“I’m sending you a warning.  In a few days I’ll be tossing on that black sea of which I have, in the last few days, caught some discouraging glimpses.  It doesn’t look as if it meant to let me see the Statue of Liberty again, but as surely as I do, I’m going to go into council with you.

“I imagine you know mighty well what I’m going to say.  For years you’ve kept me at your call—­or, rather, for years I have kept myself there.  You’ve discouraged me often, in a tolerant fashion, as if you thought me too young to be dangerous, or yourself too high up to be called to account.  I’ve been patient, chiefly because I found your society, as a mere recipient of my awkward attentions, too satisfactory to be able to run the risk of foregoing it.  But if I were to sit in the outer court any longer I would be pusillanimous.  I’m coming home to force you to make up that strange mind of yours, which seems to be forever occupying itself with the thing far-off and to-be-hoped-for, rather than with what is near at hand.

     “You’ll have time to think it over.  You can’t say I’ve been
     precipitate.

     “Yours—­always,

     “RAY.”

At that she flashed a letter to Colorado.

“What is your cousin’s trouble?” she asked Honora.  “Is it at the mines?”

“It’s at the mines,” Honora replied.  “Karl’s life has been and is in danger.  Friends have warned me of that again and again.  There’s no holding these people—­these several hundred Italians that poor Karl insisted upon regarding as his wards, his ‘adopted children.’  They’re preparing to leave their half-paid-for homes and their steady work, and to go threshing off across the country in the wave of a hard-drinking, hysterical labor leader.  He has them inflamed to the explosive point.  When they’ve done their worst, Karl may be a poor man.  Not that he worries about that; but he’s likely to carry down with him friends and business associates.  Of course this is not final.  He may win out, but such a catastrophe threatens him.

“But understand, all this is not what is tormenting him and turning him gaunt and haggard.  No, as usual, the last twist of the knife is given by a woman.  In this case it is an Italian girl, Elena Cimiotti, the daughter of one of the strikers and of the woman who does our washing for us.  She’s a beautiful, wild creature, something as you might suppose the daughter of Jorio to be.  She has come for the washing and has brought it home again for months past, and Karl, who is thoughtful of everybody, has assisted her with her burden when she was lifting it from her burro’s back or packing it on the little beast.  Sometimes he would fetch her a glass of water, or give her a cup of tea, or put some fruit in her saddle-bags.  You know what a way he has with all women!  I suppose it would turn any foolish creature’s head.  And he has such an impressive way of saying things!