it--these are my own words.

"There was a paragraph in one newspaper, next morning, which gave the
girl's full name, and a fancy sketch of her elopement with the famous
range-rider Dick Malaby. This was just after the close of the cattlemen's
war in Wyoming. Malaby had fought for one of the ruined English companies.
(The big owners lost everything, as you know. The country was up in arms
against them; they could not protect their own men.) Malaby's employers
were friends of the Benedets, and had asked a place with them for their
liegeman. He was a desperado with a dozen lives upon his head, but men like
Norwood Benedet and his set would have been sure to make a pet of him. One
could see how it all had come about, and what a terrible publicity such a
name associated with hers would give a girl for the rest of her life.

"But money can do a great deal. Society was out of town; the newspapers
that society reads were silent.

"It was announced a few days later that Mrs. Benedet and her daughter Helen
had gone East on their way to Europe. As Mr. Benedet's health was very
bad,--this was only six months before he died,--society wondered; but it
has been accustomed to wondering about the Benedets.

"Mrs. Benedet came home at the time of her husband's death and remained for
a few months, but Helen was kept away. You know they have continually been
abroad for the last seven years, and Helen has never been seen in society
here. When you spoke of 'Miss Benedet' I no more thought of her than if
she had not been living. Aunt Frances met them last winter at Cannes, and
Mrs. Benedet said positively that they had no intention of coming back to
California ever to live. Aunt Frances wondered why, with their beautiful
homes empty and going to destruction. I have told you the probable reason.