"There was a so-called club in Colorado Springs whose members included the wildest young men of the town and several of the younger ranchmen who were able to stand the pace. In this Ralph was a leading spirit, drinking and gambling with that abandon which was his dominant characteristic. 'Buckner is a poor gambler but a good loser,' one of them is reported to have said, but that only meant that Ralph succeeded in concealing his real feelings until he reached home; for it was his wife who received the full force of the reaction as his brain cleared from the fumes of the liquor and he came to a realization of his losses." She paused and looked at her companion, and encouraged by Alice's rapt attention continued: "Our baby was born a year after we were married--" "I never knew of that," the girl said, quietly. "Don't," was the reply; "I can't go on if you weaken me by your sympathy." "Forgive me, dear Eleanor," Alice murmured. "By that time every remnant of a tie which held us together had disappeared. The child, however, was a real link, and for a little while gave us something to think of besides ourselves. For a year, perhaps, Ralph went less frequently to Colorado Springs, and I came to think that we might possibly be able to continue our lives together for the child's sake. But the novelty wore off from this new plaything, as it had from the others, though it lasted longer than anything else ever had, and then Ralph's absences from the ranch became more and more frequent and of longer duration. I cared little for this, as it enabled me to take Carina to my father's ranch, where I forgot for the time being the emptiness of the home to which we must sooner or later return." Alice glanced up tenderly. "Poor dear Eleanor," she said, softly; but Mrs. Gorham went on without heeding: "One day, when little Carina was three years old, we were visiting at my father's. It was late in the afternoon, and we were playing some child's game together when the door was suddenly thrown open and Ralph glowered in at us, his face purple with drunken anger. Even the four-mile ride had failed to sober him, and he leaned against the framework of the door to steady himself. The child, startled by the sudden interruption and terrified by the expression on her father's face, ran to me for protection, burying her little face in my lap. "'That's right,' he leered at her; 'that's what they teach you to do here--make you hate your father, don't they? I'll give you a chance to get acquainted with me.'