Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/252

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240
HARD-PAN

of preparing her for the appearance of her lover. Curled up and trembling under the clothes, she lay staring into the blackness about her. It seemed a reflex, in its impenetrable gloom, of her own surroundings. With the goblin terrors of night weighing upon her overwrought spirit, she felt too helpless and feeble to battle with a life that was so beset with pitfalls. The dreariness of her isolation, the hopelessness of her misplaced love, that should have been the crown of her life, and was instead its direst dread and peril, seemed combining to crush her, and in her despair she pressed her face into the pillow and whispered wild supplications for death.

The next morning life did not look so formidable. Things fell into their proper perspective, and Viola's fears of Mrs. Cassidy as an agent of destruction appeared phantasmagoric. Nevertheless, sunlight and its restoring influences did not allay all her doubts of the woman. She had seen her thoughts and intentions written on her face, and she knew that it would only be a question of time when she would be tempted to communicate with Gault.

She determined to leave Mrs. Cassidy with no clue as to her new place of residence. She had no idea as to where she would go, except that she would try to find a lodging as far from where she was now as possible. This would be