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Economy dictated delayed illumination in the Mellen household. All was quiet. Somewhat reassured, she descended the stairs, leaning heavily on the rail. The fever which had relaxed for a brief interval renewed its grip, and filled with vague, indescribable fears, she fled blindly.
Mellen started forward with a wild impulse to choke the ebbing life from his lips, but they whispered hoarsely: "You can't fight a dying man you'll only put me out of this cursed pain if you choke me." Mellen stood transfixed. "I'll tell you the story," continued Ford; "novels always have dying confessions in them hear mine.
Mellen bent his head, for his enemy was dying. "It is a fair certificate you see, but I was a married man all the time." As Ford whispered these words a fiendish smile covered the lips on which death was scattering ashes.
Three persons more unlike in appearance than these ladies, it would have been difficult to find; but a casual observer would probably have been most attracted by the buoyant loveliness of Elsie Mellen. She was eighteen, but seemed younger with her fair curls, her brilliant bloom, and the childish rapidity with which smiles chased each other across her face.
"Be happy," Grantley Mellen whispered, when his wife tried to find words to express her delight. "Be happy peace, rest and affection is all I ask." He looked in her face, eager for the smiling surprise which he had expected to find there. It was sadly grave. She too had her after thought.
Elizabeth and Elsie joined in the old songs Mellen loved, and they all talked and laughed gaily, forgetful of the clouds that lowered above that house.
"There was, too!" he contradicted, with an explosiveness which irresistibly reminded Weldon of their kindergarten days. "What makes you think so?" "I don't think. I know." "How do you know?" Weldon asked listlessly. "Alice Mellen told me," Carew replied conclusively. "Told you what?" "That Cooee Dent is in love with you." From his superior knowledge, Weldon stared disdainfully up at him.
The smaller paper was a marriage certificate. The roll of bills each note for a thousand dollars was the price of Elizabeth's bonds. Mellen staggered back with one heartbroken cry. "I have touched you," exclaimed the man! "There lies your precious sister in a dead faint here I am, dying, a criminal, but your brother-in-law none the less stoop down, I want to whisper something."
But it transpired that most of them had been assigned to troops of their regiment not yet sent to Manila, only half the regiment being on duty foot duty at that in the Philippines. The only man among them who had travelled with Foster from Denver as far as Sacramento was the young recruit, Mellen. He was on outpost, but would be relieved and sent to Ermita as quickly as possible.
The clock in Elizabeth's dressing-room had struck eleven, but there she sat desolately looking into the fire, just as she had sunk into her chair on first entering the chamber. She heard her husband and Elsie ascend the stairs a full hour before, but Mr. Mellen went straight on towards his own apartments.
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