When Power arrived at New England’s chief summer resort on a glorious July morning twenty-two years ago, man had succeeded in adding only a garish fringe to a quietly beautiful robe devised by Nature. Some few pretentious houses had been built; but local residences in the mass made up an architectural hotch-potch utterly at variance with sylvan solitudes and breezy cliffs. Rhode Island, which lends its name to the entire state, is slightly larger than Manhattan. A long southwesterly spur shields from the mighty rages of the Atlantic the little bay on which the old town of Newport stands; but the climate has the bracing freshness which is almost invariably associated with the northern half of that great ocean. If the bare rudiments of artistry existed among the idle rich who overran the island during the ’80’s, it should have protected a charming blend of seashore and grassy downs from the Italian palaces, Rhenish castles, Swiss chalets, and don-jon keeps which the freakish conceits of plutocrats placed cheek by jowl along the coast. Nowadays these excrescences are either swallowed in forests of well grown trees or have become so beautified by creepers that they have lost much of their bizarre effect; while magnificent avenues, carefully laid out and well shaded, run through a new city of delightful villas and resplendent gardens. But Power’s first stroll from the portals of the Ocean House revealed a medley in which bad taste ran riot. The Casino, a miserable-looking structure, was saved from dismal mediocrity by its splendid lawns alone; the surf-bathers’ friends were protected from the fierce sun by a long, low shanty built of rough planks; the roads were unkempt, and ankle-deep in mud or dust; broken-down shacks alternated with mansions; a white marble replica of some old Florentine house, stuck bleakly on one knob of a promontory, was scowled at by a heavy-jowled fortress cumbering its neighbor.

He found these things irritating. They were less in harmony with their environment than the corrugated iron roofs of Bison. His gorge rose at them. They satisfied no esthetic sense. In a word, he resolved to get through his business with the horse-fancying judge as speedily as might be, and escape to the unspoiled wilderness of Maine.

Were it not for one of those minor accidents which at times can exert such irresistible influence on the course of future events, he would certainly have left Newport without ever being aware of Mrs. Marten’s presence there. He ascertained that the judge had gone off early in the morning on a yachting excursion up Narragansett Bay, having arranged to lunch at a friend’s house at Pawtucket; so, perforce, he had to wait in Newport another day.

At dinner he was allotted a seat at a large round table reserved for unattached males like himself. The company was a curiously mixed one, but pleasant withal. A Norwegian from San Francisco, who sold Japanese curios, a globe-trotting Briton, a Southerner from Alabama, a man from Plainville, New Jersey, and a Mexican who spoke no English, made up, with Power himself, a genuinely cosmopolitan board, and Power soon discovered that he was the only person present who could understand the Mexican. Mere politeness insisted that he should lend his aid as interpreter when a negro waiter asked the olive-skinned seÑor what he would like to eat; but the “Greaser,” as he was dubbed instantly, proved to be a jovial soul, who laughed when any of the other men laughed, insisted on having the joke translated, and roared again when it was explained to him, so that each quip earned a double recognition, while he never failed to pay his own score by some joyous anecdote or amusing repartee. Thus, Power was forced into the role of “good fellow” in a way which he would not have believed possible a few hours earlier. In spite of himself, the merry mood of other years came uppermost, and, when the party broke up at midnight, after a long and lively sitting on a moonlit veranda, he retired to his room with a certain feeling of marvel and agreeable surprise at the change which one evening of enforced relaxation had effected in his outlook on life. He decided that these chance companions had done him a world of good, that his misanthropic attitude was a false one, and that a week or two at Newport might send him back to Colorado a better man. Applying to a state of mind a metaphor drawn from material things, he felt as an Englishman feels who leaves his own dripping and fog-bound island on a January afternoon and wakes next morning amid the roses and sunshine of the Riviera. The glitter on land and sea may bear a close resemblance to spangles and gilt paper on the stage; but it is cheering to eyes which have not seen the sun for weeks, and when, in such conditions, John Bull sits down to luncheon under the awnings of a cafÉ facing the blue Mediterranean, he is unquestionably quite a different being from the muffled-up person who hurried on board the steamer at Dover.

Power had contrived to withdraw himself so completely from the more genial side of existence at Bison that he rediscovered it with a fresh zest. Next day he was no longer alone. The man from Birmingham, Alabama, and the Englishman shared his love of horses, and the three visited the judge, who stabled some of his cattle on the island, and had photographs and pedigrees galore wherewith to describe the stock on his New York farm.

So Power stayed two days, and yet a third, and he was laughing with the rest at some quaint bit of Spanish humor which he had translated for the benefit of the company at dinner on the third evening, when he became aware that a lady, entering with a large party, for whose use a table had been specially decorated, was standing stock-still and looking at him. He lifted his eyes, and met the astonished gaze of Mrs. Marten.

“Derry!” she gasped.

“Nancy!” said he, wholly off his guard, and flushing violently in an absurd consciousness of having committed some fault. She had caught him, as it were, in a boisterous moment utterly at variance with the three years of self-imposed monasticism which followed her marriage. Yet, with the speed of thought, he saw the futility of such reasoning. The girl-wife knew nothing of his sufferings. She was greeting him with all the warmth of undiminished friendship, and could not possibly understand that he had endured tortures for her sake. So he regained his wits almost at once, and was on his feet, bowing.

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Marten,” he went on. “Your presence here took me completely unawares. You are the last person breathing I expected to see in Newport.”

She laughed delightedly, with no hint of flurry or confusion beyond that first natural outburst.

“It would sound much nicer if you said what I am going to say to you,” she cried, “that you are one of the few persons breathing whom I am really delighted to see in Newport. But I can’t stop and talk now. I’ll ask Mrs. Van Ralten to forgive me if I slip away from her party for ten minutes after dinner. Mind, you wait for me on the veranda. I’m simply dying to hear some news of dear old Bison! How is Mac? Oh, my! I really must go. But don’t you dare escape afterward!”

Forgetful of all else, he allowed his startled eyes to follow her as she ran to her place at the neighboring table. She was dressed in some confection of white tulle and silver; a circlet of diamonds sparkled in her thick brown hair; a big ruby formed a clasp in front for an aigrette of osprey plumes; her robes and bearing were those of a princess. Were it not for the warranty of his senses, he would never have pictured the girl of the Dolores ranch in this fine lady. Even now he stood as one in a trance, half incredulous of the evidence of eyes and ears, and seemingly afraid lest he might awake and come back to the commonplaces of an existence in which the Nancy Willard of his dreams had no part.

The Englishman, Dacre by name, knew something of the world and its denizens, and he had seen the blood rush to his friend’s face and ebb away again until the brown skin was sallow.

“Sit down, old chap,” he said quietly. “I was just thinking of ordering some wine for the public benefit. Do you drink fizz?”

The calm voice helped to restore Power’s bemused senses. Afraid lest his moonstruck attitude might have been observed by some of Mrs. Marten’s companions, he tried to cover his confusion by a jest.

“Wine, did you say?” he cried. “Certainly—let’s have a magnum. Bottled sunlight should help to dissipate visions.”

“Anacreon has something to that effect in one of his odes; though he vowed that he worshiped Wine, Woman, and the Muses in equal measure.”

“Who is Anacreon?” asked the man from Plainville.

“He flourished at Athens about 600 B.C.,” laughed Dacre.

“Did he? By gosh! The Greeks knew a bit, then, even at that time.”

“This one in particular was an authority on those three topics. Love, to him, was no mischievous boy armed with silver darts, but a giant who struck with a smith’s hammer. He died like a gentleman, too, being choked by a grapestone at the age of eighty-five.”

“Ah, that explains it!”

“Explains what?”

“He had a small swallow, or rum and romance would have knocked him out in half the time.”

Power was rapidly becoming himself again. “I behaved like a stupid boy just now,” he said; “but I was never more taken aback in my life. I have not met Mrs. Marten since her marriage, three years ago, and I imagined she was in Europe.”

“Oh, is that Mrs. Marten?” chimed in downright Plainville. “Last Sunday’s papers whooped her up as the prize beauty of Newport this summer, and I guess they got nearer the truth than usual. She’s a sure winner.”

“Did I hear her mention Mrs. Van Ralten?” inquired Dacre.

“Yes, her hostess tonight, I believe.”

“Van Ralten and Marten hurried off together to the Caspian last week. They are interested in the oil wells at Baku.”

Cymbals seemed to clash in Power’s brain, and he heard his own voice saying in a subdued and colorless staccato, “I am sorry I did not meet her sooner. I leave tomorrow.”

Dacre looked at him curiously; but the wine had arrived, a choice vintage of the middle ’70’s, and the Mexican was lifting his glass.

“El sabio muda conseja; el necio no,” he quoted.

The phrase was so apt that Power glanced at the speaker with marked doubt; whereupon the blond Norwegian asked what the seÑor had said.

“He told us that the wise man changes his mind, but the fool does not,” translated Power.

“Gee whizz!” cried Plainville. “It’s a pity he can’t give out the text in good American; for he talks horse sense most all the time. If I had a peach like Mrs. Marten callin’ me ‘Derry,’ damn if I’d quit for a month!”

The general laugh at this dry comment evoked a demand by the Mexican for a Spanish version of the joke. Then he made it clear that he had resolved to abjure wine, and was only salving his conscience by a proverb.

This cheerful badinage, which might pass among any gathering of men when one of them happened to be greeted by a pretty woman, did not leave Power unscathed. He had dwelt too long apart from his fellows not to wince at allusions which would glance harmlessly off less sensitive skins. The iron which had entered into his soul was fused to a white heat by sight of the woman he had loved and lost. He resented what he imagined as being the knowledge these boon companions boasted of his parlous state. Unable to join in their banter, not daring to trust his voice in the most obvious of retorts, for the man from Plainville had not been designed by nature to pose as a squire of dames, he gulped down a glass of champagne at a draft, and pretended to make up for wasted time in an interrupted course.

Dacre seemed to think that he would be interested in the latest gossip in financial circles with reference to a supposed scheme organized by Marten and Van Ralten to fight the Oil Trust. Power listened in silence until he felt sure of himself; then he launched out vigorously.

“It strikes me that America has lost the art of producing great men,” he said. “We whites are degenerating into mere money-grubbers; so, by the law of compensation, our next demigod should be a nigger.”

“Huh!” snorted Alabama, eager for battle.

“That’s my serious opinion,” continued Power dogmatically. “And, what’s more, I think I know the nigger. Have any of you dined in the Auditorium Hotel, Chicago?”

Yes, several; dining-room on top floor; lightning elevator; all right going up empty, but coming down full was rather a trial.

“Well, you will remember that, as you go in, a young colored gentleman takes your hat and overcoat, and cane or umbrella. He supplies no numbered voucher, and cannot possibly tell at which tables some six or seven hundred diners will be seated. At this time of year every man is wearing a straw hat of similar design; yet, as each guest comes forth, he is handed his own hat and other belongings. Now, I hold that that nigger has a brain of supreme mathematical excellence. There is not a financier in Wall Street who could begin to emulate that feat of memory. Given a chance, and such men make their own opportunities. The Auditorium cloakroom attendant will rise to a dizzy height.”

“Tosh!” exclaimed Alabama, primed with facts to prove that hundreds of negroes could perform similar tricks, but were no good for anything else.

He was no match for Power in an argument where figures held a place, and Dacre was the only other man present who realized that the talk had been boldly and skilfully wrenched to an impersonal topic. He, at any rate, made no further allusion to Marten or his projects; though he continued to watch Power narrowly but unobtrusively. Himself something of a derelict, though his aimless path lay in summer seas, he had conceived a warm regard for the quiet-mannered stranger from Colorado. Neither he nor any of the others knew aught of Power’s history, who might really be the rancher he professed to be, though his student’s features and reserved manner did not bear out the assumption. Later, when Dacre was better informed, he realized the cause of his first skepticism, for the engineer belonged to one of those rarer types of mankind who, like the lawyer, the soldier, the physician, and the clergyman, had the seal of his life’s work stamped plainly upon him.

Hence, it followed that in a spirit of sheer comradeship and sympathy he kept an eye on Power during the next few days. He saw how matters were tending, and risked a rebuff in offering a friendly hint when disaster was imminent. Above all—whether for good or evil who can judge? at any rate, the writer of this record of a man’s life feels least qualified to decide the point—he brought a dominating influence to bear at a moment when Power was adrift in a maelstrom which threatened to engulf him.

Yet there was slight sign of impending tempest in that bright room with its groups of diners seemingly well content with their surroundings. From the adjoining table, which Power could not see owing to the position he occupied, came gusts of animated conversation. Mrs. Van Ralten rejoiced in the loud, penetrating accents of the Middle West, and snatches of her talk were audible.

“I do think James Gordon might have provided a more stylish Casino while he was about it.”

“Yes, I sail on the Teutonic first week in August. Nothing will keep Willie away from the moors on the Twelfth.”

“Did I see them? My dear, who could miss them? Has anyone ever met such freaks outside a dime museum?”

“Why, Nancy, I don’t wonder a little bit that you were such a success in Paris. The nice things I was told about you turned me green with envy.”

Alabama hotly contested each milestone of the Mason and Dixon Line; but Dacre believed that Power was less intent on the color problem than on catching each syllable of a sweet voice seldom heard above the clatter of tongues at the next table. At last the meal was ended, and the men strolled out into the veranda. Mrs. Marten seemed to know when her friend had risen; she turned and waved a hand, and obviously explained her action in the next breath. Soon she appeared, a radiant being fully in keeping with moonlight and a garden of exotics.

“Mary Van Ralten is a duck,” she said joyously, when Power hurried forward. “She has given me half an hour; but I mustn’t be a minute later, as she has turned out of her own house to accommodate the Barnstormers from Boston, who are acting for her guests tonight. All Newport will be there. You are coming, Derry. I asked her, and will introduce you afterward. My carriage will wait. But, gracious me, why are you lame?”

He was leading her to a couple of reserved chairs in a palm-shaded nook, and she noticed that he walked with a limp.

“Happened an accident near the mine quite a time since,” he said.

“I never heard. I wonder my father didn’t mention it. Anyhow, Derry, why have you never written?”

“Listen to the pot calling the kettle, or, if that is only a trite simile, listen to the Fairy Queen berating a poor mortal for her own lapses!”

“Ah, I have not written since my marriage, it is true, but you treated my hapless missives so cavalierly when I did send them that I hardly dared risk another rebuff.”

“What do you mean?” he asked thickly. He was priding himself on the ease with which they were establishing new relations, when this unlooked-for development plunged him again into a swift-running current of doubt and foreboding. They were seated now, not side by side as he had planned, but in such wise that Nancy could see his face clearly, she having deliberately pulled her chair round for that purpose.

“Exactly what I have said,” she answered composedly. “I sent three separate letters to Mr. John Darien Power, the Esperanza Placer Mine, Sacramento—I sha’n’t forget the address in a hurry, because I’ve always longed to ask why you were so ready to desert a friend—and, seeing that not one of them was returned by the postoffice, I had good reason to suppose that they reached you all right. Derry, don’t tell me you never got them!”

His heart seemed to miss a beat or two. In an instant he guessed the truth, that their correspondence had been burked by malicious contriving; but all he could find to say was:

“Did you really write to me?”

“Of course, I did. Am I not telling you? And you, Derry, did you write to me?”

His tongue almost cleaved to the roof of his mouth; for he knew, in that instant, that they were not seated in the comfortable veranda of the Ocean House, but standing side by side on the lip of an abyss.

He must not, he dared not, answer truly. He had no right to make wreck and ruin of this bright young life, and none knew so well as he how proudly she would denounce the thievish wiles which had separated them if once she grasped their full import.

“It is so long ago,” he muttered brokenly. “So many things have occurred since. I have forgotten. I—I can only be sure that I received no letters from you.”

“You have forgotten!” she repeated slowly.

“Yes—that is, I suffered a good deal from a broken leg—it was badly set—that is why I have such a noticeable hobble. Events round about that period are all jumbled up in my mind.”

The explanation was lame as his leg. It would never have deceived even the Nancy Willard of bygone years, and was utterly thrown away on this wide-eyed woman. She was conscious of a fierce pain somewhere in the region of her heart, and wanted to cry aloud in her distress; but she crushed the impulse with a self-restraint that had become second nature, and bent nearer, smiling wanly.

“Why did you throw away your cigar, Derry?” she said. “Please smoke. Like every other man, you will talk more easily then. And do tell me what has been going on at Bison. I have often asked Hugh for news; but he says he never hears a word about the place since he sold his interests there.”

Power hardly realized how swiftly and certainly she had made smooth the way. He was conscious only of a vast relief that the subject of the missing correspondence was dropped. Only in later hours of quiet reflection did he grasp the reason—that she was bitterly aware of the truth, and the whole truth. He began at once to describe developments on the ranch, and was too wishful to hide his own confusion behind the smoke of a cigar to notice how a white-gloved hand clenched the arm of a chair when he spoke of his mother and the place she filled in public esteem. Unconsciously he was telling Nancy just what she wanted to know. He was not married. There was no other woman! She uttered no sound; but her lower lip bore a series of white marks for a little while.

“You see,” he explained glibly, “I acquired the habit of letting other people work when I was laid by for repairs. Please excuse these frequent references to a broken limb, which seems to figure in my talk much as King Charles’s head in Mr. Dick’s disjointed manuscripts. Anyhow, I had plenty of time for reading, as the mine paid from the very beginning, and a rock spring which nearly scared Mac stiff came in handy to irrigate the upper part of the ranch—that long slope just below the Gulch, you remember.”

“Yes, I remember,” she said.

“Well, what between fruit-growing and horse-breeding, I hardly ever have time to go near Bison. My mother drives in every day over the new trail——”

“What new trail?”

“We had to cut a road across the divide. The Gulch is blocked by rails.”

“Why?”

“That is where the mine is, you know.”

“I don’t know. Whereabouts exactly is the mine?”

“It starts in the west side of the canyon, about a hundred yards from the ranch end.”

“Near a narrow cleft, topped by a sloping ledge?”

“Yes. How well you recollect every yard of the ground!”

“How did you come to locate the lost seam there?”

“By sheer chance. Some pieces of the granite wall fell away, and any miner who had been a week at his trade would have recognized the vein then.”

“When did they fall away—the bits of rock, I mean?”

“It must have been about the time you—you were married, Mrs. Marten.”

She tapped a satin-shod foot emphatically on the boarded floor. “Why are you calling me ‘Mrs. Marten’?” she demanded.

“Well——”

“Don’t do it again. I am ‘Nancy’ to you, Derry. I refuse to part with the privileges of friendship in that casual way. But I want to understand things more closely. What caused the stones to fall?”

“I don’t mind telling,” he said, “though a good many people have asked me the history of El PreÇo, and I have refused hitherto to gratify their curiosity——”

“El PreÇo—doesn’t that mean ‘the price’?”

“Yes.”

“What an extraordinary name! The price of what?”

“Of my broken leg. There, you see! King Charles’s head once more.”

She paused, ever so briefly, before resuming her questioning. “Now, why did the stones fall?”

“Because an excited cowboy fired his revolver in the air, and the bullets struck a section of rock which required some such shock to dislodge it.”

“But how did that affect you?”

“I happened to be lying on the very ledge you spoke of, and—oh, dash it all! I secured my limp then and there.”

“Did the fall disturb a rattlesnake?”

“It may have disturbed a dozen rattlesnakes, for all that I can tell. But what an extraordinary thing to say! Did you know that a rattler lived in that cleft?”

“No. I was just thinking of the Gulch and its inhabitants. Perhaps my wits were wandering.... Come, Derry. Our half-hour is not gone, but we can talk on the way. Send a boy for my carriage. Do you want your hat and coat?”

She rose suddenly, and drew a light wrap of silvery tissue around her shoulders. Power stood up, and faced her. He had never seen her looking so ethereally beautiful, not even on the night, now so long ago, when he parted from her before taking that disastrous journey to Sacramento.

“Do you really think I ought to come with you to Mrs. Van Ralten’s?” he said.

“Of course. Why not? You are invited.”

“But——”

“You are my big brother from Bison, Derry, and I’m not going to forgo the pleasure of your company if all Newport lined the road and bawled, ‘Send him away!’ But do hurry. Mary Van Ralten will forgive everything except unpunctuality.”

The nebulous protest on Power’s lips faded into silence. “On such a night I can dispense with hat and overcoat,” he said. “Your carriage is a closed landau, I suppose?”

“Yes. After the play you can escort me to the Breakers—that is the name of the house we have rented—and Sam, our coachman, will take you home.... Oh, there he is, waiting. Mrs. Van Ralten’s, Sam.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” said the negro, who had brought a carriage and pair to the doorway when he caught sight of his mistress. A negro footman opened the door, and Nancy entered, the brilliant moonlight gleaming for an instant on the sheen of a white silk stocking. Power seated himself by her side, and the horses dashed off. He felt the soft folds of her dress touching him. When she turned slightly to say something about the marvelous nights which tempered the heat-wave at Newport, her right shoulder and elbow pressed him closely. Some subtle fragrance came from her that stirred him almost to a frenzy of longing; yet he dared not flinch away into a corner of the carriage. Perforce, he schooled his voice to utter the platitudes of the moment. Yes, he had been in Newport three whole days, and had not the remotest notion that she was there. He had come to buy horses, and might remain another week. Well, he would remain, now that they had met; for he was sure he would find a good deal to tell her of Bison and its folk once he had got over the novelty and unexpectedness of this meeting.

And all the time his heart was pounding madly, throbbing so furiously that he feared lest she should become aware of its lack of restraint, and he stooped forward in a make-believe glance at some building they were passing.

“That is the Casino,” she said, misinterpreting his action, or pretending to—Heaven alone knows the extent of a woman’s divination where a man is concerned! “We play tennis there, in the evenings, when it’s so hot during the day. Are you a tennis-player, Derry?... Oh, I’m sorry! I quite forgot.”

“I have been arousing your sympathy by false pretense,” he said, and the laughter in his voice demanded a real effort. “I can walk and ride and jump and dance as well as ever, and I have taught three of the ranchmen to play tennis quite creditably. So, if the Newport stores run to flannels and rubber shoes——”

“Derry,” she cooed, “you are not such a fraudulent person as you imagine. If you knew how much you have told me tonight about yourself, you would be awfully surprised, as they say in London. But here we are at Mrs. Van Ralten’s. Now, be nice to everybody; for I mean you to have a real good time in Newport. People here can be very pleasant acquaintances if you take them the right way.”