Frank was living with his father at the Press Club. His mother was dead. He had given up newspaper work, except for an occasional editorial. Through his father's influence he had found publication for a novel. He was something of a public man now, despite his comparative youth. Occasionally he saw his Uncle Robert. Two of his cousins had married. The third, an engineer, had gone to Colorado. Robert Windham and his wife were planning a year of travel. Sometimes Windham and his nephew talked of Bertha. It was a calmer, more dispassionate talk as time went on, for years blunt every pain. One day the former said, with tentative defiance, "I suppose you'll think there's something wrong about me, boy.... But I loved her mother deeply. Honestly--if one can call it that. If I'd had a certain kind of--well, immoral--courage, I'd have married her.... Just think how different all our lives would have been. But I hadn't the heart to hurt Maizie; to break with her ... nor the courage to give up my position in life. So we parted. I didn't know then--" "That you had a daughter?" questioned Frank. His uncle nodded. "Perhaps it would have made a difference ... perhaps not." * * * * * Aleta had a week's vacation. They were playing a comedy in which she had no part. So she had gone to Carmel to visit her friend Norah France. Frank decided to look in on them. He had been oddly shaken by the talk with his uncle. What tragedies men hid beneath the smooth exteriors of successful careers? He had always thought his uncle's home a happy one. Doubtless it was--happy enough. Love perhaps was not essential to successful unions. Frank wondered why he had not asked Aleta Boice to be his wife. They were good comrades, had congenial tastes. They would both be better off; less lonely. A sudden, long-forgotten feeling stirred within his heart. He had missed Aleta in the past few days. Why not go to her now; lay the question before her? Perhaps love might come to them both. CHAPTER XCI CONCLUSION For years thereafter Frank was haunted by the wraiths of vain conjecture--morbid questionings of what might have occurred if he had caught the train for Monterey that afternoon. For he was not to seek Aleta at Carmel. An official of the Exposition Company met Frank on the street. They talked a shade too long. Frank missed the train by half a minute. He shrugged his shoulders petulantly, found his father at the club. That evening they attended a comedy. He was not yet out of bed when the office telephoned him the next morning. "Didn't he know Norah France rather well?" the City Editor inquired. Frank admitted it sleepily. Had he a picture of her? Frank denied this. No. He didn't know where one might be obtained. Had Norah printed a poem or something? W-h-a-a-t!