Wonderful as it may seem, Mrs. Wylie did allow herself to become interested in the bright descriptions which Lissa gave her of the native wild flowers of the State, and promised to go with her in the afternoon to gather autumn specimens, and thus the first step was taken in distracting her mind from her grief. CHAPTER XXVIII HORACE WYLIE’S PHILOSOPHY Let us now make a flying trip to the Pacific slope and go back to that hour of parting at San Francisco to learn more of the motives that prompted the tragedy in Elinor Wylie’s life. Passenger train No. 9, eastward bound, pulled slowly out of the great depot building of the Oakland Mole, and the hurrying and excited throng of people pressed forward, jostling elbows and crowding one another after the manner of travelers, who sometimes leave their politeness and good breeding behind them when they take up their valises. The coaches were fast becoming filled, when a gentleman entered one of them, accompanied by a child and two ladies, one a pretty blonde, whom he helped to a seat and bent over in tender leave-taking. “Good-by, Nellie! Write me when you get through, or better, wire me from Denver, so I may know all is well. Tibby is with you, so I need not worry if the trains run right.” The little lady smiled through tear-moistened eyelids as she replied, and kissing her again, and the child, and shaking hands with her companion, he sprang from the train as it began to move. Horace Wylie stood watching the long line of coaches as they moved away from him, biting the ends of his mustache in an absent, absorbed inattention, then turned slowly back within the gates, a strange mixture of emotions controlling him. The inward monitor, conscience, was not yet stifled, and it was holding a mental mirror before his vision. He caught a flitting glimpse of his real self, stripped of all the sophistries and delusions under which he loved to hide. Was he not a traitor, double-dyed? For a moment he felt an impulse to rush after the departing train and seek to stop it in its flight. A vision of his wife, looking trim and attractive in her fashionable costume, remained and upbraided him with her trusting blue eyes. It was but a moment, however. Another face superseded it—a dark, brilliant face, with passionate southern eyes, and red, full lips; a face more sensuous, more bewilderingly intoxicating to him in its voluptuous beauty and piquancy. Horace Wylie shrugged his shoulders and shook himself as if to shake off the oppression of self-reproach. He had made his decision and would abide by it. After all, what mattered it? He had but one life to live. It was right to get all the enjoyment out of it within his reach.