on the train travelling westward mermaid and her aunt had some talk of events, recent and not so recent.

“but why did you take my jewels?” demanded keturah.

“because they worried you. they were like a piece of bone, a tiny fragment pressing on the brain,” responded[213] the young woman. “i knew that if they disappeared in such a way as to make it seem that they had been stolen—and i suppose, strictly, they were stolen—the worrying would cease. what made you think of captain vanton as the thief?”

“because it was impossible to think of any one else, i suppose,” said mrs. hand. “and while i never guessed that he was the man king, still he evidently knew more about king than any of us did; and king had known or seen keturah hawkins and knew of or had seen the stones. any one might want to steal them who knew about them. and he did.”

mermaid had a question in turn:

“i should have thought uncle ho would have recognized captain vanton as the jacob king he had known in san francisco.”

“child, half a century had elapsed between his acquaintance with jacob king and the appearance of captain vanton in blue port. then, those sidewhiskers....”

“dickie will come out next week,” mermaid said, absently.

“are you going to marry young dick hand?” keturah inquired, with her natural abruptness.

“aunt, you wouldn’t have me marry a man just because he asks me, would you?”

“well, i hope you wouldn’t marry him without his asking you to.”

[214]“i might ask him.”

“dickie?”

“oh, no—that is—i mean—dickie has asked me, but i mean i might—sometime——” mermaid seemed unnecessarily embarrassed. her aunt looked at her intently; then, as if she thought it better to swerve the conversation slightly, remarked abruptly: “well, old richard hand died a natural death at the end of his unnatural life, after all.”

“i don’t think you can call death from fear a natural death,” objected the younger woman.

“fear! what was he afraid of?”

“he was partly senile, of course, but he could not be convinced that captain vanton was really dead. he heard more or less of captain vanton’s story. the coroner didn’t give it out, but things like that always get around, or some of them. when they told him that captain vanton was jacob king, he had a stroke. paralysis. after that he kept looking about him and saying: ‘the king is dead! long live the king!’ and when they told him that captain vanton had been buried he cried out: ‘nothing is ever buried. he’ll come to life again.’ later he had delusions that he saw king or vanton. do you remember when dad went to see him? he caught sight of dad and shrieked: ‘don’t kill me, john smiley! i didn’t steal your daughter! kill king! only you can’t kill him!’”

mermaid finished with a shudder.

[215]mrs. hand asked: “how much of the whole story does young dick know?”

“his father’s part in it pretty fully. the rest—about guy and mrs. vanton and all—no more than the other blue port people. about all they know is that mrs. vanton wasn’t the captain’s wife and that the captain was a mad old man who made his boy’s life miserable and who had had something underhanded to do with richard hand.”

“i’ve always wondered what you told that man to make him tell you that you were john smiley’s daughter,” mrs. hand remarked.

“only what i guessed. he was ready to tell me,” said mermaid. “i was really fighting for guy. i offered your jewels to him as a ransom for guy. it sounds ridiculous, but since i knew you thought he had taken them i knew you must think he coveted them, had some craving that they might satisfy. i was more or less in the dark; i went ahead by instinct.”

“it’s a wonder, since he shot himself right after you left the house, that you were not accused of murder,” said keturah, grimly. “you might have shot him dead and walked away.”

“you forget mrs. vanton,” mermaid reminded her. “she had come to the head of the stairs. she saw the door close after me. it was two or three minutes later before she heard the pistol shot.”

“she’s honest, it seems.”

[216]“yes, poor creature.”

“mary,” asked keturah hand as she leaned forward while her niece adjusted the pillows behind her in the big pullman chair, “when that man refused the jewels you told him that you would offer another ransom for guy vanton. what had you in mind?”

the younger woman was behind her aunt. mrs. hand twisted about suddenly to see her face. it was flushed, but mermaid’s deep and brilliant eyes met her aunt’s unflinchingly.

“i would have married guy,” she said, her voice vibrating slightly. “his father—that is, that man—talked about saving him. i would have matched my salvation of him against his—father’s. i would have fought for him against all the past evil that was dragging him down. now his father is dead. he can—possibly—pull himself out alone, unaided. if not, i am ‘standing by.’ oh, yes—i love him,” she finished, answering the interrogation that leaped from keturah hand’s eyes.