The island of Muloa remains to-day a charred cinder lapped about by
the blue Pacific. At times gulls circle over its blackened and
desolate surface devoid of every vestige of life. From the squat,
truncated mass of Lakalatcha, shorn of half its lordly height, a
feeble wisp of smoke still issues to the breeze, as if Vulcan, tired
of his forge, had banked its fire before abandoning it.
THE ARGOSIES
BY ALEXANDER HULL
From _Scribner's Magazine_
There may have been some benevolent force watching over Harber. In
any case, that would be a comforting belief. Certainly Harber
himself so believed, and I know he had no trouble at all convincing
his wife. Yes, the Harbers believed.
But credulity, you may say, was ever the surest part in love's young
golden dream: and you, perhaps, not having your eyes befuddled with
the rose-fog of romance, will see too clearly to believe. What can I
adduce for your conviction? The facts only. After all, that is the
single strength of my position.
There was, of course, the strange forehanded, subtle planning of the
other girl, of Janet Spencer. Why did she do it? Was it that,
feeling her chances in Tawnleytown so few, counting the soil there
so barren, driven by an ambition beyond the imagination of staid,
stodgy, normal Tawnleytown girls, she felt she must create
opportunities where none were? She was very lovely, Harber tells me,
in a fiery rose-red of the fairy-tale way; though even without
beauty it needn't have been hard for her.
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