Crushing the fragile pasteboard in his hand, his moustache twitches with pain, and he mutters bitterly: "Oliver Livingston was right! My darling has seen her father; he wishes her to still wed that washed-out aristocrat!"
A minute after he thinks: "She wished to bid me good-bye, also! Did she do it easily?" and inspects the card he has almost thrown away, to see if the handwriting shows emotion in its lines. Doing this, a little hope comes to him, for he sees a splash such as a tear-drop might make upon the delicate tint of the cardboard.
Putting the missive away reverently in his pocketbook, he meditates, and reason tells him he has lost her. It says to him, She is not of your class and people. Her father wishes her to wed in her station, among the exclusives of Fifth Avenue and Murray Hill, and she obeys him. What are you that you should hope for her? If your mine was sold and you had nearly five hundred thousand dollars in your pocket, you might make an effort to win this butterfly, who has come into your mannish frontier life to make it brilliant for a day or two. You were happy before you saw her; be so without her!
To this he cries, resolution fighting against conviction and common sense: "No more joy for me without her! I'll win her yet!" and goes on his way to see his lawyers about getting the injunction on his mine removed.
But his attorneys, Messrs. Parshall & Garter, do not give him very much hope of immediate success, and common sense is a very hard party to down in argument; consequently Harry Lawrence makes a very sombre day of it, and a more sombre night.
Two days after, however, cometh joy. He is in his lawyers' offices, trying to think if any one in this wide world will go on his bond to raise the injunction that paralyzes him financially, when Garter comes excitedly in, and slapping him on the back, cries enthusiastically: "Here's luck for Harry Lawrence. I've just received a stipulation from Judge Smith, Zion's Co-operative Mining Co.'s attorney, agreeing to raise your injunction!"
"Impossible!"
"Fact!"
"What reason did Smith give for this curious concession?"