The Golden Woman

"Kenyon."

Mercy sat up in her chair. Her whole figure was poised alertly. Her eyes were no longer uninterested. She was stirred to swift mental activity. She knew that the web was readjusting itself. The portion she had been seeking to place was finding its own position.

"He has a head of thick white hair. He has gray eyes, darkly fringed. He is a man of something over fifty. His shoulders are massive. His limbs sturdy and powerful."

Mercy detailed her description of the man in sharp, jerky sentences, each one definite and pointed. She spoke with the certainty of conviction. She was not questioning.

Joan's surprise found vent in a wondering interrogation.

"Then, you have seen him? You know him?"

Her aunt laughed. It was a painful, hideous laugh, suggesting every hateful feeling rather than mirth. Joan was shocked, and vaguely wondered when she had ever before heard her aunt laugh.

"Know him? Yes, I know him." The laugh was gone and a terrible look had suddenly replaced the granite hardness of her eyes. "I have known him all my life. I saw him only to-day, in the hills. He knew me. Oh, yes, he knew me, and I knew him. We have reason to know each other. But his name is not Moreton Kenyon. It is--Moreton Bucklaw."

Joan's wonder gave place to alarm as the other's venomous manner increased. The look in her eyes she recognized as the look she had seen in the woman's eyes when she had first listened to the story of her childhood.

"Moreton Bucklaw?"

"Yes, Moreton Bucklaw," her aunt cried, with sudden vehemence, which seemed to grow with every word she spoke. "Moreton Bucklaw. Do you understand? No, of course you don't. So this is your paragon of goodness and wisdom. This is the man who has told you that your fate only exists in distorted fancy. This is the man who is the foster-father of your wonderful Buck, who defies the curse of disaster which dogs your feet. Child, child, you have proved my words out of your own lips. The disaster you deny is hard upon your heels, hard upon the heels of this man you love. Your own hand, the hand even of your lover, is in it. Was it fate that brought you here? Was it fate that you should love this man? Was it fate that made my teamster lose his way and so bring me face to face with this man, almost at the door of his own home? Was it fate that brought me here? Yes, yes, yes! I tell you it was fate that did all these things--your fate. The curse from which you can never escape. Moreton Bucklaw!" She mouthed the words with insane glee. "It is almost laughable," she cried. "You have promised to marry the foster-son of the man who is shortly to pay the penalty for the murder of--your father."