"Gracie, forgive—!"
Slowly she dropped her hands and stared incredulously. What was this wonder that had come to her in the moment of death? She tottered unsteadily, swaying to and fro like a wind-tossed leaf. As in a fog she saw him there with arms extended, waiting to carry her across the dark ford.
Then, by God's mercy, her brain cleared and she knew.
At the Court of Europe's greatest prince men strive with each other doing honor to the beautiful wife of the new American Ambassador, Anselm Brevoort.
"As good as she is beautiful, God bless her!" was Frederick, Lord Chillingham's enthusiastic eulogy one night when her name was mentioned at the United, and his comrades silently drank her health standing.
"As pure and as cold as the stars above, God bless her!" sighs the silver-haired Ambassador, looking wistfully at her where she sits with her protégé, little Eulalie Blount, in her lap, patiently explaining that the tail makes all the difference between O and Q.
"I love oo, Tonnie!" lisps the little tot kneeling by her little white bed. And the woman, clasping in her bosom a tiny satin bag containing a common yellow telegraph blank on which are written a few now undecipherable words, looks dry-eyed into the night and wonders.
In the marshal's office at Gunnison, over their cigars and a big-bellied bottle, Red McVey and Ballard are looking reminiscently at a Mauser hanging on the wall.