
 be sure to do." 
 
 "I have an idea that Mrs. Crozier said the 
 same to you also this very day. Did she come, 
 did she?" 
 
 "She didn't say, 'What a girl you are,' but in 
 her mind she probably did say, 'What a vixen you 
 are.' " 
 
 The Young Doctor nodded satirically. "If 
 you continued as you began when coming from 
 the station, I'm sure she did; and also I'm sure 
 it wasn't wrong of her to say it." 
 
 "I wanted her to say it. That's why I uttered 
 the too, too utter-things, as the comic-opera says. 
 What else was there to do"? I had to help cure 
 her." 
 
 "To cure her of what, miss?" 
 
 "To cure her of herself, doctor-man." 
 
 The Young Doctor's look became graver. He 
 wondered greatly at this young girl's sage instinct 
 [240]
 
 AWAITING THE VERDICT 
 
 and penetration. "Of herself? Ah, yes, to 
 think more of some one else than herself! That 
 is" 
 
 "Yes, that is love," Kitty answered, her head 
 bent over the pail and stirring the potatoes hard. 
 
 "I suppose it is," he answered. 
 
 "I know it is," she returned. 
 
 "Is that why you are going to be married*?" he 
 asked quizzically. 
 
 "It will probably cure the man I marry of 
 himself," she retorted. "Oh, neither of us 
 know what we are talking about let's change 
 the subject!" she added impatiently now, with 
 a change of mood, as she poured the water off the 
 potatoes. 
 
 There was a moment's silence in which they 
 were both thinking of the same thing. "I won- 
 der how it's all going inside there?" he remarked. 
 "I hope all right, but I have my doubts." 
 
 "I haven't any doubt at all. It isn't going 
 right," she answered ruefully; "but it has to be 
 made go right." 
 
 "Whom do you think can do that?" 
 
 Kitty looked him frankly and decisively in the 
 eyes. Her eyes had the look of a dreaming 
 pietist for the moment. The deep-sea soul of 
 [241]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 her was awake. "I can do it if they don't break 
 away altogether at once. I helped her more than 
 you think. I told her I had opened that letter." 
 
 He gasped. "My dear girl that letter you 
 told her you had done such a thing, such !" 
 
 "Don't dear girl me, if you please. I know 
 what I am doing. I told her that and a great 
 deal more. She won't leave this house the 
 woman she was yesterday. She is having a quick 
 cure a cure while you wait." 
 
 "Perhaps he is cured of her," remarked the 
 Young Doctor very gravely. 
 
 "No, no, the disease might have got headway, 
 but it didn't," Kitty returned, her face turned 
 away. "He became a little better; but he was 
 never cured. That's the way with a man. He 
 can never forget a woman he has once cared for, 
 and he can go back to her half loving her; but 
 it isn't the case with a woman. There's nothing 
 so dead to a woman as a man when she's cured 
 of him. The woman is never dead to the man, 
 no matter what happens." 
 
 The Young Doctor regarded her with a 
 strange, new interest and a puzzled surprise. 
 "Sappho Sappho, I wonder how it is you know 
 these things," he exclaimed. "You are only a 
 
 [242]
 
 AWAITING THE VERDICT 
 
 girl at best, or something of a boy-girl at worst, 
 and yet you have, or think you have, got into 
 those places which are reserved for the old-timers 
 in life's game. You talk like an ancient dame." 
 
 Kitty smiled, but her eyes had a slumbering 
 look as if she was half-dreaming. "That's the 
 mistake most of you make men and women. 
 There's such a thing as instinct, and there's such 
 a thing as keeping your eyes open." 
 
 "What did Mrs. Crozier say when you told 
 her about opening that five-year-old letter 1 ? Did 
 she hate you?" 
 
 Kitty nodded with wistful whimsicality. 
 "For a minute she was like an industrious hornet. 
 Then I made her see she wouldn't have been here 
 at all if I hadn't opened it. That made her come 
 down from her high horse, and she said that, con- 
 sidering my opportunities, I was not so much of 
 an aboriginal after all." 
 
 "Now, look you, Sapphira, prospective wife of 
 Ananias, she didn't say that of course. Still it 
 doesn't matter, does it*? The point is, suppose 
 he opens that letter now." 
 
 "If he does, he'll probably not go with her. 
 It was a letter that would send a man out with 
 a scalping-knife. Still if Mr. Crozier had his 
 
 [243]
 
 yOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 land-deal through he might not read the letter 
 as it really is. His brain wouldn't then be grasp- 
 ing what his eyes saw." 
 
 "He hasn't got his land-deal through. He 
 told me so just now before he saw her." 
 
 "Then it's ora pro nobis it's pray for us 
 hard," rejoined Kitty sorrowfully. "Poor man 
 from County Kerry!" 
 
 At that moment Mrs. Tynan came from the 
 house, her face flushed, her manner slightly agi- 
 tated. "John Sibley is here, Kitty with two 
 saddle-horses. He says you promised to ride 
 with him to-day." 
 
 "I probably did," responded Kitty calmly. 
 "It's a good day for riding, too. But John will 
 have to wait. Please tell him to come back at 
 six o'clock. There'll be plenty of time for an 
 hour's ride before sundown." 
 
 "Are you lame, dear child*?" asked her mother 
 ironically. "Because if you're not, perhaps 
 you'll be your own messenger. It's no way to 
 treat a friend or whatever you like to call him." 
 
 Kitty smiled tenderly at her mother. "Then 
 would you mind telling him to come here, mother 
 darling 4 ? I'm giving this doctor-man a prescrip- 
 tion. Ah, please do what I ask you, mother! 
 [ 2-14 ]
 
 AWAITING THE VERDICT 
 
 It is true about the prescription. It's not for 
 himself; it's for the foreign people quarantined 
 inside." She nodded towards the room where 
 Shiel Crozier and his wife were shaping their 
 fate. 
 
 As her mother disappeared with a gesture of 
 impatience and the remark that she washed her 
 hands of the whole Sibley business, the Young 
 Doctor said to Kitty: "What is your prescrip- 
 tion, Mademoiselle Sapphira? Suppose they 
 come out of quarantine with a clean bill of 
 health?' 
 
 "If they do that you needn't make up the pre- 
 scription. But if Aspen Vale hasn't given him 
 what he wanted, then Mr. Shiel Crozier will still 
 be an exile from home and the angel in the 
 house." 
 
 "What is the prescription? Out with your 
 Sibylline leaves !" 
 
 "It's in that unopened letter. When the let- 
 ter is opened you'll see it effervesce like a seidlitz 
 powder." 
 
 "But suppose I am not here when the letter 
 is opened?" he questioned. 
 
 "You must be here you must. You'll stay 
 now, if you please." 
 
 [245]
 
 "I'm afraid I can't. I have patients waiting." 
 
 Kitty made an impetuous gesture of command. 
 "There are two patients here who are at the crisis 
 of their disease. You may be wanted to save 
 a life any minute now." 
 
 "I thought that with your prescription you 
 were to be the Esculapius." 
 
 "No, I'm only going to save the reputation 
 of Esculapius by giving him a prescription got 
 from a quack and given to a goose." 
 
 "Come, come, no names. You are incorrigible. 
 I believe you'd have your joke on your death- 
 bed." 
 
 "I should if you were there. I should die 
 laughing," Kitty retorted. 
 
 "There will be no death-bed for you, miss. 
 You'll be translated no, that's not right: no 
 one could translate you." 
 
 "God might or a man I loved well enough 
 not to marry him!" 
 
 There was a note of emotion in her laugh as 
 she uttered the words. It did not escape the ear 
 of the Young Doctor, who regarded her fixedly 
 for a moment before he said: "I'm not sure that 
 even He would be able to translate you. You 
 speak your own language, and it's surely orig- 
 
 [246]
 
 AWAITING THE VERDICT 
 
 inal. I am only just learning its alphabet. No 
 one else speaks it. I have a fear that you'll be 
 terribly lonely as you travel along the trail, Kitty 
 Tynan." 
 
 A light of pleasure came into Kitty's eyes, 
 though her face was a little drawn. "You really 
 do think I'm original that I'm myself and not 
 like anybody else*?" she asked him with a child- 
 like eagerness. 
 
 "Almost more than any one I ever met," an- 
 swered the Young Doctor gently; for he saw that 
 she had her own great troubles, and he also saw 
 now fully what this comedy or tragedy inside the 
 house meant to her. "But you're terribly lonely 
 and that's why: because you are the only one 
 of your kind." 
 
 "No, that's why I'm not going to be lonely," 
 she said, nodding towards the corner of the house 
 where John Sibley appeared. 
 
 Suddenly, with a gesture of confidence and al- 
 most of affection, she laid a hand on the Young 
 Doctor's breast. "I've left the trail, doctor-man. 
 I'm cutting across the prairie. Perhaps I shall 
 reach camp and perhaps I sha'n't; but anyhow 
 I'll know that I met one good man on the way. 
 And I also saw a rest-house that I'd like to have 
 [247]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 stayed at; but the blinds were drawn and the door 
 was locked." 
 
 There was a strange, eerie look in her face 
 again as her eyes of soft umber dwelt on his for 
 a moment; then she turned with a gay smile to 
 John Sibley, who had seen her hand on the 
 Young Doctor's chest without dismay; for the 
 joy of Kitty was that she hid nothing, and, any- 
 how, the Young Doctor had a place of his own; 
 and also, anyhow, Kitty did what she pleased. 
 Once when she had visited the Coast the Gov- 
 ernor had talked to her with great gusto and 
 friendliness; and she had even gone so far as to 
 touch his arm while, chuckling at her whimsical- 
 ity, he listened to a story she told him of life at 
 the rail-head. And the Governor had patted her 
 fingers in quite a fatherly way or not, as the 
 mind of the observer saw it; while subsequently 
 his secretary had written verses to her. 
 
 "So you've been gambling again you've 
 broken your promise to me," she said reprovingly 
 to Sibley, but with that wonderful, wistful 
 laughter in her eyes. 
 
 Sibley looked at her in astonishment. "Who 
 told you*?" he asked. It had only happened the 
 
 [248]
 
 AWAITING THE VERDICT 
 
 night before, and it didn't seem possible she could 
 know. 
 
 He was quite right. It wasn't possible she 
 could know, and she didn't know. She only di- 
 vined. 
 
 "I knew when you made the promise you 
 couldn't keep it; that's why I forgive you now," 
 she added. "Knowing what I did about you, I 
 oughtn't to have let you make it." 
 
 The Young Doctor saw in her words a mean- 
 ing that John Sibley could never have guessed 
 or understood, for it was a part of the story of 
 Crozier's life reproduced and with what a dif- 
 ferent ending! 
 
 [249]
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 MALE AND FEMALE CRE- 
 ATED HE THEM" 
 
 WHEN Crozier stepped out of the bright 
 sunlight into the shady living-room of 
 the Tynan home, his eyes were clouded by the 
 memory of his conference with Studd Bradley and 
 his financial associates, and by the desolate feel- 
 ing that the five years since he had left England 
 had brought him nothing nothing at all except 
 a new manhood. But that he did not count an 
 asset, because he had not himself taken account 
 of this new capital. He had never been a vain 
 or an introspective man in the philosophic sense, 
 and he never had thought that he was of much 
 account. He had lived long on his luck, and 
 nothing had come of it "nothing at all, at all," 
 as he said to himself when he stepped inside the 
 room where, unknown to him, his wife awaited 
 [250]
 
 CREATED HE 
 
 him. So abstracted was he, so disturbed was his 
 gaze (fixed on the inner thing) that he did not 
 see the figure in blue and white over against the 
 wall, her hand on the big armchair once belong- 
 ing to Tyndall Tynan, and now used always by 
 Shiel Crozier, "the white-haired boy of the Ty- 
 nan sanatorium," as Jesse Bulrush had called 
 him. 
 
 There was a strange timidity, and a fear not 
 so strange, in Mona's eyes as she saw her husband 
 enter with that quick step which she had so long- 
 ingly remembered after he had fled from her; but 
 of which she had taken less account when he was 
 with her at Lammis long ago when Crozier of 
 Lammis was with her long ago. How tall and 
 shapely he was! How large he loomed with the 
 light behind him! How shadowed his face and 
 how distant the look in his eyes! 
 
 Somehow the room seemed too small for him, 
 and yet he had lived in this very house for four 
 years and more, he had slept in the next room 
 all that time, had eaten at this table and sat in 
 this very chair Mrs. Tynan had told her that 
 for this long time, like the master of a house- 
 hold. With that far-away, brooding look in his 
 face, he seemed in one sense as distant from her 
 
 [251]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 as when she was in London in those dreary, deso- 
 late years with no knowledge of his whereabouts, 
 a widow in every sense save one; but in her acts 
 that had to be said for her a wife always and 
 not a widow. She had not turned elsewhere, 
 though there had been temptation enough to do so. 
 Crozier advanced to the centre of the room, 
 even to the table laid for dinner, before he was 
 conscious of some one in the room, of a figure 
 by the chair. For a moment he stood still, 
 startled as if he had seen a vision, and his sight 
 became blurred. When it cleared, Mona was a 
 step nearer to him, and then he saw her clearly, 
 He caught his breath as though life had burst 
 upon him with some staggering revelation. If 
 she had been a woman of genius, as in her way 
 Kitty Tynan was, she would have spoken before 
 he had a chance to do so. Instead, she wished 
 to see how he would greet her, to hear what he 
 would say. She was afraid of him now. It was 
 not her gift to do the right thing by perfect in- 
 stinct; she had to think things out; and so she 
 did now. But it has to be said for her that she 
 also had a strange, deep sense of apprehension 
 and anxiety in the presence of the man whose 
 arms had held her fast, and then let her go for so 
 [252]
 
 CREATED HE 
 
 bitter a length of time, in which her pride was 
 lacerated and her heart brought low. She did 
 not know how she was going to be met now, and 
 a womanly shyness held her back. If she had 
 said one word his name only it might have 
 made a world of difference to them both at that 
 moment; for he was tortured by failure, and at 
 the moment when hope was gone, here was the 
 woman whom he had left in order to force gifts 
 from fate to bring himself back to her. 
 
 "You you here!" he exclaimed hoarsely. 
 He did not open his arms to her or go a step 
 nearer to her. His look was that of blank 
 amazement, of confusion, of mingled memory and 
 stark realisation. This was a turn of affairs 
 for which he had made no calculation. There 
 had ever been the question of his return to her, 
 but never of her coming to him. Yet here she 
 was debonnaire and fresh and perfectly appointed 
 and ah, so terribly neat and spectacularly fi- 
 nessed! Here she was with all that expert 
 formality which, in the old days, had been a 
 reproach to his loosely-swung life and person, 
 to his careless, almost slovenly but well-brushed, 
 cleanly and polished ease not like his wife, as 
 though he had been poured out of a mould and 
 
 [253]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 set up to dry. He was not tailor-made, and she 
 had ever been so exact that it was as though she 
 had been crystallised, clothes and all a perfect 
 crystal, yet a crystal. It was this very perfec- 
 tion, so charming to see, but in a sense so in- 
 human, which had ever dismayed him. "What 
 should I be doing in the home of an angel!" he 
 had exclaimed to himself in the old home at Lam- 
 mis. 
 
 Truth is, he ought never to have had such a 
 feeling, and he would not have had it, if she had 
 diffused the radiance of love, which would have 
 made her outer perfectness mere slovenliness be- 
 side her inner charm and magnetism. Very lit- 
 tle of all this passed through Crozier's mind, as 
 with confused vision he looked at her. He had 
 borne the ordeal of the witness-box in the Logan 
 Trial with superb coolness ; he had been in physi- 
 cal danger over and over again, and had kept 
 his head; he had never been faced by a human 
 being who embarrassed him except his own 
 wife. "There is no fear like that of one's own 
 wife" was the saying of an ancient philosopher, 
 and Crozier had proved it true; not because of 
 errors committed, but because he was as sensitive 
 as a girl of sensibility; because he felt that his 
 
 [254]
 
 You YOU HERE!
 
 CREATED HE 
 
 wife did not understand him, and he was ever 
 in fear of doing the wrong thing, while eager 
 beyond telling to please her. After all, during 
 the past five years, parted from her while loving 
 her, there had still been a feeling of relief un- 
 explainable to himself in not having to think 
 whether he was pleasing her or not, or to reproach 
 himself constantly that he was failing to conform 
 to her standard. 
 
 "How did you come why*? How did 3^ou 
 know'?" he asked helplessly, as she made no mo- 
 tion to come nearer; as she kept looking at him 
 with an expression in her eyes wholly unfamiliar 
 to him yet not wholly unfamiliar, for it ap- 
 peared to belong somehow to the days when he 
 courted her, when she seemed to have got nearer 
 to him than in the more intimate relations of 
 married life. 
 
 "Is is that all you have to say to me, Shield" 
 she asked, with a swelling note of feeling in her 
 voice; while there was also emerging in her look 
 elusive pride which might quickly become sharp 
 indignation. That her deserter should greet her 
 so after five years of such offence to a woman's 
 self-respect, as might entitle her to become a rebel 
 against man and matrimony, was too cruel to be 
 
 [255]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 borne. This feeling suddenly became alive in 
 her, in spite of a joy in her heart different from 
 that which she had ever known; in defiance of 
 the fact that now that they were together once 
 more, what would she not do to prevent their 
 being driven apart again! 
 
 "After abandoning me for five years, is that 
 all you have to say to me, Shiel*? After I have 
 suffered before the world " 
 
 He threw up his arms with a passionate ges- 
 ture. "The world," he exclaimed "the devil 
 take the world ! I've been out of it for five years, 
 and well out of it. What do I care for the 
 world!" 
 
 She drew herself up in a spirit of defence. "It 
 isn't what you care for the world, but I had to 
 live in it alone, and because I was alone, I was 
 sneered at. It has been easy enough for you 
 you were where no one knew you. You had your 
 freedom" she advanced to the table and, as 
 though unconsciously, he did the same, and they 
 gazed at each other over the white linen and its 
 furnishings "and no one was saying that your 
 wife had left you for this or that, because of her 
 bad conduct or of yours. Either way it was not 
 [256]
 
 CREATED HE 
 
 what was fair and just; yet I had to bear and 
 suffer, not you. There is no pain like it. There 
 I was in misery and " 
 
 A bitter smile came to his lips. "A woman can 
 endure a good deal when she has all life's luxuries 
 in her grasp. Did you ever think, Mona, that 
 a man must suffer as much as can be endured 
 when he goes out into a world where he knows 
 no one, penniless, with no trade, no profession, 
 nothing except his own helpless self? He might 
 have stayed behind among the luxuries that be- 
 longed to another, and eaten from the hand of his 
 wife's charity, but" (all the pride and pain of the 
 old situation rose up in him, impelled by the 
 brooding of the years of separation, heightened 
 by the fact that he was no nearer to his goal of 
 financial independence of her than he was when 
 he left London five years before) "why, do you 
 think, no matter what I've done, broken a pledge 
 or not, been in the wrong a thousand times as 
 much as I was, that I'd be fed by the hand of one 
 to whom I had given a pledge and broken it? 
 Do you think that I'd give her the chance to say 
 aloud or to herself, day by day, C I forgive you; 
 I will give you your food and clothes and board 
 [257]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 and bed, but if you are not good in the future, I 
 will be very, very angry with you.' Do you 
 think?' 
 
 His face was flaming now. The pent-up-flood 
 of remorse and resentment and pride and love 
 the love that tore itself in pieces because it 
 had not the pride and self-respect which independ- 
 ence as to money gives broke forth in him, 
 fresh as he was from a brutal interview with the 
 financial clique whom he had given the chance to 
 make much money, and who were now, for a few 
 thousand dollars, trying to cudgel him out of his 
 one opportunity to regain a lost place in his lost 
 world. 
 
 "I live I live like this," he continued, with 
 a gesture that embraced the room where they 
 were, "and I have one room to myself where I 
 have lived 'over four years" he pointed to it. 
 "Do you think I would choose this and all it 
 means its poverty and its crudeness, its distance 
 from all I ever had and all my people had, if I 
 could have stood the other thing a pauper tak- 
 ing pennies from his own wife"? I had had taste 
 enough of it while I had a little something left; 
 but when I lost everything on Flamingo, and I 
 was a beggar, I knew I could not stand the whole 
 
 [258]
 
 CREATED HE THEM 
 
 thing. I could not, would not, go under the poor- 
 law and accept you, with the lash of a broken 
 pledge in your hand, as my guardian. So that's 
 why I left, and that's why I stay here, and that's 
 why I'm going to stay here, Mona." 
 
 He looked at her firmly, though his face had 
 that illumination which the spirit in his eyes 
 the Celtic fire drawn through the veins of his 
 ancestors gave to all he did and felt; and now 
 as in a dream he saw little things in her he had 
 never seen before. He saw that a little strand 
 of her beautiful dark hair had broken away from 
 its ordered place and hung prettily against the 
 rosy, fevered skin of her cheek just beside her ear. 
 He saw that there were no rings on her fingers 
 save one, and that was her wedding-ring and 
 she had always been fond of wearing rings. He 
 noted involuntarily that in her agitation the white 
 tulle at her bosom had been disturbed into pretty 
 disarray, and that there was neither brooch nor 
 necklace at her breast or throat. 
 
 "If you stay, I am going to stay, too," she de- 
 clared in an even yet almost passionate voice, and 
 she spoke with deliberation and a look which left 
 no way open to doubt. She was now a valiant 
 little figure making a fight for happiness. 
 
 [259]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "I can't prevent that," he responded stub- 
 bornly. 
 
 She made a quick, appealing motion of her 
 hands. "Would you prevent it 1 ? Aren't you 
 glad to see me? Don't you love me any more*? 
 You used to love me. In spite of all, you used 
 to love me. Even though you hated my money 
 and I hated your gambling your betting on 
 horses. You used to love me I was sure you 
 did then. Don't you love me now, Shiel*?" 
 
 A gloomy look passed over his face. Memory 
 of other days was admonishing him. "What is 
 the good of one loving when the other doesn't"? 
 And, anyhow, I made up my mind five years ago 
 that I would not live on my wife. I haven't 
 done so, and I don't mean to do so. I don't mean 
 to take a penny of your money. I should curse 
 it to damnation if I was living on it. I'm not, 
 and I don't mean to do so." 
 
 "Then I'll stay here and work, too, without 
 it," she urged, with a light in her eyes which they 
 had never known. 
 
 He laughed mirthlessly. "What could you 
 do*? you never did a day's work in your life!" 
 
 "You could teach me how, Shiel." 
 [260]
 
 CREATED HE THEM 
 
 His jaw jerked in a way it had when he was 
 incredulous. "You used to say I was only 
 mark you, only a dreamer and a sportsman. 
 Well, I'm no longer a dreamer and a sportsman; 
 I'm a practical man. I've done with dreaming 
 and sportsmanship. I can look at a situation as 
 it is, and " 
 
 "You are dreaming but yes, you are dream- 
 ing still," she interjected. "And you are a sports- 
 man still, but it is the sport of a dreamer, and a 
 mad dreamer, too. Shiel, in spite of all my faults 
 in the past, I come to you, to stay with you, to 
 live on what you earn if you like, if it's only a 
 loaf of bread a day. I I don't care about my 
 money. I don't care about the luxuries which 
 money can buy; I can do without them if I have 
 you. Am I not to stay, and won't you won't 
 you kiss me, Shiel?" 
 
 She came close to him came round the table 
 till she stood within a few feet of him. 
 
 There was one trembling instant when he 
 would have taken her hungrily into his arms, but 
 as if some evil spirit interposed with malign 
 purpose, there came the sound of feet on the 
 gravel outside, and the figure of a man darkened 
 
 [261]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 the doorway. It was Augustus Burlingame, 
 whose face as he saw Mona Crozier took on an 
 ironical smile. 
 
 "Yes what do you want?" inquired Crozier 
 quietly. 
 
 "A few words with Mr. Crozier on business, 
 if he is not too much occupied?" 
 
 "What business?" 
 
 "I am acting for Messrs. Bradley, Willingden, 
 Baxter, and Simmons." 
 
 The cloud darkened on Crozier's face. His 
 lips tightened, his face hardened. "I will see 
 you in a moment wait outside, please," he 
 added, as Burlingame made as though to step in- 
 side. "Wait at the gate," he added quietly, but 
 with undisguised antipathy. 
 
 The moment of moments for Mona and him- 
 self had passed. All the bitterness of defeat was 
 on him a^ain. All the humiliation of undeserved ' 
 
 o 
 
 failure to accomplish what had been the dear de- 
 sire of five years bore down his spirit now. Sud- 
 denly he had a suspicion that his wife had re- 
 ceived information of his whereabouts from this 
 very man, Burlingame. Had not the Young 
 Doctor said that Burlingame had written to law- 
 yers in the old land to get information concerning 
 
 [262]
 
 CREATED HE THEM 
 
 him? Was it not more than likely that he had 
 given his wife the knowledge which had brought 
 her here*? 
 
 When Burlingame had disappeared he turned 
 to Mona. "Who told you I was here? Who 
 wrote to you*?" he asked darkly. The light had 
 died away from his face. It was ascetic in its 
 lonely gravity now. 
 
 "Your doctor cabled to Castlegarry and Miss 
 Tynan wrote to me." 
 
 A faint flush spread over Crozier's face. 
 "How did Miss Tynan know where to write?" 
 
 Mona had told the truth at once because she 
 felt it was the only way. Now, however, she 
 was in a position where she must either tell him 
 that Kitty had opened that still sealed letter from 
 herself to him which he had carried all these 
 years; or else tell him an untruth. She had no 
 right to tell him what Kitty had told her. There 
 was no other way save to lie. 
 
 "How should I know? It was enough for me 
 to get her letter," she replied. 
 
 "At Castlegarry?" 
 
 What was there to do? She must keep faith 
 with Kitty, who had given her this sight of her 
 husband again. 
 
 [ 263]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "Forwarded from Lammis," she said. "It 
 reached me before the doctor's cable." 
 
 So it was Kitty Kitty Tynan who had 
 brought his wife to this new home from which 
 he had been trying so hard to get back to the old 
 home. Kitty, the angel of the house! 
 
 "You wrote me a letter which drove me from 
 home," he said heavily. 
 
 "No no no," she protested. "It was not 
 that. I know it was not that. It was my money 
 it was that which drove you away. You have 
 just said so." 
 
 "You wrote me a hateful letter," he persisted. 
 "You didn't want to see me. You sent it to me 
 by your kind, sweet young brother!" 
 
 Her eyes flashed. "My letter did not drive 
 you away. It couldn't have. You went because 
 you did not love me that and my money not 
 the letter, not the letter." 
 
 Somehow she had a curious feeling that the 
 very letter which contained her bitter and hateful 
 reproaches might save her yet. The fact that he 
 had not opened it well, she must see Kitty 
 again. Her husband was in a dark mood. She 
 must wait. She knew that her fortunate moment 
 [264]
 
 CREATED HE THEM 
 
 had passed when the rogue Burlingame appeared. 
 She must wait for another. 
 
 "Shall I go now? You want to see that man 
 outside. Shall I go, Shiel*?" She was very pale, 
 very quiet, steady, and gentle. 
 
 "I must hear what that fellow has to say. It 
 is business important," he replied. "It may 
 mean anything everything, or nothing." 
 
 As she left the room he had an impulse to call 
 her back, but he conquered it. 
 
 [265]
 
 FOR a moment Crozier stood looking at the 
 closed doorway through which Mona had 
 gone, with a look of repentant affection in his 
 eyes; but as the thought of his own helpless in- 
 solvency and broken hopes flashed across his mind, 
 a look of dark and harassed reflection shadowed 
 his face. He turned to the front doorway with 
 a savage gesture. The mutilated dignity of his 
 manhood, the broken pride of a lifetime, the bit- 
 terness in his heart need not be held in check in 
 dealing with the man who waited to give him a 
 last thrust of enmity. 
 
 He left the house. Burlingame was seated on 
 the stump of a tree which had been made into 
 a seat. 
 
 [266]
 
 MIDNIGHT IS NOT FAR OFF 
 
 "Come to my room if you have business with 
 me," Crozier said sharply. 
 
 As they went, Crozier swung aside from the 
 front door towards the comer of the house. 
 
 "The back way*?" asked Burlingame with a 
 sneer. 
 
 "You ought to feel that familiar," was the 
 smarting reply. "In any case, you are not wel- 
 come in Mrs. Tynan's part of the house. My 
 room is my own, and I should prefer you within 
 four walls while we do our business." 
 
 Burlingame's face changed colour slightly, for 
 the tone of Crozier's voice, the grimness of his 
 manner, suggested an abnormal condition. Bur- 
 lingame was not a brave man physically. He 
 had never lived the outdoor life, though he had 
 lived so much among outdoor people. He was 
 that rare thing in a new land, a decadent, a 
 connoisseur in vice, a lover of opiates and 
 of liquor. He was young enough yet not to 
 be incapacitated by it. His face and hands 
 were white and a little flabby, and he wore his 
 hair rather long, which, it is said, accounts for 
 much weakness in some men, on the assumption 
 that long hair wastes the strength! But Bur- 
 lingame quickly remembered the attitude of the 
 [267]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 lady Crozier's wife, he was certain and her 
 husband in the dining-room a few moments be- 
 fore, and to his suspicious eyes it was not char- 
 acteristic of a happy family party. No doubt 
 this grimness of Crozier was due to domestic 
 trouble and not wholly to his own presence. 
 Still, he felt softly for the tiny pistol he always 
 carried in his big waistcoat-pocket, and it com- 
 forted him. 
 
 Beyond the corner of the house Crozier paused 
 and took a key from his pocket. It opened a 
 side-door to his own room, seldom used, since it 
 was always so pleasant in this happy home to go 
 through the main living-room, which every one 
 liked so much that, though it was not the dining- 
 room, it was constantly used as such, and though 
 is was not the parlour, it was its constant sub- 
 stitute. Opening the door Crozier stepped aside 
 to let Burlingame pass. It was over two years 
 since Burlingame had been in this room, and 
 then it had been without invitation. His in- 
 quisitiveness had led him to enter it in the old 
 days when he lived in the house before he was 
 ejected from it. 
 
 Entering now, he gave it quick scrutiny. It 
 was clear that he was looking for something in 
 
 [268 ]
 
 MIDNIGHT IS NOT FAR OFF 
 
 particular. He was, in fact, looking for signs of 
 its occupancy by another than Shiel Crozier 
 tokens of a woman's presence. There was, how- 
 ever, no sign at all of a woman's presence, though 
 there were signs of a woman's care and attention 
 in a number of little things homelike, solici- 
 tous, perhaps affectionate care and attention. 
 Certainly the spotless pillows, the pretty curtains, 
 the pincushion, and charmingly valanced bed and 
 shelves, cheap though the material was, showed 
 a woman's very friendly care. When he lived 
 in that house there were no such little attentions 
 paid to him! It was his experience that where 
 such attentions went other things accompanied 
 them. A sensualist himself, it was not conceiv- 
 able to him that men and women could be under 
 the same roof without "passages of sympathetic 
 friendship and tokens of affinity" that was a 
 phrase which he had often used when pursuing 
 his own sort of happiness. 
 
 His swift scrutiny of the room showed that 
 Crozier's wife had no habitation here, and that 
 gave him his cue for what the French call "the 
 reconstruction of the crime." It certainly was 
 clear that, as he had suggested at the Logan 
 Trial, there was serious trouble in the Crozier 
 
 [269]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 family of two, and the offender must naturally 
 be the man who had flown, not the woman who 
 had stayed. Here was the logic of facts. 
 
 His suggestive glance, the look in his face, did 
 not escape the eye of Crozier, who read it all 
 aright; and a primitive expression of natural an- 
 tipathy passed across his mediaeval face, making 
 it almost inquisitorial in its dominant effect. 
 
 "Will you wish to sit*?" he said, however, with 
 the courtesy he could never avoid ; and he pointed 
 to a chair beside the little table in the centre of 
 the room. 
 
 As Burlingame sat down he noticed on the 
 table a crumpled handkerchief. It had lettering 
 in the corner. He spread it out slightly with 
 his fingers, as though abstractedly thinking of 
 what he was about to say. The initial in the 
 corner was K. Kitty had left it on the table 
 while she was talking to Mrs. Crozier a half-hour 
 before. No matter what Burlingame actually 
 thought or believed, he could not now resist pick- 
 ing up the handkerchief and looking at it with 
 a mocking smile. It was too good a chance to 
 miss. He still hugged to his evil heart the hu- 
 miliating remembrance of his expulsion from this 
 house, the share which Crozier had had in it, 
 [270]
 
 MIDNIGHT IS NOT FAR OFF 
 
 and the things which Crozier had said to him 
 then. He had his Crozier now between the upper 
 and the nether mill-stones, and he meant to grind 
 him to the flour of utter abasement. It was clear 
 that the arrival of Mrs. Crozier had brought him 
 no relief, for Crozier' s face was not that of a 
 man who had found and opened a casket of good 
 fortune. 
 
 "Rather dangerous that, in the bedroom of a 
 family man!" he said, picking up the handker- 
 chief and looking suggestively from the letter- 
 ing in th corner to Crozier. He laid it down 
 again, smiling detestably. 
 
 Crozier calmly picked up the handkerchief, saw 
 the lettering, then went quietly to the door of the 
 room and called Mrs. Tynan's name once or 
 twice. Presently she appeared. Crozier beck- 
 oned her into the room. When she entered he 
 closed the door behind her. 
 
 "Mrs. Tynan," he said, "this fellow found 
 your daughter's handkerchief on my table, and he 
 has said regarding it, 'Rather dangerous that, in 
 the bedroom of a family man.' What would 
 you like me to do with him^" 
 
 Mrs. Tynan walked up to Burlingame with the 
 look of a woman of the Commune and said: "If 
 [271]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 I had a son I would disown him if he didn't 
 mangle you till your wife would never know you 
 again, you loathsome thing. There isn't a man 
 or woman in Askatoon who would believe your 
 sickening slanders, for every one knows what you 
 are. How dare you enter this house"? If the 
 men of Askatoon had any manhood in them they 
 would tar-and-feather you. My girl is as good 
 as any girl that ever lived, and you know it. 
 Now go out of here now !" 
 
 Crozier intervened quietly. "Mrs. Tynan, I 
 asked him in here because it is my room. I have 
 some business with him. When it is over, then 
 he shall go, and we will fumigate the place. Re- 
 garding the tar-and- feathers, you might leave that 
 to me. I think I can arrange it." 
 
 "I'll turn the hose on him as he goes out, if 
 you don't mind," the irate mother exclaimed as 
 she left the room. 
 
 Crozier nodded. "Well, that would be ap- 
 propriate, Mrs. Tynan, but it wouldn't cleanse 
 him. He is the original leopard whose spots are 
 there forever." 
 
 By this time Burlingame was on his feet, and 
 a look of craft and fear and ugly meaning was 
 in his face. Morally he was a coward, physically 
 [272]
 
 MIDNIGHT IS NOT FAR OFF 
 
 he was a coward, but he had in his pocket a 
 weapon which gave him a feeling of superiority 
 in the situation ; and after a night of extreme self- 
 indulgence he was in a state of irritation of the 
 nerves which gave him what the searchers after 
 excuses for ungoverned instincts and acts call 
 "brain-storms." He had always had sense 
 enough to know that his amorous escapades 
 would get him into trouble one day, and he had 
 always carried the little pistol which was now 
 so convenient to his hand. It gave him a fic- 
 titious courage which he would not have had un- 
 armed against almost any man or woman in 
 Askatoon. 
 
 "You get a woman to do your fighting for 
 you," he said hatefully. "You have to drag her 
 in. It was you I meant to challenge, not the poor 
 girl young enough to be your daughter." His 
 hand went to his waistcoat pocket. Crozier saw 
 and understood. 
 
 Suddenly Crozier's eyes blazed. The abnor- 
 mal in him the Celtic strain always at variance 
 with the normal, an almost ultra-natural attend- 
 ant of it awoke like a storm in the tropics. His 
 face became transformed, alive with a passion 
 uncanny in its recklessness and purpose. It was 
 [273]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 a brain-storm indeed, but it had behind it a nor- 
 mal power, a moral force which was not to be re- 
 sisted. 
 
 "None of your sickly melodrama here. Take 
 out of your pocket the pistol you carry and give 
 it to me," Crozier growled. "You are not to be 
 trusted. The habit of thinking you would shoot 
 somebody sometime somebody you had in- 
 jured might become too much for you to-day, 
 and then I should have to kill you, and for your 
 wife's sake I don't want to do that. I always 
 feel sorry for a woman with a husband like you. 
 You could never shoot me. You couldn't be 
 quick enough, but you might try. Then I should 
 end you, and there'd be another trial; but the 
 lawyer who defended me would not have to cross- 
 examine any witness about your character. It is 
 too well known, Burlingame. Out with it the 
 pistol !" he added, standing menacingly over the 
 cowardly lawyer. 
 
 In a kind of stupor under the storm that was 
 breaking above him Burlingame slowly drew out 
 of a capacious waistcoat-pocket his tiny but pow- 
 erful pistol of the most modern make. 
 
 "Put it in my hand," insisted Crozier, his eyes 
 on the other's. 
 
 [274]
 
 MIDNIGHT IS NOT FAR OFF 
 
 The flabby hand laid the weapon in Crozier's 
 lean and strenuous fingers. Crozier calmly with- 
 drew the cartridges and then tossed the weapon 
 back on the table. 
 
 "Now we have equality of opportunity," he 
 remarked quietly. "If you think you would like 
 to repeat any slander you have uttered, do it 
 now; and in a moment or two Mrs. Tynan can 
 turn the hose on the floor of this room." 
 
 "I want to get to business," said Burlingame 
 sullenly, as he took from his pocket a paper. 
 
 Crozier nodded. "I can imagine your haste," 
 he remarked. "You need all the fees you can 
 get to pay Belle Bingley's bills." 
 
 Burlingame did not wince. He made no re- 
 ply to the challenge that he was the chief sup- 
 porter of a certain wanton thereabouts. 
 
 "The time for your option to take ten thou- 
 sand dollars' worth of shares in the syndicate 
 is up," he said; "and I am instructed to inform 
 you that Messrs. Bradley, Willingden, Baxter & 
 Simmons propose to take over your unpaid shares 
 and to complete the transaction without you." 
 
 "Who informed Messrs. Bradley, Willing- 
 den, Baxter & Simmons that I am not prepared 
 to pay for my shares'?" asked Crozier sharply. 
 [275]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "The time is up," surlily replied Burlingame. 
 "It is assumed you can't take up your shares, and 
 that you don't want to do so. The time is up," 
 he added emphatically, and he tapped the paper 
 spread before him on the table. 
 
 Crozier's eyes half closed in an access of stub- 
 bornness and hatred. "You are not to assume 
 anything whatever," he declared. "You are to 
 accommodate yourself to actual facts. The time 
 is not up. It is not up till midnight, and any 
 action taken to-day on any other assumption will 
 give grounds for damages." 
 
 Crozier spoke without passion and with a cold- 
 blooded insistence not lost on Burlingame. Tak- 
 ing down a calendar from the wall, he laid it be- 
 side the paper on the table before the too eager 
 lawyer. "Examine the dates," he said. "At 
 twelve o'clock to-night Messrs. Bradley, Willing- 
 den, Baxter & Simmons are free to act, if the 
 money is not at the disposal of the syndicate by 
 then; but till then my option is indefeasible. 
 Does that meet the case or not*?" 
 
 "It meets the case," said Burlingame in a 
 
 morose voice, rising. "If you can produce the 
 
 money before the stroke of midnight, why can't 
 
 you produce it now 4 ? What's the use of bluff- 
 
 [276]
 
 MIDNIGHT IS NOT FAR OFF 
 
 ing! It can do no good in the end. Your 
 credit " 
 
 "My credit has been stopped by your friends," 
 interrupted Crozier, "but my resources are not." 
 
 "Midnight is not far off," viciously remarked 
 Burlingame as he made for the door. 
 
 Crozier intercepted him. "One word with you 
 on a more difficult business before you go," he 
 said. "The tar-and-feathers for which Mrs. 
 Tynan asks will be yours at any moment I raise 
 my hand in Askatoon. There are enough 
 women alone who would do it." 
 
 "Talk of that after midnight," sneered Bur- 
 lingame desperately as the door was opened for 
 him by Crozier. 
 
 "You had better not go out by the front gate," 
 remarked Crozier scornfully. "Mrs. Tynan is a 
 woman of her word, and the hose is handy." 
 
 A moment later, with contemptuous satisfac- 
 tion, he saw Burlingame climb the picket-fence at 
 the side of the house. 
 
 Turning back into the room he threw up his 
 arms. "Midnight midnight my God, where 
 am I to get the money ! I must I must have it. 
 I'll never, never take it from Mona. I'll fight it 
 through alone. It's the only way back." 
 [277]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 Sitting down at the table he dropped his head 
 into his hands and shut his eyes in utter dejec- 
 tion. 
 
 "Mona by Heaven, no!" he said once, and 
 clenched his hands at his temples and sat on and 
 on unmoving. 
 
 [278]
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT 
 
 FOR a full half hour Crozier sat buried in 
 dark reflection, then he slowly raised his 
 head, and for a minute looked round dazedly. 
 His absorption had been so great that for a mo- 
 ment he was like one who had awakened upon 
 unfamiliar things. As when in a dream of the 
 night the history of a year will flash past like a 
 ray of light, so for the bad half hour in which 
 Crozier had given himself up to despair, his mind 
 had travelled through an incongruous series of 
 incidents of his past life, and had also revealed 
 pictures of solution after solution of his pres- 
 ent troubles. 
 
 He had that gift of visualisation which makes 
 
 life an endless procession of pictures which allure, 
 
 or which wear the nature into premature old age. 
 
 The last picture flashing before his eyes, as he 
 
 [279]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 sat there alone, was of himself and his elder 
 brother, Garnett, now master of Castlegarry, rac- 
 ing ponies to reach the lodge-gates before they 
 closed for the night, after a day of disobedience 
 and truancy. He remembered how Garnett had 
 given him the better pony of the two, so that the 
 younger brother, who would be more heavily pun- 
 ished if they were locked out, should have the 
 better chance. And Garnett, if odd in manner 
 and character, had always been a true sportsman 
 though not a lover of sport. 
 
 If if why had he never thought of Garnett *? 
 Garnett could help him and he would do so. He 
 would let Garnett stand in with him take one- 
 third of his profits from the syndicate. Yes, he 
 must ask Garnett to see him through. Then it 
 was that he lifted his head from his hands, and 
 his mind awakened out of a dream as real as 
 though he had actually been asleep. Garnett 
 alas ! Garnett was thousands of miles away, and 
 he had not heard from him for five years. Still, 
 he knew the master of Castlegarry was alive, for 
 he had seen him mentioned in a chance number of 
 tfhe Morning Post lately come to his hands. 
 What avail ! Garnett was at Castlegarry, and 
 at midnight his chance of fortune and a new life 
 [280]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT I T f 
 
 would be gone. Then, penniless, he would have 
 to face Mona again ; and what would come of that 
 he could not see, would not try to see. There 
 was an alternative he would not attempt to face 
 until after midnight, when this crisis in his life 
 would be over. Beyond midnight was a dark- 
 ness which he would not now try to pierce. As 
 his eyes again became accommodated to his sur- 
 roundings a look of determination, the determina- 
 tion of the true fatalist, the true gambler, came 
 into his face. The real gambler never gives in 
 till all is gone; never gives up till after the last 
 throw of the last penny of cash or credit; for he 
 has seen such innumerable times the thing come 
 right and good fortune extend a friendly hand 
 with the last throw of all. 
 
 Suddenly he remembered saw a scene in the 
 gambling rooms at Monte Carlo on the only visit 
 he had ever paid to the place. He had played 
 constantly, and had won each day more or less. 
 Then his fortune turned and he lost and lost 
 each day. At last, one evening, he walked up 
 to a table and said to the croupier, "When was 
 zero up last 1 ?" The croupier answered, "Not for 
 an hour." Forthwith he began to put money on 
 zero and on nothing else. For two hours he 
 [281]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 put money at each turn of the wheel on zero. 
 For two hours he lost. Increasing his stake, 
 which had begun at five francs and had risen at 
 length to five louis, he still coaxed the unre- 
 sponsive zero. Finally midnight came, and he 
 was the only person playing at the table. All 
 others had gone or had ceased to play. These 
 stayed to watch the "mad Inglesi," as a foreigner 
 called him, knocking his head against the foot- 
 stool of an unresponsive god of chance. The 
 croupiers watched also with somewhat disdainful, 
 somewhat pitying interest, this last representative 
 of a class who have an insane notion that the law 
 of chances is in their favour if they can stick it out 
 long enough. And how often had they seen the 
 stubborn challenger of a black demon, who would 
 not appear according to the law of chances, leave 
 the table ruined forever. 
 
 Smiling, Crozier had played on till he had but 
 thirty louis left. Counting them over with a 
 cheerful exactness, he rose up, lit a cigarette, 
 placed the thirty louis on zero with a cynical 
 precision, and with a gay smile kissed his hand 
 to the refractory Nothing and said, "You've got 
 it all Zero good-night! Good-night, Zero!" 
 Then he had buttoned his coat and turned away 
 [ 282 ]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT I T f 
 
 to seek the cooler air of the Mediterranean. He 
 had gone but a step or two, his head half-play- 
 fully turned to the table where the dwindling 
 onlookers stood watching the wheel spin round, 
 when suddenly he heard the croupier cry, "Zero!" 
 
 Smilingly he came back to the table and picked 
 up the thousand and more louis he had won won 
 by his last throw and with his last available coin. 
 
 As the scene passed before him now he got to 
 his feet and, with that look of the visionary in 
 his eyes, which those only know who have 
 watched the born gamester, said, "I'll back my 
 hand till the last throw." 
 
 Then it was, as his eyes gazed in front of him 
 dreamily, he saw the card on his mirror bearing 
 the words, "Courage, soldier!" 
 
 With a deepening flame in his eyes he went 
 over and gazed at it long. At length he reached 
 out and touched the writing with a caressing 
 finger. 
 
 "Kitty Kitty, how great you are!" he said. 
 Then as he turned to the outer door a softness 
 came into his face, stole up into his brilliant eyes 
 and dimmed them with a tear. "What a hand 
 to hold in the dark the dark of life!" he said 
 aloud. "Courage, soldier," he added as he 
 
 [283]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 opened the door by which he had entered, through 
 which Burlingame had gone, and strode away to- 
 wards the town of Askatoon, feeling somehow in 
 his heart that before midnight his luck would 
 turn. 
 
 From the dining-room Kitty had watched him 
 go. "Courage, soldier!" she whispered after 
 him, and she laughed; but almost immediately 
 she threw her head up with a gasping sigh, and 
 when it was lowered again two tears were steal- 
 ing down her cheeks. 
 
 With an effort she conquered herself, wiped 
 away the tears, and said aloud with a whimsical 
 but none the less pitiful self-reproach, "Kitty 
 Kitty Tynan, what a fool you are!" 
 
 Entering the room Crozier had left, she went 
 to the desk with the green-baize top, opened it, 
 and took out the fateful letter which Mona Cro- 
 zier had written to her husband five years ago. 
 Putting it into her pocket she returned to the 
 dining-room. She stood there for a moment with 
 her chin in her hands and deep reflection in her 
 eyes, and then, going to the door of her mother's 
 sitting-room, she opened it and beckoned. A mo- 
 ment later Mrs. Crozier and the Young Doctor 
 
 [284]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT I T f 
 
 entered the dining-room and sat down at a mo- 
 tion from her. Presently she said: 
 
 "Mrs. Crozier, I have here the letter your hus- 
 band received from you five years ago in Lon- 
 don." 
 
 Mrs. Crozier flushed. She had been master- 
 ful by nature, and she had had her way very 
 much in life. To be dominated in the most in- 
 timate things of her life by this girl was not 
 easy to be borne; but she realised that Kitty had 
 been a friend indeed, even if not obviously con- 
 ventional. In response to Kitty's remark now 
 she inclined her head. 
 
 "Well, you have told us that you and your 
 husband haven't made it up. That is so, isn't 
 it?" Kitty continued. 
 
 "If you wish to put it that way," answered 
 Mona, stiffening a little in spite of herself. 
 
 "P'r'aps I don't put it very well, but it is the 
 stony fact, isn't it, Mrs. Crozier *?" 
 
 Mona hesitated a moment, then answered: 
 "He is very upset concerning the land syndicate, 
 and he has a quixotic idea that he cannot take 
 money from me to help him carry it through." 
 
 "I don't quite know what quixotic means," re- 
 joined Kitty dryly. "If it wasn't understood 
 [285]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 while you lived together that what was one's was 
 the other's, that it was all in one purse, and that 
 you shut your eyes to the name on the purse and 
 took as you wanted, I don't see how you could 
 expect him, after your five years' desertion, to take 
 money from you now." 
 
 "My five years' desertion!" exclaimed Mona. 
 Surely this girl was more than reckless in her 
 talk. 
 
 Kitty was not to be put down. "If you don't 
 mind plain speaking, he was always with you, 
 but you weren't always with him in those days. 
 This letter showed that." She tapped it on her 
 thumb-nail. "It was only when he had gone* and 
 you saw what you had lost, that you came back 
 to him in heart, I mean. Well, if you didn't 
 go away with him when he went, and you 
 wouldn't have gone unless he had ordered you 
 to go and he wouldn't do that it's clear you 
 deserted him, since you did that which drove him 
 from home, and you stayed there instead of go- 
 ing with him. I've worked it out, and it is cer- 
 tain you deserted him five years ago. Desertion 
 doesn't mean a sea of water between, it means an 
 ocean of self-will and love-me-first between. If 
 [286]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT? 
 
 you hadn't deserted him, as this letter shows, he 
 wouldn't have been here. I expect he told you 
 so; and if he did, what did you say to him*?" 
 
 The Young Doctor's eyes were full of decorous 
 mirth and apprehension, for such logic and such 
 impudence as Kitty's was like none he had ever 
 heard. Yet it was commanding, too. 
 
 Kitty caught the look in his eyes and blazed 
 up. "Isn't what I said correct"? Isn't it all true 
 and logical*? And if it is why do you sit there 
 looking so superior?" 
 
 The Young Doctor made a gesture of mock and 
 deprecating apology. "It's all true, and it's 
 logical, too, if you stand on your head when you 
 think it. But whether it is logical or not, it is 
 your conclusion, and as you've taken the thing 
 in hand to set it right, it is up to you now. We 
 can only hold hard and wait." 
 
 With a shrug of her graceful shoulders, Kitty 
 turned again to Mrs. Crozier, who intervened 
 hastily, saying: "I did not have a chance of say- 
 ing to him all I wished. Of course he could not 
 take my money, but there was his own money ! I 
 was going to tell him about that, but just then 
 the lawyer, Mr. Burlingame " 
 [287]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "They all call him 'Gus' Burlingame. He 
 doesn't get the civility of Mr. here in Askatoon," 
 interposed Kitty. 
 
 Mona made an impatient gesture. "If you 
 will listen, I want to tell you about Mr. Cro- 
 zier's money. He thinks he has no money, but 
 he has. He has a good deal." 
 
 She paused, and the Young Doctor and Kitty 
 leaned forward eagerly. "Well, but go on," said 
 Kitty. "If he has money he must have it to- 
 day, and now. Certainly he doesn't know of it. 
 He thinks he is broke, dead broke and there' d 
 be a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for him 
 if he could put up ten thousand dollars to-night. 
 If I were you I wouldn't hide it from him any 
 longer." 
 
 Mona. got to her feet in anger. "If you would 
 give me a chance to explain, I would do so," she 
 said, her lips trembling. "Unfortunately, I am 
 in your hands, but please give me credit for some 
 intelligence and some heart. In any case I 
 shall not be bullied." 
 
 The Young Doctor almost laughed outright, 
 despite the danger of the situation. He was not 
 prepared for Kitty's reply and the impulsive act 
 that marched with it. In an instant Kitty had 
 
 [288]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT? 
 
 caught Mona Crozier's hand and pressed it 
 warmly. "I was only doing what I've seen 
 lawyers do," she said eagerly. "I've got some- 
 thing that I want you to do, and I've been trying 
 to work up to it. That's all. I'm not as mean 
 and bad-mannered as you think me. I really do 
 care what happens to him to you both," she 
 hastened to add. 
 
 Struggling to keep back her tears, and in a low 
 voice Mona rejoined: "I meant to have told 
 him what I'm going to tell you now. I couldn't 
 say anything about the money belonging to him 
 till I had told him how it came to be his." 
 
 After a moment's pause she continued: "He 
 told you all about the race which Flamingo lost, 
 and about that letter." She pointed to the let- 
 ter which Kitty still carried in her hand. "Well, 
 that letter was written under the sting of bitter 
 disappointment. I was vain. I was young. I 
 did not understand as I do now. If you were 
 not such good friends of his I could not tell 
 you this. It seemed to me that by breaking his 
 pledge he showed he did not care for me; that 
 he thought he could break a sacred pledge to me, 
 and it didn't matter. I thought it was treating 
 me lightly to do it so soon after the pledge was 
 [289]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 given. I was irritated, angry. I felt we weren't 
 as we might be, and I felt, too, that I must be at 
 fault; but I was so proud that I didn't want to 
 admit it, I suppose, when he did give me a griev- 
 ance. It was all so mixed. I was shocked at his 
 breaking his pledge, I was so vexed that our mar- 
 riage hadn't been the success it might have been; 
 and I think I was a little mad." 
 
 "That is not the monopoly of only one of your 
 sex," interposed the Young Doctor dryly. "If I 
 were you I wouldn't apologise for it. You 
 speak to a sister in like distress." 
 
 Kitty's eyes flamed up, but she turned her 
 head, as though some licensed libertine of speech 
 had had his say, and looked with friendly eyes 
 at Mona. "Yes, yes please go on," she urged. 
 
 "When I wrote that letter I had forgotten what 
 I had done the day before the race. I had gone 
 into my husband's room to find some things I 
 needed from the drawer of his dressing-table ; and 
 far at the back of a drawer I found a crumpled-up 
 roll of ten-pound notes. It was fifty pounds al- 
 together. I took the notes " 
 
 She paused a moment and the room became 
 very still. Both her listeners were sure that they 
 were approaching a thing of deep importance. 
 [290]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT I T f 
 
 In a lower voice Mona continued: "I don't 
 know what possessed me, but perhaps it was that 
 the things he did of which I disapproved most 
 had got a hold on me in spite of myself. I said 
 to myself: 'I am going to the Derby. I will 
 take the fifty pounds, and I'll put it on a horse 
 for Shiel.' He had talked so much to my brother 
 about Flamingo and I had seen him go wrong 
 so often, that I had a feeling if I put it on a horse 
 that Shiel particularly condemned, it would prob- 
 ably win. He had been wrong nearly every time 
 for two years. It was his money, and if it won, 
 it would make him happy; and if it didn't win, 
 well, he didn't know the money existed I was 
 sure of that, and, anyhow, I could replace it. I 
 put it on a horse he condemned utterly, but which 
 one or two people spoke well of. You know 
 what happened to Flamingo. While at Epsom 
 I heard from friends that Shiel was present at 
 the race, though he had said he would not go. 
 Later I learned that he had lost heavily. Then 
 I saw him in the distance paying out money and 
 giving bills to the bookmakers. It made me very 
 angry. I don't think I was quite sane. Most 
 women are like that at times." 
 
 "As I said," remarked the Young Doctor, his 
 
 [291]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 face mirthfully alive. Here was a situation in- 
 deed. 
 
 "So I wrote him that letter," Mona went on. 
 "I had forgotten all about the money I put on 
 the outsider which won the race. As you know, 
 I was called away to my sick sister that evening, 
 and the money I won with Shiel's fifty pounds 
 was not paid to me till after Shiel had gone." 
 
 "How much was it 1 ?" asked Kitty breathlessly. 
 
 "Four thousand pounds." 
 
 Kitty exclaimed so loudly that she smothered 
 her mouth with a hand. "Why, he only needs 
 for the syndicate two thousand pounds ten 
 thousand dollars!" she said excitedly. "But 
 what's the good of it, if he can't lay his hand on 
 it by midnight to-night!" 
 
 "He can do so," was Mona's quick reply. "I 
 was going to tell him that, but the lawyer came, 
 and" 
 
 Kitty sprang up and down in excitement. "I 
 had a plan. It might have worked without this. 
 It was the only way then. But this makes it 
 sure yes, most beautifully sure. It shows that 
 the thing to do is to follow your convictions. 
 You say you actually have the money, Mrs. Cro- 
 zier?' 
 
 [292 ]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT I T f 
 
 Mona took from her pocket an envelope, and 
 out of it she drew four Bank of England notes. 
 "Here it is here are four one-thousand-pound 
 notes. I had it paid to me that way five years 
 ago, and here here it is !" she added with almost 
 a touch of hysteria in her voice, for the excite- 
 ment of it all acted on her like an electric 
 storm. 
 
 "Well, we'll get to work at once," declared 
 Kitty, looking at the notes admiringly, then tak- 
 ing them from Mona and smoothing them out 
 with tender firmness. "It's just the luck of the 
 wide world, as my father used to say. It actually 
 is. Now you see," she continued, "it's like 
 this. That letter you wrote him" she ad- 
 dressed herself to Mona "it has to be changed. 
 You have got to rewrite it, and you must put into 
 it these four bank-notes. Then when you see 
 him again you must have that letter opened at 
 exactly the right moment, and oh, I wonder if 
 you will do it exactly right!" she added dubi- 
 ously to Mona. "You don't play your cards 
 very well, and it's just possible that, even now, 
 with all the cards in your hands, you will throw 
 them away as you did in the past. I wish 
 that" 
 
 [293]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 Seeing Mona's agitation changing to choler, 
 the Young Doctor intervened quickly. He did 
 not know Kitty was purposely stinging Crozier's 
 unhappy little consort, so that she should be put 
 upon her mettle to do the thing without bungling. 
 
 "You can trust Mrs. Crozier to use discretion 
 and act carefully; but what exactly do you 
 mean*? I judge that Mrs. Crozier does not see 
 more distinctly than I do," he remarked inquir- 
 ingly to Kitty, and with admonishment in tone 
 and emphasis. 
 
 "No, I do not understand quite will you ex- 
 plain*?" interposed Mona with inner resentment 
 at being managed, but feeling that she could not 
 do without Kitty even if she would. 
 
 "As I said," continued Kitty, "I will open that 
 letter, and you will put in another letter and 
 these bank-notes; and when he repeats what he 
 said about the way you felt and wrote when he 
 broke his pledge, you can blaze up and tell him 
 to open the letter. Then he will be so sorry that 
 he'll get down on his knees, and you will be happy 
 ever after." 
 
 "But it will be a fraud, and dishonest and dis- 
 honourable," protested Mona. 
 
 Kitty almost sniffed, but she was too agitated 
 
 [294]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT? 
 
 to be scornful. "Just leave that to me, please. 
 It won't make me a bit more dishonourable to 
 open the letter again I've opened it once, and I 
 don't feel any the worse for it. I have no con- 
 science, and things don't weigh on my mind at 
 all. I'm a light-minded person." 
 
 Looking closely at her the Young Doctor got 
 a still further insight into the mind and soul of 
 this prairie girl, who used a lid of irony to cover 
 a well of deep feeling. Things did not weigh 
 on her mind ! He was sure that pain to the wife 
 of Shiel Crozier would be mortal torture to Kitty 
 Tynan. 
 
 "But I felt exactly what I wrote that Derby 
 Day when he broke his pledge, and he ought to 
 know me exactly as I was," urged Mona. "I 
 don't want to deceive him, to appear a bit bet- 
 ter than I am." 
 
 "Oh, you'd rather lose him!" said Kitty almost 
 savagely. "Knowing how hard it is to keep a 
 man under the best circumstances, you'd will- 
 ingly make the circumstances as bad as they can 
 be is that it"? Besides, weren't you sorry after- 
 wards that you wrote that letter*?" 
 
 "Yes, yes, desperately sorry." 
 
 "And you wished often that your real self had 
 [295]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 written on Derby Day and not the scratch-cat 
 you were then?" 
 
 Mona flushed, but answered bravely, "Yes, a 
 thousand times." 
 
 "What business had you to show him your cat- 
 self, your unreal, not your real self on Derby 
 Day five years ago? Wasn't it your duty to 
 show him your real self?" 
 
 Mona nodded helplessly. "Yes, I know it 
 was." 
 
 "Then isn't it your duty to see that your real 
 self speaks in that letter now?" 
 
 "I want him to know me exactly as I am, and 
 then" 
 
 Kitty made a passionate gesture. Was ever 
 such an uncomprehending woman as this diamond- 
 button of a wife? 
 
 "And then you would be unhappy ever after 
 instead of being happy ever after. What is the 
 good of prejudicing your husband against you by 
 telling the unnecessary truth. He is in a desper- 
 ate mood, and besides, he has been away from you 
 for five years, and we all change somehow par- 
 ticularly men, when there are so many women in 
 the world, and very pretty women of all ages 
 and kinds and colours and tastes, and dazzling 
 [296]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT? 
 
 deceitful hussies too. It isn't wise for any 
 woman to let her husband or any one at all 
 see her exactly as she is; and only the silly ones 
 do it. They tell what they think is the truth 
 about their own wickedness, and it isn't the truth 
 at all, because I suppose women don't know how 
 to tell the exact truth; and they can be just as un- 
 fair to themselves as they are to others. Be- 
 sides, haven't you any sense of humour, Mrs. 
 Crozier? It's as good as a play, this. Just 
 think, after five years of desertion, and trouble 
 without end, and it all put right by a little sleight- 
 of-hand. Shall I open it?" 
 
 She held the letter up. Mona nodded almost 
 eagerly now, for come of a subtle, social world 
 far away, she still was no match for the subtlety 
 of the wilds or was it the cunning that the wild 
 things know? 
 
 Kitty left the room, but in a moment afterward 
 returned with the letter open. "The kettle on 
 the hob is the friend of the family," she said 
 gaily. "Here it is all ready for what there is to 
 do. You go and keep watch for Mr. Crozier," 
 she added to the Young Doctor. "He won't be 
 gone long, I should think, and we don't want him 
 bursting in on us before I've got that letter safe 
 [297]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 back into his desk. If he comes, you keep him 
 busy for a moment. When we're quite ready I'll 
 come to the front door, and then you will know it 
 is all right." 
 
 "I'm to go while you make up your prescrip- 
 tion all right!" said the Young Doctor, and 
 with a wave of the hand he left the room. 
 
 Instantly Kitty brought a lead pencil and pa- 
 per. "Now sit down and write to him, Mrs. 
 Crozier," she said briskly. "Use discretion; 
 don't gush; slap his face a little for breaking his 
 pledge, and afterwards tell him that you did at 
 the Derby what you had abused him for doing. 
 Then tell him about this four thousand pounds- 
 twenty thousand dollars my, what a lot of 
 money, and all got in one day ! Tell him that it 
 was all won by his own cash. It's as easy as can 
 be, and it will be a certainty now." 
 
 So saying she lit a match. "You hold this 
 wicked old catfish letter into the flame, please, 
 Mrs. Crozier, and keep praying all the time, and 
 please remember that 'our little hands were never 
 made to tear each other's eyes.' ' 
 
 Mona's small fingers were trembling as she 
 held the fateful letter into the flame, and then in 
 [298]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT? 
 
 silence both watched it burn to a cinder. A 
 faint, hopeful smile was on Mona's face now. 
 
 "What isn't never was to those that never 
 knew/' said Kitty briskly, and pushed a chair up 
 to the table. "Now sit down and write, please." 
 
 Mona sat down. Taking up a sheet of note- 
 paper she looked at it dubiously. 
 
 "Oh, what a fool I am!" said Kitty, under- 
 standing the look. "And that's what every 
 criminal does he forgets something. I forgot 
 the note-paper. Of course you can't use that 
 note-paper. Of course not. He'd know it in a 
 minute. Besides, the sheet we burned had an en- 
 graved address on it. I never thought of that 
 good gracious !" 
 
 "Wait wait," said Mona, her face lighting. 
 "I may have some sheets in my writing-case. 
 It's only a chance, but there were some torn sheets 
 in it when I left home. I'll go and see." 
 
 While she was gone to her bedroom Kitty stood 
 still in the middle of the room lost in reflection, 
 as completely absorbed as though she was see- 
 ing things thousands of miles away. In truth, 
 she was seeing things millions of miles away; she 
 was seeing a Promised Land. It was a gift of 
 [299]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 hers, or a penalty of her life, perhaps, that she 
 could lose herself in reverie at a moment's no- 
 tice a reverie as complete as though she was 
 subtracted from life's realities. Now, as she 
 looked out of the door, far over the prairie to a 
 tiny group of pine-trees in the vanishing distance, 
 lines she once read floated through her mind: 
 
 "Away and beyond the point of pines, 
 
 In a pleasant land where the glad grapes be, 
 
 Purple and pendant on verdant vines, 
 I know that my fate is awaiting me." 
 
 What fate was to be hers? There was no joy 
 in her eyes as she gazed. Mrs. Crozier was be- 
 side the table again before she roused herself from 
 her trance. 
 
 "I've got it just two sheets, two solitary 
 sheets," said Mona in triumph. "How long they 
 have been in my case I don't know. It is almost 
 uncanny they should be there just when they're 
 most needed." 
 
 "Providential, we should say out here," was 
 Kitty's response. "Begin, please. Be sure you 
 have the right date. It was " 
 
 Mona had already written the date, and she 
 interrupted Kitty with the words, "As though I 
 
 [300]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT? 
 
 could forget it!" All at once Kitty put a re- 
 straining hand on her arm. 
 
 "Wait wait, you mustn't write on that paper 
 yet. Suppose you didn't say the real wise 
 thing and only two sheets of paper and so much 
 to say?" 
 
 "How right you always are!" said Mona, and 
 took up one of the blank sheets which Kitty had 
 just brought her. 
 
 Then she began to write. For a minute she 
 wrote swiftly, nervously, and had nearly fin- 
 ished a page when Kitty said to her, "I think 
 I had better see what you have written. I 
 don't think you are the best judge. You see, I 
 have known him better than you for the last five 
 years, and I am the best judge please, I mean it 
 in the Tightest, kindest way," she added, as she 
 saw Mona shrink. It was like hurting a child, 
 and she loved children so much. She had al- 
 ways a vision of children at her knee. 
 
 Silently Mrs. Crozier pushed the sheets towards 
 her. Kitty read the page with a strange, eager 
 look in her eyes. "Yes, that's right as far as it 
 goes," she said. "It doesn't gush. It's natural. 
 It's you as you are now, not as you were then, 
 of course." 
 
 [301]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 Again Mona bent over the paper and wrote till 
 she had completed a page. Then Kitty looked 
 over her shoulder and read what had been written. 
 "No, no, no, that won't do," she exclaimed. 
 "That won't do at all. It isn't in the way that 
 will do what we want done. You've gone quite, 
 quite wrong. I'll do it. I'll dictate it to you. 
 I know exactly what to say, and we mustn't make 
 any mistake. Write, please you must." 
 
 Mona scratched out what had been written 
 without a word. "I am waiting," she said sub- 
 missively. 
 
 "All right. Now we go on. Write. I'll 
 dictate." 
 
 " 'And look here, dearest,' " she began, but 
 Mona stopped her. 
 
 "We do not say 'look here' in England. I 
 would have said 'and see.' " 
 
 "And see dearest," corrected Kitty, with an 
 accent on the last word, "while I was mad at you 
 for the moment for breaking your promise " 
 
 "In England we don't say 'mad' in that con- 
 nection," Mona again interrupted. "We say 
 'angry' or 'annoyed' or 'vexed.' ' There was 
 real distress in her tone. 
 
 "Now I'll tell you what to do," said Kitty 
 [302]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT? 
 
 cheerfully, "I'll speak it, and you write it my 
 way of thinking, and then when we've finished 
 you will take out of the letter any words that 
 are not pure, noble, classic English. I know 
 what you mean, and you are quite right. Mr. 
 Crozier never says 'look here' or 'mad,' and he 
 speaks better than any one I ever heard. Now, 
 we certainly must get on." 
 
 After an instant she began again. 
 
 " While I was angry at you a moment for break- 
 ing your promise, I cannot reproach you for it, because 
 I, too, bet on the Derby, but I bet on a horse that you 
 had said as much against as you could. I did it because 
 you had very bad luck all this year and lost, and also 
 the year before, and I thought " 
 
 For several minutes, with greater deliberation 
 than was usual with her, Kitty dictated, and at 
 the end of the letter she said, "I am, dearest, 
 your " 
 
 Here Mona sharply interrupted her. "If you 
 don't mind I will say that myself in my own 
 way," she said flushing. 
 
 "Oh, I forgot for the moment that I was speak- 
 ing for you!" responded Kitty, with a strange, 
 lurking, undermeaning in her voice. "I threw 
 
 [303]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 myself into it so. Do you think I've done the 
 thing right ?" she added. 
 
 With a direct, honest friendliness Mona looked 
 into Kitty's eyes. "You have said the exact 
 right thing as to meaning, I am sure, and I can 
 change an occasional word here and there to make 
 it all conventional English." 
 
 Kitty nodded. "Don't lose a minute in copy- 
 ing it. We must get the letter back in his desk 
 as soon as possible." 
 
 As Mona wrote Kitty sat with the envelope in 
 her hand, alternately looking at it and into the 
 distance beyond the point of pines. She was 
 certain that she had found the solution of the 
 troubles of Shiel and Mona Crozier, for Crozier 
 would now have his fortune, and the return to 
 his wife was a matter of course. Was she alto- 
 gether sure 1 ? But yes, she was altogether sure. 
 She remembered, with a sudden, swift plunge of 
 blood in her veins, that early dawn when she bent 
 over him as he lay beneath the tree, and as she 
 kissed him in his sleep he had murmured, "My 
 darling!" That had not been for her, though it 
 had been her kiss which had stirred his dreaming 
 soul to say the words. If they had only been 
 meant for her, then oh, then life would be so 
 [304]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT I T f 
 
 much easier in the future ! If if she could only 
 kiss him again and he would wake and say 
 
 She got to her feet with an involuntary ex- 
 clamation. For an instant she had been lost in 
 a world of her own, a world of the impossible. 
 
 "I almost thought I heard a step in the other 
 room," she said In explanation to Mona. Going 
 to the door of Crozier's room she appeared to lis- 
 ten for a moment, and then she opened it. 
 
 "No, it is all right," she said. 
 
 In another few minutes Mona had finished the 
 letter. "Do you wish to read it again?" she 
 asked Kitty, but not handing it to her. 
 
 "No, I leave the words to you. It was the 
 right meaning I wanted in it," she replied. 
 
 Suddenly Mona came to her and laid a hand 
 on her arm. "You are wonderful a wonderful, 
 wise, beloved girl," she said, and there were tears 
 in her eyes. 
 
 Kitty gave the tiny fingers a spasmodic clasp, 
 and said: "Quick, we must get them in!" She 
 put the banknotes inside the sheets of paper, then 
 hastily placed both in the envelope and sealed the 
 envelope again. 
 
 "It's just a tiny bit damp with the steam yet, 
 but it will be all right in five minutes. How 
 [ 305 ]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 soiled the envelope is !" Kitty added. "Five years 
 in and out of the desk, in and out of his pocket 
 but all so nice and sunsoiled and sweet and bonny 
 inside," she added. "To say nothing of the baw- 
 bees, as Mr. Crozier calls money. Well, we are 
 ready. It all depends on you now, Mrs. Cro- 
 zier." 
 
 "No, not all." 
 
 "He used to be afraid of you; now you are 
 afraid of him," said Kitty, as though stating a 
 commonplace. 
 
 There was no more shrewishness left in the lit- 
 tle woman to meet this chastisement. The forces 
 against her were too many. Loneliness and the 
 long struggle to face the world without her man ; 
 the determination of this masterful young woman 
 who had been so long a part of her husband's 
 life; and, more than all, a new feeling al- 
 together love, and the dependence a woman 
 feels, the longing to find rest in strong arms, 
 which comes with the first revelation of love, had 
 conquered what Kitty had called her "bossiness." 
 She was now tremulous before the crisis which 
 she must presently face. Pride in her fortune, 
 in her independence, had died down in her. . She 
 no longer thought of herself as a woman espe- 
 
 [306]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT? 
 
 cially endowed and privileged. She took her 
 fortune now like a man; for she had been taught 
 that a man could set her aside just because she 
 had money, could desert her to be independent of 
 it. It had been a revelation to her, and she was 
 chastened of all the termagancy visible and in- 
 visible in her. She stood now before Kitty of "a 
 humble and a contrite heart," and made no reply 
 at all to the implied challenge. Kitty, instantly 
 sorry for what she had said, let it go at that. 
 She was only now aware of how deeply her arrows 
 had gone home. 
 
 As they stood silent there was a click at the 
 gate. Kitty ran into Crozier's room, thrust the 
 letter into its pigeonhole in the desk, and in a 
 moment was back again. In the garden the 
 Young Doctor was holding Crozier in conversa- 
 tion, but watching the front door. So soon, how- 
 ever, as Kitty had shown herself, as she had prom- 
 ised, at the front door and then disappeared, he 
 turned Crozier towards the house again by an 
 adroit word, and left him at the door-step. 
 
 Seeing who was inside the room Crozier hesi- 
 tated, and his long face, with paleness added to 
 its asceticism, took on a look which could have 
 given no hope of happiness to Mona. It went 
 [307]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 to her heart as no look of his had ever gone. 
 Suddenly she had a revelation of how little she 
 had known of what he was, or what any man was 
 or could be, or of those springs of nature lying far 
 below the outer lives which move in orbits of 
 sheltering convention. It is because some men 
 and women are so sheltered from the storms of 
 life by wealth and comfort that these piercing 
 agonies which strike down to the uttermost 
 depths so seldom reach them. 
 
 Shiel half turned away, not sullen, not morose, 
 but with a strange apathy settled on him. He 
 had once heard a man say, "I feel as though I 
 wanted to crawl into a hole and die." That was 
 the way he felt now, for to be beaten in the game 
 which you have played like a man yourself and 
 have been fouled into an unchallenged defeat, 
 without the voice of the umpire, is a fate which 
 has smothered the soul of better men than Cro- 
 zier. 
 
 Mona's voice stopped him. "Do not go, 
 Shiel," she urged gently. "No, you must not go. 
 I want justice from you, if nothing else. You 
 must play the game with me. I want justice. 
 I have to say some things I had no chance to say 
 before, and I want to hear some things I have 
 
 [308]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT? 
 
 a right to hear. Indeed, you must play the 
 game." 
 
 He drew himself up. Not to be a sportsman, 
 not to play the game to accuse him of this 
 would have brought him back from the edge of 
 the grave. 
 
 "I'm not fit to-day. Let it be to-morrow, 
 Mona," was his hesitating reply; but he did not 
 leave the doorway. 
 
 She shook her head and made a swift little 
 childlike gesture towards him. "We are sure of 
 to-day; we are not sure of to-morrow. One or 
 the other of us might not be here to-morrow. 
 Let us do to-day the thing that belongs to to- 
 day." 
 
 That note struck home, for indeed the black 
 spirit which whispers to men in their most 
 despairing hours to end it all had whispered to 
 him. 
 
 "Let us do to-day the thing that belongs to 
 to-day," she had just said, and, strange to say, 
 there shot into his mind words that belonged to 
 the days when he went to church at Castlegarry 
 and thought of a thousand things other than 
 prayer or praise, but yet heard with the acute ears 
 of the young, and remembered with the persist- 
 
 [809']
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 ent memory of youth. "For the night cometh 
 when no man can work" were the words which 
 came to him. He shuddered slightly. Suppose 
 that this indeed was the beginning of the night! 
 As she said, he must play the game play it as 
 Crozier of Lammis would have played it. 
 
 He stepped inside the room. "Let it be to- 
 day," he said. 
 
 "We may be interrupted in this room," she re- 
 plied. Courage came to her. "Let us talk in 
 your room," she added, and going over she 
 opened the door of it and walked in. The ma- 
 tured modesty of a lost five years was not about 
 her now. She was a woman fighting for her hap- 
 piness, and she had been so beaten by the rods of 
 scorn, so smothered by the dust of humiliation, 
 that she had now the courage of those who can 
 bear no more and would rather die fighting than 
 in the lethargy of despair. 
 
 It was like her old self to take the initiative, 
 but she did it now in so different a way without 
 masterfulness or assumption. It was rather like 
 saying, "I will do what I know you wish me to 
 do; I will lay all reserve aside for your sake; I 
 will be bold because I love you." 
 [310]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT I T f 
 
 He shut the door behind them and motioned 
 her to a chair. 
 
 "No, I will not sit," she said. "That is too 
 formal. You ask any stranger to sit. I am at 
 home here, Shiel, and I will stand." 
 
 "What was it you wanted to say, Mona?" he 
 asked, scarcely looking at her. 
 
 "I should like to think that there was some- 
 thing you wished to hear," she replied. "Don't 
 you want to know all that has happened since you 
 left us about me, about your brother, about 
 your friends, about Lammis*? I bought Lammis 
 at the sale you ordered: it is still ours." She 
 gave emphasis to "ours." "You may not want 
 to hear all that has happened to me since you left, 
 still I must tell you some things that you ought 
 to know, if we are going to part again. You 
 treated me badly. There was no reason why you 
 should have left and placed me in the position 
 you did." 
 
 His head came up sharply and his voice became 
 a little hard. "I told you I was penniless, and 
 I would not live on you, and I could do nothing 
 in England; I had no trade or profession. If I 
 had said good-bye to you, you would probably 
 [311]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 have offered me a ticket to Canada. As I was a 
 pauper I preferred to go with what I had out of 
 the wreck just enough to bring me here. But 
 I've earned my own living since." 
 
 "Penniless just enough to bring you out 
 here !" Her voice had a sound of honest amaze- 
 ment. "How can you say such a thing! You 
 had my letter you said you had my letter?" 
 
 "Yes, I had your letter," he answered. "Your 
 kind young brother brought it to me. You had 
 told him all the dear womanly things you had 
 said or were going to say to your husband, and 
 he passed them on to me with the letter." 
 
 "Never mind what he said to you, Shiel. It 
 was what I said that mattered." She was get- 
 ting bolder every minute. The comedy was play- 
 ing into her hands. 
 
 "You said the same things in the letter you 
 wrote me," he replied. 
 
 Her protest sounded indignantly real. "I said 
 nothing in the letter I wrote you that any man 
 would not wish to hear. Is it so unpleasant for 
 a man who thinks he is penniless to be told that 
 he has made the year's income of of a cabinet 
 minister"?" 
 
 "I don't understand," he returned helplessly. 
 [312]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT? 
 
 "You talk as though you had never read my 
 letter." 
 
 "I never have read your letter," he replied in 
 bewilderment. 
 
 Her face had the flush of honest anger. "You 
 do not dare to tell me you destroyed my letter 
 without reading it that you destroyed all that 
 letter contained simply because you no longer 
 cared for your wife; because you wanted to be 
 rid of her, wanted to vanish and never see her 
 any more, and so go and leave no trace of your- 
 self. You have the courage here to my face" 
 the comedy of the situation gained much from 
 the mock indignation she no longer had any com- 
 punctions "to say that you destroyed my letter 
 and what it contained a small fortune it would 
 be out here !" 
 
 "I did not destroy your letter, Mona," was the 
 embarrassed response. 
 
 "Then what did you do with it? Gave it to 
 some one else to read to some other woman, per- 
 haps." 
 
 He was really shocked and greatly pained. 
 "Hush! You shall not .say that kind of thing, 
 Mona. I've never had anything to do with any 
 woman but my wife since I married her." 
 [313]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "Then what did you do with the letter V" 
 
 "It's there," he said, pointing to the high desk 
 with the green-baize top. 
 
 "And you say you have never read it 1 ?" 
 
 "Never." 
 
 She raised her head with dainty haughtiness. 
 "Then if you have still the same sense of honour 
 that made you keep faith with the bookmakers 
 you didn't run away from them! read it now, 
 here in my presence. Read it, Shiel. I demand 
 that you read it now. It is my right. You are 
 in honour bound " 
 
 It was the only way. She dare not give him 
 time to question, to suspect; she must sweep him 
 along to conviction. She was by no means sure 
 that there wasn't a flaw in the scheme some- 
 where, something that would betray her; and she 
 could hardly wait till it was over, till he had read 
 the letter. 
 
 In a moment he was again near her with the 
 letter in his hand. 
 
 "Yes, that's it that's the letter," she said with 
 wondering and reproachful eyes. "I remember 
 the little scratchy blot from the pen on the en- 
 velope. There it is just as I made it five years 
 ago. But how disgracefully soiled the envelope 
 
 [314]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT* 
 
 is! I suppose it has been tossed about in your 
 saddlebag, or with your old clothes, and only 
 kept to remind you day by day that you had a 
 wife you couldn't live with kept as a warning 
 never to think of her except to say, 'I hate you, 
 Mona, because you are rich and heartless and not 
 bigger than a pinch of snuff.' That was the kind 
 way you used to speak of her even when you 
 were first married to her contemptuously, con- 
 temptuously always in your heart, no matter what 
 you said out loud. And the end showed it the 
 end showed it : you deserted her !" 
 
 He was so fascinated by the picture she made 
 of passion and incensed declamation that he did 
 not attempt to open the letter, and he wondered 
 why there was such a difference between the ef- 
 fect of her temper on him now and the effect of 
 it those long years ago. He had no feeling of 
 uneasiness in her presence now, no sense of irri- 
 tation. In spite of her tirade, he had a feeling 
 that it didn't matter, that she must bluster in her 
 tiny tea-cup if she wanted to do so. 
 
 "Open the letter at once," she insisted. "If 
 you don't, I will." She made as though to take 
 the letter from him, but with a sudden twist he 
 tore open the envelope. The bank-notes fell to 
 
 [S15]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 the floor as he took out the sheet inside. Won- 
 dering, he stooped to pick them up. 
 
 "Four thousand pounds!" he exclaimed, ex- 
 amining them. "What does it mean"?" 
 
 "Read," she commanded. 
 
 He devoured the letter. His eyes swam; then 
 there rushed into them the flame which always 
 made them illumine his mediaeval face like the 
 light from "the burning bush." He did not 
 question or doubt, because he saw what he 
 wished to see, which is the way of man. It all 
 looked perfectly natural and convincing to 
 him. 
 
 "Mona Mona heaven above and all the 
 gods of hell and Hellas, what a fool, what a fool 
 I've been!" he exclaimed. "Mona Mona, tell 
 me, can you forgive me*? I didn't read this let- 
 ter because I thought it was going to slash me on 
 the raw on the raw flesh of my own lacerating. 
 I simply couldn't bear to read what your brother 
 said was in the letter. Yet I couldn't destroy it, 
 either. It was you. I had to keep it. Mona, 
 tell me, is it too late?" 
 
 He held out his arms with a passionate ex- 
 clamation. 
 
 "I asked you to kiss me yesterday and you 
 [316]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT I T 
 
 wouldn't," she protested. "I tried to make you 
 love me yesterday, and you wouldn't. When a 
 woman gets a rebuff like that, when " 
 
 She could not bear it any longer. With a cry 
 of joy she was in his arms. 
 
 After a moment he said, "The best of all was, 
 that you you vixen, you bet on that Derby and 
 won, and " 
 
 "With your money, remember, Shiel." 
 
 "With my money!" he cried exultingly. 
 "Yes, that's the best of it the next best of it. 
 It was your betting that was the best of all the 
 best thing you ever did since we married, except 
 your coming here !" 
 
 "It's in time to help you, too with your own 
 money, isn't it?" 
 
 He glanced at his watch. "Hours I'm hours 
 to the good. That crowd that gang of 
 thieves that bunch of highwaymen! I've got 
 them got them, and got a hundred and fifty 
 thousand dollars, too, to start again at home at 
 Lammis, Mona, back on the but no, I'm not 
 sure that I can live there now after this big life 
 out here." 
 
 "I'm not so sure, either," Mona replied, with 
 a light of larger understanding in her eyes. 
 [317]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "But we'll have to go back and stop the world 
 talking, and put things in shape before we come 
 here to stay." 
 
 "To stay here do you mean that?" he asked 
 eagerly. 
 
 "Somewhere in this big land," she replied 
 softly; "anyhow, to stay here till I've grown up 
 a little. I wasn't only small in body in the old 
 days, I was small in mind, Shiel." 
 
 "Anyhow, I've done with betting and racing, 
 Mona. I've just got time left I'm only thirty- 
 nine to start and really do something with my- 
 self." 
 
 "Well, start now, dear man. What is it you 
 have to do before twelve o'clock to-night?" 
 
 "What is it? Why, I have to pay over two 
 thousand of this," he flourished the bank- 
 notes "and even then I'll still have two thou- 
 sand left. But wait wait. There was the 
 original fifty pounds. Where is that fifty 
 pounds, little girl alive? Out with it. This is 
 the profit. Where is the fifty you bet with?" 
 His voice was gay with raillery. 
 
 She could look him in the face now and pre- 
 varicate without any shame or compunction at 
 all. "That fifty pounds that! Why, I used it 
 [318]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT*? 
 
 to buy my ticket for Canada. My husband 
 ought to pay my expenses out to him." 
 
 He laughed greatly. All Ireland was noting 
 in his veins now. He had no logic or reasoning 
 left. "Well, that's the way to get into your old 
 man's heart, Mona. To think of that! I call 
 it tact divine. Everything has spun my way at 
 last. I was right about that Derby, after all. 
 It was in my bones that I'd make a pot out of it, 
 but I thought I had lost it all when Flamingo 
 went down." 
 
 "You never know your luck you used to say 
 that, Shiel." 
 
 "I say it again. Come, we must tell our 
 friends Kitty, her mother, and the Young Doc- 
 tor. You don't know what good friends they 
 have been to me, mavourneen." 
 
 "Yes, I think I do!" said Mona, opening the 
 door to the outer room. 
 
 Then Crozier called with a great, cheery 
 voice what Mona used to call his tally-ho voice. 
 Mrs. Tynan appeared smiling. She knew at 
 a glance what had happened. It was so in- 
 teresting that she could even forgive Mona. 
 
 "Where's Kitty*?" asked Crozier, almost 
 boisterously. 
 
 [319]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 "She has gone for a ride with John Sihley," 
 answered Mrs. Tynan. 
 
 "Look, there she is!" said Mona, laying a hand 
 on Crozier's arm, and pointing with the other 
 out over the prairie. 
 
 Crozier looked out toward the northwestern 
 horizon, and in the distance was a woman riding 
 as hard as her horse could go, with a man gallop- 
 ing hard after her. It seemed as though they 
 were riding into the sunset. 
 
 "She's riding the horse you won that race with 
 years ago when you first came here, Mr. Crozier," 
 said Mrs. Tynan. "John Sibley bought it from 
 Mr. Brennan." 
 
 Mona did not see the look which came into 
 Crozier's face as, with one hand shading his eyes 
 and the other grasping the bank-notes which were 
 to start him in life again, independent and self- 
 respecting, he watched the girl riding on and on 
 ever ahead of the man. 
 
 It was at that moment the Young Doctor en- 
 tered the room, and he distracted Mona's atten- 
 tion for a moment. Going forward to him Mona 
 shook him warmly by the hand. Then she went 
 up to Mrs. Tynan and kissed her. 
 
 "I would like to kiss your daughter too, Mrs. 
 
 [320]
 
 WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT? 
 
 Tynan," Mona said. "What are you looking at 
 so hard, Shiel *?" she presently added to her hus- 
 band. 
 
 He did not turn to her. His eyes were still 
 shaded by his hand. 
 
 "That horse goes well yet," he said in a low 
 voice. "As good as ever as good as ever." 
 
 "He loves horses so," remarked Mona, as 
 though she could tell Mrs. Tynan and the Young 
 Doctor anything about Shiel Crozier that they 
 did not know. 
 
 "Kitty rides well, doesn't she*?" asked Mrs. 
 Tynan of Crozier. 
 
 "What a pair girl and horse!" Crozier ex- 
 claimed. "Thoroughbred absolutely thorough- 
 bred!" 
 
 Kitty had ridden away with her secret, her 
 very own, as she thought: but Shiel Crozier 
 knew the man that mattered knew. 
 
 [821]
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 GOLDEN, all golden, save where there was a 
 fringe of trees at a watercourse ; save where 
 a garden, like a spot of emerald, made a button 
 on the royal garment wrapped across the breast 
 of the prairie. Above, making for the trees of 
 the foothills far away, a golden eagle floated, a 
 prairie-hen sped affrighted from some invisible 
 thing; and in the far distance a railway train 
 slipped down the plain like a serpent making for 
 covert in the first hills of the first world that 
 ever was. 
 
 At casual glance the vast plain seemed unin- 
 habited, yet here and there were men and horses 
 tiny in the vastness, but conquering. Here and 
 there also for it was July a haymaker sharp- 
 ened his scythe and the sound came singing 
 through the air as radiant as it was stirring with 
 life. 
 
 Seated in the shade of a clump of trees a girl
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 sat with her chin in her hands looking out over 
 the prairie, an intense dreaming in her eyes. Her 
 horse was tethered near by, but it scarcely made a 
 sound. It was a horse which had once won a 
 great race, with an Irish gentleman on his back. 
 Long time the girl sat absorbed, her golden 
 colour, her brown-gold hair in harmony with 
 the universal stencil of gold. With her eyes 
 drowned in the distance, she presently murmured 
 something to herself, and as she did so the eyes 
 deepened to a nameless umber tone, deeper than 
 gold, warmer than brown; such a colour as only 
 can be found in a jewel or in a leaf the frost has 
 touched. 
 
 The frost had touched the soul which gave the 
 colour to the eyes of the girl. Yet she seemed 
 all summer, all glow and youth and gladness. 
 Her voice was golden, too, and the words which 
 fell from her lips were as though tuned to the 
 sound of falling water. The tone of the voice 
 would last when the gold of all else became faded 
 or tarnished. It had its origin in the soul : 
 
 "Whereaway goes my lad? Tell me, has he gone alone! 
 
 Never harsh word did I speak; never hurt I gave; 
 Strong he was and beautiful ; like a heron he has flown 
 
 Hereaway, hereaway will I make my grave." 
 [823]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 The voice lingered on the words till it trailed 
 away into nothing, like the vanishing note of a 
 violin which seems still to pulse faintly after 
 the sound has ceased. 
 
 "But he did not go alone, and I have not made 
 my grave," the girl said, and raised her head at 
 the sound of approaching footsteps. With an 
 effort she emerged from the half-trance in which 
 she had been, and smiled at the man approaching. 
 
 "Dear bully, bulbous being how that word 
 'bully' would have made her cringe !" she said as 
 the man ambled towards her. He could not go 
 as fast as his mind urged him. 
 
 'I've got news news, news!" he said as 
 he waded through his own perspiration towards 
 her. 
 
 "I can guess what it is," the girl remarked 
 smilingly, as she reached out a hand to him, but 
 remained seated. "It's a real, live baby born to 
 Lydia, wife of Methuselah, the woman also be- 
 ing of goodly years. It is, isn't it*?" 
 
 "The fattest, finest, most 'scrumpshus' son of 
 all the ages, that ever " 
 
 Kitty laughed happily and very whimsically. 
 "Like none since Moses was found among the 
 bulrushes ! Where was this one found, and what 
 
 [324]
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 do you intend to call him Jesse, after his 
 'pa"?" 
 
 "No nothing so common. He's to be called 
 Shiel Shiel Crozier Bulrush, that's to be his 
 name." 
 
 The face of the girl became a shade pensive 
 now. "Oh ! And do you think you can guaran- 
 tee that he will be worth the name'? Do you 
 never think what his father is 4 ?" 
 
 "I'm starting him right with that name. I 
 can do so much, anyway," laughed the imper- 
 turbable one. 
 
 "And Mrs. Bulrush, after her great effort 
 how is she?" 
 
 "Flying simply flying! Earth not good 
 enough for her. Simply flying. But here here 
 is more news. Guess what it's for you. I've 
 just come from the post-office, and they said 
 there was an English letter for you, so I brought 
 it." 
 
 He handed it over. She laid it in her lap and 
 waited as though for him to go. 
 
 "Can't I hear how he is? He's the best man 
 that ever crossed my path," he said. 
 
 "It happens to be in his wife's, not his, hand- 
 writing did ever such a scrap of a woman write 
 
 [325]
 
 YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK 
 
 so sprawling a hand!" she replied, holding the 
 letter up. 
 
 "But she'll let us know in the letter how he 
 is, won't she?" 
 
 Kitty had now recovered herself, and slowly 
 she opened the envelope and took out the letter. 
 As she did so something fluttered to the ground. 
 
 Jesse Bulrush picked it up. "That looks 
 nice," he said, and he whistled in surprise. "It's 
 a money-draft on a bank." 
 
 Kitty, whose eyes were fixed on the big, im- 
 portant handwriting, answered calmly and with- 
 out apparently looking, as she took the paper from 
 his hand: "Yes, it's a wedding present five 
 hundred dollars to buy what I like best for my 
 home. So she sap." 
 
 "Mrs. Crozier, of course." 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 "Well, that's magnificent. What will you do 
 with it*" 
 
 Kitty rose and held out her hand. "Go back 
 to your flying partner, happy man, and ask her 
 what she would do with five hundred dollars if 
 she had iL" 
 
 "She'd buy her lord and master a present with 
 h, of course," he answered. 
 [36]
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 "Good-bye, Mr. Roly-poly," she responded, 
 laughing. "You always could think of things 
 for other people to do; and have never done any- 
 thing yourself until now. Good-bye, father!" 
 
 When he was gone and out of sight her face 
 changed. With sudden anger she crushed and 
 crumpled up the draft for five hundred in her 
 hand. " 'A token of affection from both' ! " she 
 exclaimed, quoting the letter. "One lone leaf of 
 Irish shamrock from him would " 
 
 She stopped. "But he will send a message of 
 his own," she continued. "He will he will. 
 Even if he doesn't, I'll know that he remembers 
 just the same. He does he does remember." 
 
 She drew herself up with an effort, and, as it 
 were, shook herself free from the memories which 
 dimmed her eyes. 
 
 Not far away a man was riding toward the 
 clump of trees where she was. She saw, and 
 hastened to her horse. 
 
 "If I told John all I feel he'd understand. I 
 believe he always has understood," she added 
 with a far-off look. 
 
 The draft was still crushed in her hand when 
 she mounted the beloved horse, whose name now 
 was Shiel. 
 
 [327]
 
 Popular Copyright Novels 
 
 AT MODERATE PRICES 
 
 Ask your dealer for a complete 
 list of A. L- Burl Company's Popular Copyright Fiction 
 
 Cardigan Robert W. Chambm 
 
 Car of Destiny, The C.N. and A. M. Williamson 
 
 Carpet From Bagdad, The Harold MacGrath 
 
 Casting Away of Mrs. Leeks and Mrs. Aleshine. 
 
 F. R. Stockton 
 
 Chaperon, The C.N. and A. M. Williamson 
 
 Circle, The Katharine Cecil Thurston 
 
 Claw, The Cynthia Stockley 
 
 Colonial Free Laace, A .Chauncey C. Hotchkist 
 
 Coming of the Law, The Charles Alden Seltzer 
 
 Conquest of Canaan, The Booth Tarkington 
 
 Conspirators, The Robert W. Chambert 
 
 Cordelia Blossom George Randolph Chester 
 
 Counsel for the Defense Leroy Scott 
 
 Cry in the Wilderness, A Mary E. Waller 
 
 Dark Hollow, The Anna Katharine Green 
 
 Day of Days, The Louis Joseph Vance 
 
 Depot Master, The Joseph C. Lincoln 
 
 Derelicts William J. Locke 
 
 Desired Woman, The Will N. Harben 
 
 Destroying Angel, The Louis Joseph Vance 
 
 Divine Fire, The May Sinclair 
 
 Dixie Hart Witt N. Harben 
 
 Dominant Dollar, The Will Lillibridge 
 
 Dr. David Marjorie Benton Cooks 
 
 Enchanted Hat, The Harold MacGrath 
 
 Excuse Me Rupert Hughes 
 
 54-40 or Fight Emerson Hough 
 
 Fighting Chance, The Robert W. Chambert 
 
 Financier, The Theodore Dreiser 
 
 Flamsted Quarries Mary E. Waller 
 
 For a Maiden Brave Chauncey C. Hotchkist 
 
 Four Million, The 0. Henry 
 
 From the Car Behind Eleanor M. Ingraham 
 
 Fruitful Vine, The Robert Hichens 
 
 lentleman of France, A Stanley Weyman 
 
 jet-Rich-Quick-Wallingford.G0r0e Randolph Chester 
 
 Gilbert Neal Witt N. Harben 
 
 Girl From His Town, The Marie Van Vorst 
 
 Glory of Clementina, The William J. Locke 
 
 Glory of the Conquered, The Susan Glaspett
 
 Popular Copyright Novels 
 
 AT MODERATE PRICES 
 
 Ask your dealer for a complete 
 fist of A L* Burl Company's Popular Copyright Fiction 
 
 God'a Good Man Marie Corelli 
 
 Going Some Rex Beach 
 
 Gordon Craig Randall Parrish 
 
 Greyfriars Bobby Eleanor Atkinton 
 
 Guests of Hercules, The . . C. N. and A. M. Williamson 
 
 Halcyone Elinor Glyn 
 
 Happy Island (Sequel to Uncle William) Jenndte Lee 
 
 Havoc E. Phillips Oppenheim 
 
 Heart of the Hills, The John Fox, Jr. 
 
 Heart of the Desert, The Hmore Wills* 
 
 Heather-Moon, The C. N. and A. M. Williamson 
 
 Her Weight in Gold George Ban McCuicheon 
 
 Herb of Grace Rosa N. Cany 
 
 Highway of Fate, The Rosa N. Carey 
 
 Homesteaders, The Kate and Virgil D. Boyles 
 
 Hopalong Cassidy Clarence_ E. Mulford 
 
 Honor of the Big Snows, The. . James Olirer Curwood 
 
 House of Happiness, The Kate Langley Bosker 
 
 House of the Lost Court, The C. N. Williamson 
 
 House of the Whispering Pines, The . .Anna K. Green 
 
 Household of Peter, The. Rosa N. Carey 
 
 Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker. . .S. Weir Mitchell, M.D. 
 
 Husbands of Edith, The George Barr McCuicheon 
 
 Idols William J. Locke 
 
 Illustrious Prince, The E. Phillips Oppenheim 
 
 Imposter, The John Reed Scott 
 
 In Defiance of the King Chauncey C. Hotchkist 
 
 Indifference of Juliet, The Grace S. Richmond 
 
 Inez (Illustrated Edition) Augusta J. Evans 
 
 Infelice Augusta Etans Wilson 
 
 Initials Only Anna Katharine Green 
 
 Iron Trail, The Rex Beach 
 
 Iron Woman, The Margaret Deland 
 
 Ishmael (Illustrated) . . .Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth 
 Island of Regeneration, The. .Cyrus Townsend Brady 
 
 Japonette Robert W. Chambers 
 
 Jane Cable George Barr McCuteheon 
 
 Jeanne of the Marshes E. Phillips Oppenheim 
 
 Jennie Gerhardt Theodore Dreiser 
 
 Joyful Heatherby Payne Erskrne 
 
 Judgment House, The Sir Oilbat Parker
 
 Popular Copyright Novels 
 
 AT MODERATE PRICES 
 
 Ask your dealer for a complete 
 list of A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction 
 
 Keith of the Border Randall Famish \ 
 
 Key to the Unknown, The Rosa N. Carey 
 
 King Spruce Holman Day 
 
 Knave of Diamonds, The Ethel M. Dett 
 
 Lady and the Pirate, The Emerson Hough 
 
 Lady Betty Across the Water. 
 
 C. N. and A. M. Williamson 
 
 Land of Long Ago, The Eliza Calvert Hatt 
 
 Langford of the Three Bars .Kate and Virgil D. Boyle* 
 
 Last Trail, The Zone Grey 
 
 Last Voyage of the Donna Isabel, The Randall Parish 
 
 Leaven worth Case, The Anna Katkerine Green 
 
 Life Mask, The Author of " To M. L. G." 
 
 Lighted Way, The E. PhiUipt Oppenheim 
 
 Lin McLean Owen Wister 
 
 Little Brown Jug at Kildare, The . Meredith Nicholson 
 
 I<onesome Land B. M . Bower 
 
 Lord Loveland Discovers America. 
 
 C. N. and A. M. Williamson 
 
 Lorimer of the Northwest Harold Bindloss 
 
 Lorraine Robert W. Chambers 
 
 Lost Ambassador, The E. Phillips Oppenheim 
 
 Love Under Fire Randall Parrish 
 
 Macaria (Illustrated Edition) Augusta J. Evans 
 
 Maid at Arms, The Robert W. Chambers 
 
 Maid of Old New York, A Amelia E. Ban 
 
 Maids of Paradise, The Robert W. Chamber* 
 
 Maid of the Whispering Hills, The Vingie E. Roe 
 
 Maid of the Forest, The Randall Parrish 
 
 Making of Bobby Burnit, The . . Geo. Randolph Chester 
 
 Mam' Linda Witt N. Harben 
 
 Marriage E.G. Wells 
 
 Marriage a la Mode Mrs. Humphrey Ward 
 
 Master Mummer, The E. Phillips Oppenheim 
 
 Masters of the WTieatlands Harold Bindloss 
 
 Max Katherine Cecil Thurston 
 
 Mediator, The Roy Norton 
 
 Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes A. Conan Doyle 
 
 Missaoner, The E. Phillips Oppenheim 
 
 Miss Gibbie Gault Kate Langley Bosher
 
 Popular Copyright Novels 
 
 AT MODERATE PRICES 
 
 Ask your dealer for a complete 
 list of A. I Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction 
 
 Miss Philura's Wedding Gown. 
 
 Florence Morse Kingsley 
 
 Miss Selina Lue Maria Thompson Davieit 
 
 Mollie's Prince Rota N. Carey 
 
 Molly McDonald Randall Parrish 
 
 Money Moon, The Jeffery Farnol 
 
 Motor Maid, The C.N.andA.M. Williamson 
 
 Moth, The William Dana Orcutt 
 
 Mountain Girl, The. Payne Erskine 
 
 Mr. Pratt Joseph C. Lincoln 
 
 Mr. Pratt's Patients Joseph C. Lincoln 
 
 Mrs. Red Pepper Grace S. Richmond 
 
 My Friend the Chauffeur . C.N. and A . M. Williamton 
 
 My Lady Caprice Jeffery Farnol 
 
 My Lady of Doubt Randall Parrish 
 
 My Lady of the North Randall Parrish 
 
 My Lady of the South Randall Parrish 
 
 Mystery Tales Edgar AUen Poe 
 
 Mystery of the Boule Cabinet, The. 
 
 Burton E. Stevenson 
 
 Nancy Stair Elinor Macartney Lane 
 
 Ne'er-Do-Well, The Rex Beach 
 
 Net, The Rex Beach 
 
 NightRiders, The RidgwellCullum 
 
 No Friend Like a Sister Rosa N. Carey 
 
 Officer 666. .Barton W. Currie and Augustin McHugh 
 
 Once Upon a Time Richard Harding Davis 
 
 One Braver Thing Richard Dehan 
 
 One Way Trail, The Ridgwell Cullum 
 
 Orphan, The Clarence E. Mulford 
 
 Out of the Primitive Robert Ames Bennet 
 
 Pam Bettina Von Hutten 
 
 Pam Decides Bettina Von Hutten 
 
 Pardners Rex Beach 
 
 Parrot & Co Harold McGrath 
 
 Partners of the Tide Joseph C. Lincoln 
 
 Passage Perilous, The Rosa N. Carey 
 
 Passionate Friends, The H. G, Wells 
 
 Paul Anthony, Christian Hiram W. Hays 
 
 Peter Ruff. ." E. Phillips Oppenheim 
 
 Phillip Steele James Oliver Curwood
 
 Popular Copyright Novels 
 
 AT MODERATE PRICES 
 
 Ask your dealer (or a complete 
 list of A L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction 
 
 Phra the Phoenician Edirin Letter Arnold 
 
 Pidgin Island Harold MacGrath 
 
 Place of Honeymoons, The Harold MacGrath 
 
 Pleasures and Palaces Juliet Wilbor Tompkira 
 
 Plunderer, The Roy Norton 
 
 Pole Baker Witt N. Harbm 
 
 Pool of Flame, The Louis Joseph Vane* 
 
 Polly of the Circus Margaret Mayo 
 
 Poppy Cynthia Stockley 
 
 Port of Adventure, The . . C. N. and A. M. Williamson 
 
 Postmaster, The Joseph C. Lincoln 
 
 Power and the Glory, The. . .Grace McGowan Cook* 
 Price of the Prairie, The. . . .Margaret Hill McCarttr 
 
 Prince of Sinners, A E. Phillips Oppenheim 
 
 Prince or Chauffeur Lawrence Perry 
 
 Princess Passes, The C.N. and A. M. Williamson 
 Princess Virginia, The. .C. N. and A M. Williamson 
 
 Prisoners of Chance Randall Parri$h 
 
 Prodigal Son, The HallCaine 
 
 Purple Parasol, The George Ban McCuteheon 
 
 R. J.'s Mother Margaret Deland 
 
 Ranching for Sylvia Harold Bindloa 
 
 Reason Why, The Elinor Glyn 
 
 Redemption of Kenneth Gait, The. .Witt N. Harbm 
 
 Red Cross Girl, The Richard Harding Davis 
 
 Red Lane, The Holman Day 
 
 Red Pepper Burns Grace S. Richmond 
 
 Red Republic, The Robert W. Chambers 
 
 Refugees, The A. Canon Doyle 
 
 Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary, The Anne Warner 
 
 Rise of Roscoe Paine, The Joseph C. Lincoln 
 
 Road to Providence, The. . .Maria Thompson Davitst 
 
 Robinetta Kate Douglas Wiggin 
 
 Rose in the Ring, The George Ban McCuteheon 
 
 Rose of the World Agnes and Egerttm Cattle 
 
 Rose of Old Harpj'.th, The . . Maria Thompson Damess 
 Round the Corner in Gay Street . . . Grace S. Richmond 
 
 Routledge Rides Alone Will Levington Comfort 
 
 Rue: With a Difference Rosa N. Carey 
 
 St. Elmo (Illustrated Edition) Augusta J. Erans 
 
 Seats of the Mighty, The Gilbert Parker