longer be bridged."

He wrung his hands in desperation and suddenly slid to his knees
before her; with hypocritical endearments he strove to take her hand,
but she drew away from him. "Don't touch me," she cried sharply and
with a breaking note in her voice. "You planned to kill Bryce
Cardigan! And for that--and that alone--I shall never forgive you."

She fled from the office, leaving him cringing and grovelling on the
floor. "There will be no directors' meeting, Mr. Sexton," she
informed the manager as she passed through the general office. "It is
postponed."




CHAPTER XXXVIII


That trying interview with her uncle had wrenched Shirley's soul to a
degree that left her faint and weak. She at once set out on a long
drive, in the hope that before she turned homeward again she might
regain something of her customary composure.

Presently the asphaltum-paved street gave way to a dirt road and
terminated abruptly at the boundaries of a field that sloped gently
upward--a field studded with huge black redwood stumps showing
dismally through coronets of young redwoods that grew riotously
around the base of the departed parent trees. From the fringe of the
thicket thus formed, the terminus of an old skid-road showed and a