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Show 186 TALES OF THE COLORADO PIONEERS. had succeeded in making her believe that he was wealthy and well born, when he was only a worn out and ruined gamester. The disreputable roue deemed it the one godsend of his vile life to win Leonora, for she was a very queen among women. Her hair was black as a raven's wing, and clustered in short, loose curls about a head of classic mould, and her form was lithe, tall and graceful. " I met her only once, and that was on the streets in Denver. No word was spoken, but when she raised her plaintive eyes to mine the expiring flame breathed into life again, and went quivering all through me. It was the mingling of her soul with mine. I read it in her eyes and cheeks. I wanted to clasp her to my heart, and felt like one under some horrible spell, with arms hanging powerless at my side/ when the much coveted object is within reach. " A few years later, following up my Bohemian life, as reporter for a newspaper, I drifted to . Late one evening I entered the bar of a hotel and inquired, ' what's the news?' The clerk, not knowing the wound he was about to inflict, replied, 'Mrs. Leonora B , the handsome wife of the gambler, died yesterday and was buried to-day.' "I dropped into a chair, and drew my hat low down on my brow, to conceal the anguish in my face. I had not even heard of her being in the town. "' Women, like moths, are often caught by glare,' and she, poor child, had dashed through the flames, and her life was a lingering death.. An hour later I was kneeling over her new-made grave. Alone, and in the stillness of the night, I wept such tears as flow when the heart swells with unspeakable sorrow. God alone can explain the |