"By God, Lee was right!" cries Woods. He catches her falling form. The first and only time he will ever hold her in his arms.
"Padre, ring the bell!" cries the excited miner.
The clock ticks away noisily in the hall. The wondering servants bear madame to her rooms. All is confusion. A fainting fit.
"Let's get out of here," whispers Woods, frightened by his own bomb-shell.
"Stay till we get a message of formality," murmurs the diplomatic padre. "It would look like violence or insult to leave abruptly. No one here must suspect." Joe nods gloomily and wipes his brows.
The stately butler soon expresses the regrets of madame. "A most unforeseen affair, an assault upon one of her discharged servants, has tried her nerves. Will Colonel Woods kindly excuse madame, who will send him word when she receives again?"
"Colonel Woods will decidedly excuse madame." He returns to his hotel. He grieves over the dark shadows cast upon her suffering loveliness. "By the gods! It's a shame SHE IS WHAT SHE IS," he murmurs to his cigar. Ah, Joseph! entangled in the nets of Delilah.
In a few days the spacious apartments of Colonel Woods have another tenant. Bag and baggage he has quietly departed for the Pacific Slope. PŠre Fran‡ois runs on to Havre. He waves an adieu from the "quai." It would not be possible to prove that Colonel Joe has not gone to Switzerland. That is not the question, however. But the padre and the colonel are now sworn allies. Joseph is the bearer of a letter to the Archbishop of California. It carries the heart and soul of PŠre Fran‡ois. The great Church acts now.
"My dear old friend," says Woods in parting, "I propose to keep away from Paris for a couple of years and watch Philip Hardin's handling of this great estate. Peyton will bring the girl on, when her coming of age calls for a legal settlement of the estate. I don't want to strike that woman down until she braves me.
"I'm going to lure Madame de Santos over to California. If she wants to watch me, I will be on deck every time there. I'll bring Peyton and Louise Moreau over to San Francisco. I will never lose sight of that child. Judge Davis shall now run my whole game. I don't ask you who killed that woman, padre, but I will bet the de Santos knows the hand which struck the blow.