“Don’t, don’t,” Inez said, putting up both her hands. “Don’t thank me. I didn’t think of saving anybody. I was wild. I was desperate. I—I am not a heroine. Don’t talk about me. Don’t let them put me in the papers. I can’t bear it.”
There was a hard look on her face which softened when Fanny came up to say good bye. Drawing her closely to her Inez sobbed like a child.
“It was so bright yesterday, and this morning I was so happy. It is so dark now, and will be always. Good bye, and God bless you. I don’t believe I shall ever see you again.”
“Yes, you will,” Fanny answered. “We are to spend a few days at Clark’s, and if you do not come there I shall drive over and call on you, and then there is New York in the future.”
Inez shook her head. She knew there was no glad future for her and her tears fell like rain as she watched Fanny getting into the stage, helped by Tom, who lifted his hat very politely as the stage drove off, the passengers looking back and waving hands and handkerchiefs to Inez until the turn in the road hid her from view. Nothing was talked of the rest of the way but the attempt at robbery and Inez’s wonderful courage and presence of mind.
“We ought to do something to show our appreciation; make up a purse, perhaps, if she is poor,” some one suggested, and Fanny quickly interposed, “They are not poor in that way. Money would be out of place. Make her a present which she can always keep.”
This met with general approval, and it was decided that as soon as Fanny returned to San Francisco she should purchase a handsome watch, with Inez’s name and the date of the attempted robbery on the case. The money was to be contributed at Clark’s, where the stage arrived nearly an hour behind its usual time. All the passengers were to continue their journey that day except Fanny and her mother. The latter was in a state of utter prostration and went at once to her room and to bed. During the scene on the road she had sat half fainting in the coach, alighting once when all the rest did and then, seeing she could be of no use, creeping back to her corner and feeling that she was doing her duty when she passed out her golden stoppered salts as her contribution to the many restoratives offered to Inez. Her trip to the Yosemite had not been very pleasant, and she was glad she was so far on her way back to the city which suited her better.
“I shall always feel grateful to that girl,” she said to Fanny, as she was getting into bed. “She saved us from a great unpleasantness. Think of being ordered out of the stage and searched by a masked blackguard with a revolver in your face. He would have found nothing of value about me except a few dollars. The diamonds were safe in your hat. I watched it all the time until it rolled off into the mud. Mr. Hardy picked it up. I did not see him very closely, but thought he seemed a very gentlemanly fellow, who had seen more of the world than that girl he is to marry. I think he could do better.”
Fanny did not hear the last of her mother’s remarks. In her fright and excitement over the robber and Inez she had not given the diamonds a thought until her mother brought them to her mind. Her hat was still on her head and snatching it off she passed her hand over the bows of ribbon in quest of the little linen bag. IT WAS GONE! The strong thread with which it had been sewed to the hat had been wrenched apart from the ribbon and it had slipped out, when or where no one could tell. The diamonds were lost, and the hotel was soon in a state of nearly as great excitement as there had been on the road. Many suggestions were offered, one of which was that when the hat was stepped on by the heavy boots of some of the party, as it evidently had been, the stitches had given way and the bag fallen out. This seemed feasible, and with a gentleman and a guide from the hotel Fanny went back to the scene of the adventure, looking all along the road and going over every inch of ground near the spot where the stage had been stopped. There were footprints of the people and Tom Hardy’s horse and a spot in the spongy soil where Nero had stretched himself at full length, but the diamonds were not there. Very unwillingly Fanny broke the news to her mother, who at once went into hysterics so violent that a physician was called, and all that night Fanny and Celine were kept busy attending to her. It was not the value of the diamonds she deplored so much, she said, although that was great, as the fact that the ear-rings had been in the family so long and were to have been Fanny’s on her wedding day. Fanny, too, was very sorry for her loss, but thought less of it than of Inez, whose face haunted her as she last saw it, so white and drawn, with an expression which puzzled her. She would like to have driven over in the early morning to inquire for her, but her mother was too weak and nervous to be left and she was obliged to wait for the daily stage which she hoped would bring her some news.