“No; incoherent! Now I think of it, he harped on the same string as he did the night of the operation. What was it he said? you remember.”
“'You'll have to kill me first,'” repeated Josephine, in a choking voice.
“Yes; something about his dying before he'd tell. Well, he came back to it before he went off—they often do. You seem a little hoarse with your morning ride. You should take care of that voice of yours. By the way, it's a good deal like your brother's.”
The Chatelaine of Burnt Ridge never married.
THROUGH THE SANTA CLARA WHEAT
CHAPTER I
It was an enormous wheat-field in the Santa Clara valley, stretching to the horizon line unbroken. The meridian sun shone upon it without glint or shadow; but at times, when a stronger gust of the trade winds passed over it, there was a quick slanting impression of the whole surface that was, however, as unlike a billow as itself was unlike a sea. Even when a lighter zephyr played down its long level, the agitation was superficial, and seemed only to momentarily lift a veil of greenish mist that hung above its immovable depths. Occasional puffs of dust alternately rose and fell along an imaginary line across the field, as if a current of air were passing through it, but were otherwise inexplicable.