"I will do all I can to respect your wishes as to the first. The second

is too ridiculous to notice. We will settle all that when the time

comes."

To this she vouchsafed no reply, but peered up into the boughs. Her

expression changed after a moment; it became impersonal, and her eyes

hardened as they always did when her mind alone was at work.

"So far, California has evolved no literature," she said. "When it

does, I don't doubt it will be a literature of light and charm and

comedy--and pleasurable pathos. Writers will continue to go to the

dreary moorlands, the dun-coloured skies of England for tragedy

settings, and for the atmosphere of tradition and history. It will be

hard for any writer who has travelled over the wonderful mountains and

valleys of California--you have only seen the worst of it so far--to

imagine tragedy in a land of such exultant beauty, under a sun that

shines in a blue sky for eight months of the year. Fancy Emily Bronte

writing 'Wuthering Heights' in California! The setting is all wrong for

anything deeper than the picturesque crimes of desperadoes. But it is

the very contrast, this very accompaniment of unreality, that makes our

tragedies the harder to bear. I have thought sometimes that if I could

come out here on a furious day in winter, and wander about the sand

hills by myself, I'd feel as if I had a better right to be miserable--"

"I thought we were to have no more such hints this week. I am tired of

innuendoes. As I have remarked before, you take an unfair advantage. Let

down your hair. It looks full of gold and red in this light, and I want

to see it spread out in the sun."

"Very well, put my hairpins in your pocket. Take it down yourself, and

don't pull, on your life."

X

The week passed very gaily; the mornings in long rambles, the early

afternoon in siesta, its later hours in visits to neighbouring camps,

followed by strawberry picking and long evenings about the fire or

walking on the beach.

Thorpe and Nina were comparatively alone most of the time; and her high

spirits, her lavish charm, her sudden moments of seriousness, and her

outbursts of passionate affection completed his enthralment. Several

times Thorpe caught Mr. Randolph's eyes following him with an expression

of peculiar anxiety, and it chafed him not to be able to declare his

purpose plainly; but for the week he was bound.

On the whole, it was a happy week. As it neared its end, Thorpe knew

that his mind was possessing hers, that her will was weakening, and

love flooding reason. Once or twice she gave him a glance of timid

appeal; but she would not discuss the position. His mastery was the more

nearly complete as he kept his promise and ignored the future.

On the last day but one the party went down the coast to attend Don

Tiburcio's _merienda_. It was to be given in a valley about a half-mile

inland, which the guests must approach through a narrow canyon fronting

the sea.

The walk along the beach and inland trail was easy and pleasant, but the

canyon was sown with rocks and sweet-brier; and the way was picked with

some discomfort.

"If I stub my toe, you can carry me," said Nina.

"I will," said Thorpe, gallantly. He was feeling particularly light of

heart. The week was almost over. Delightful in many ways as it had been,

he was eager to take the reins into his own hands.

"Look! look!" exclaimed Nina, and the party paused simultaneously.

Don Tiburcio Castro had suddenly appeared at the head of the canyon. He

was mounted on a large horse of a breed peculiar to the Californias,

golden bronze in colour with silver mane and tail. The trappings of the

horse were of embossed leather, heavily mounted with silver. His own

attire was magnificent. He wore the costume of the grandees of his

time,--a time which had fallen helplessly into the past during the

fourteen years of American possession; indeed, Don Tiburcio, who, like

many of his brethren, had for every day use adopted the garb of modern

civilisation, had the effect, as he sat motionless on his burnished

steed at the head of the canyon, of a symbolic figure at the end of a

perspective.

He wore short clothes of red silk, the jacket open over a lace shirt

clasped with jewels. His long botas of yellow leather were wound about

with red and blue ribbons; his broad sombrero was heavy with silver

eagles.

"I begin to feel the unreality of California," said Thorpe. "It is like

a scene out of a picture-book."

"After all, it is but one phase," replied Nina.

Don Tiburcio lifted his sombrero and rode down the canyon, the horse

stepping daintily over the rocks. The women waved their handkerchiefs,

the men their caps. Then the end of the perspective was closed once

more, this time by a group of women. And they wore full flowered gowns

with pointed bodice, rebosos draped about their dark graceful heads. Two

tinkled the guitar. The others wielded large black fans.

"Ay!" exclaimed Mrs. Earle. "Why did I not bring my reboso? 'Lupie, we

shall be forgotten."

"There are men," replied Miss Hathaway, as several dark beribboned heads

appeared above the rebosos. "They, too, may want a change. You can

desert me, Captain Hastings. I shall amuse myself."

"I don't doubt it," said Hastings, gloomily. "I don't flatter myself

that I could make you jealous."

"I welcome you," said Don Tiburcio, choosing his English very slowly,

and reining in. "The day ees yours, my friends. I am your slave. I have

prepare a little entertainment, but if it no is to your taste, but say

the word, and all shall be change."

Mr. Randolph made a terse and suitable reply. Don Tiburcio stood aside

that all might pass him, bowing repeatedly; and the party made its way

as quickly as possible to the entrance.

Dona Eustaquia Carillo de Brotherton, one of the most famous women of

the old regime, stood there, the girls making way for her, and for Dona

Jacoba Duncan, Mrs. Polk,--she who was beautiful Magdalena Yorba,--and

Dona Prudencia Iturbi y Moncada. The first was happy with her American

husband; the second was not; Dona Jacoba's lines were as stern as when

she had beaten her beloved children with a green hide reata, her smile

as brilliant; and Dona Prudencia, who still (presumably) lamented the

late Reinaldo, had found mitigation in her great social importance, and

in her maternal devotion to the heir of her father-in-law's vast

estates.

The women all kissed each other, and those that could talk Spanish made

a soft pretty babel of sound that suggested perpetuity. The men were

presented, and those of the Randolph party taken prompt possession of by

the coquettish Californian girls. The men of the South were inclined to

be haughty at first, but shortly succumbed to the novel charm of the

American women.

"One can hardly realise the life they suggest," said Mr. Randolph to

Thorpe. "Not fifty miles from San Francisco, they are still living in

much of their primitive simplicity and state. In the south they are

still farther removed from all that we have done. Dona Prudencia lives

the life of a dowager empress."

They were in an open valley, shaded here and there with large oaks,

carpeted with flowers. The women seated themselves on the warm dry

ground, the caballeros,--as resplendent as Don Tiburcio,--and the more

modest Americans lying at their feet, smoking the cigarito. The

Californian girls tinkled their guitars and sang, with accompaniment of

lash and brow. The older women smoked daintily, and talked of the gay

old times. Thorpe, who was in no mood to parry coquetry,--and Nina was

receiving the court of no less than three caballeros,--bestowed himself

between Dona Eustaquia and Dona Prudencia, and charmed them with his

unfeigned interest.

In the middle of the valley was a deep excavation. From stout poles hung

two bullocks. In the course of an hour, the high beds of coals beneath

the beasts were ignited, and the smell of roast meat mingled with the

drowsy scent of the poppy and the salt of the sea.

When the bullocks were cooked, and the repast was spread some yards

away, the guests found on the table every delicacy known to the old

time. It was a very lively and a very picturesque feast, and no one felt

the exhilaration of it more than Thorpe. He could not see Nina. She was

on his side of the table, and eight or ten people were between; but it

was enough to know that she was there, and that before the day was over

they should find an hour together.

The wines until after the dessert were American; but as luncheon was

concluding a servant brought a great tray covered with small glasses

containing a colourless liquid.

"You must all dreenk with me to the glory and prosperity of California

in my native wine, the fierce mescal," said Don Tiburcio, rising. "Every

one--ah, yes, ladies, it ees strong: I would not advise you that you

take mooch; but one seep, just for the toast--ah, _muchas gracias_."

The company rose. The American women made a doubtful little peck at the

innocent-looking beverage, and shivered. The men consumed it heroically,

repressing their tears. Thorpe felt as if he were swallowing live

hornets; but, as he placed his glass on the table and bowed to the host,

his face was quite stolid.

The company drove home, and retired at once to siesta. The strawberry

picking was belated, and Nina gathered hers with the help of Mr. McLane.

At dinner she sat between Mr. McLane and Hastings, and did not look at

Thorpe. He racked his brain to remember what he could have done to

offend her.

XI

They did not walk on the beach that evening, but sat about the fire,

somewhat fatigued, but still in high spirits. Nina alone was quiet.

After a time she stole away, and went down to the water. Thorpe was

forced to infer that she wished to be alone, and did not follow her at

once. When at the end of a half-hour she had not returned, his

ill-carried impatience mastered him.

His feet made no sound on the sandy slope, nor on the beach. It was a

night of perfect peace and calm and beauty. The ocean was quiet. The

stars were thick; a thin young moon rode past them. But Nina was not

within the flood of light about him. He turned the corner of a jutting

rock, and came upon her.

She was sitting on a high stone, her hands pressed hard on her knees,

staring out to sea. Thorpe had seen her face bitter, tragic, passionate;

but he had never seen it look as it looked to-night. It might have been

the face of a woman cast up by the ocean, out of its depths, or a face

of stone for forty years. All the youth and life were out of it. It was

fixed, awful. Thorpe stood appalled. The sweet intercourse of the past

week seemed annihilated, the woman removed from him by a sudden breach

in time, or some tremendous crash in Circumstance. He dared not speak,

offer her sympathy. He felt that whether she had loved him or not in

this hour of abandonment to her despair, he must be an insignificant

feature in her life.

He stole away and sat down, dropping his face in his hands. His brain,

usually clear and precise, whirled disobediently. He felt helpless, his

manhood worthless. Nothing but a jut of rock stood between himself and

Nina Randolph, and it might have been the grave of one of them. Chaos

was in him, a troop of hideous imaginings. He wondered vaguely if the

mescal had affected him. It was cursed stuff, and the blood had been in

his head ever since he had drunk it.

He knelt down, and dashed the cold sea-water over his face and head, not

once, but several times. When he stood up, his brain was cool and

steady.

"I must either go to her," he thought, "or despise myself. It is not an

intrusion; I certainly have my rights."

He went rapidly round the bend, and lifted her from the stone before she

was aware of his presence, then held her at arm's length, a hand on each

shoulder.

The fixity left the muscles of her face. They relaxed in terror.

"What is your secret?" he demanded, peremptorily. "Have you had a

lover--a child? Is that it?"

"No."

"On your word of honour?"

"Yes."

"Are your parents unmarried?"

"Not that I know of."

"Have you loved some man that is dead?"

"I have never loved any man but you."

"Have you committed a crime? Are you in constant terror of discovery?"

"I have never injured any one but myself."

"Is there insanity in the family, cancer, consumption?"

"No."

"Then, in God's name, what is it? I have the right to know, and I demand

it; and the right to share your trouble and help you to bear it. I give

you my word of honour that, no matter what it is, it shall make no

difference to me."

She hung her head, and he felt her quiver from head to foot. Then she

fell to weeping silently, without passion, but shaking painfully. He

took her in his arms, and did what he could to comfort her, and he

could be very tender when he chose. Later, he coaxed and implored and

threatened, but she would not speak. Once she made as if to cling to

him, then put her arms behind her and clasped her hands together. The

act was significant; but Thorpe took no notice of it. He knew now that

it was going to be more difficult to marry her than he had anticipated,

that infinite tact and patience would be necessary. After a time, he

dried her eyes and led her up the hill to the door of her tent. The

others were still about the fire, and she went in unseen.

XII

Thorpe slept little that night. He wandered about the sand hills until

nearly dawn. It seemed to him that he had exhausted the category of

possible ills; he could think of nothing else. After all, it did not

matter. The woman alone mattered. He knew that when he had persuaded her

to marry him (he never used the word "if"), he could control her

imagination and make her happy; and no other man alive could do it. In

twenty different ways he could make her forget everything but the fact

that she was his wife.

The next day Nina did not appear until the party was gathered about the

table for luncheon. She explained that she had slept late in order to be

in good trim for the party that night, and had spent the rest of the

morning making an alteration in her evening frock.

She nodded gaily to Thorpe, and took a seat some distance from him. She

looked very pretty. Her spirits, like her colour, were high, her eyes

brilliant. Nevertheless, there was a change in her, indefinable at

first; then Thorpe decided that she had acquired a shade of defiance, of

hardness.

But he had no time for thought. Mrs. Earle's flashing eyes were

challenging him on one side, Miss Hathaway's fathomless orbs on the

other. Opposite, Miss Shropshire, for the first time, displayed an

almost feverish desire to engage his attention, and made herself

uncommonly agreeable.

The afternoon was spent in packing and resting for the dance. The only

woman to be seen without the tents was Miss Shropshire, who took Thorpe

for a long walk and entertained him with many anecdotes of Nina's

eccentricities.

"She is very mutable," said Thorpe, at length; "but I should not have

called her eccentric."

"Should not you?" demanded Miss Shropshire. "Now, I should. But then you

have seen so much of the world, so many varieties of women. Nina seems

very original to us out here. I often wonder, well as I know her, what

she will say and do next. Oh, Mr. Thorpe, does not that ship look

beautiful?"

But Thorpe, who found a certain satisfaction in talking of the beloved

object, gently led her back to her former theme, and learned much of

Nina's childhood and school-girl pranks. There was no hint of the

mystery, nor did he wish that there should be.

Shortly after supper they started on horseback for the Mission, the

evening gear following in a wagon. Horses and conveyance had been sent

by Don Tiburcio.

Nina rode between Mr. McLane and Captain Hastings, and kept them

laughing heartily. The day had passed and Thorpe had not had a word

with her. He rode last, with Miss Hathaway, glad of her society; for she

never expected a man to talk when he was not in the mood. Scarcely a

word passed between them; once or twice he had an uncomfortable

impression that her large cold inscrutable eyes were watching him

intently.

They rode through the heavy dusk of a Californian night, perfume and the

odd abrupt sounds of the New World about them. The landscape took new

form in the shadows. The stunted brush seemed to crouch and quiver,

ready to spring. The owl hooted across the sandy waste; and coyotes

yapped dismally. Many of the party were silent; but Nina's fresh

spontaneous laugh rang out every few moments, striking an incongruous

note. California itself was a mystery in that hour and did not consort

with the lighter mood of woman.

Suddenly they looked down upon the Mission. The church was dark, but the

long wing beside it flared with light. They rode rapidly down the hill

and across the valley. As they approached, they saw Don Tiburcio

standing on the corridor before one of the open doors. He wore black

silk short clothes and a lace shirt, his hair tied back with a ribbon.

Diamonds blazed among his ruffles and on his long white hands.

As he was making one of his long and stately speeches, Miss Hathaway

laid her hand on Thorpe's arm.

"Take my advice," she said, in her cool even tones. "Do not go near Nina

to-night. Let her alone. I think she wishes it."

Thorpe made no reply. Miss Hathaway might as well have asked him to hold

his breath until the entertainment was over.

The ladies went at once to a large room set aside for their use and

donned their evening frocks. These frocks were very simple for the most

part, organdie or swiss, and they were adjusted casually before the

solitary mirror.

Nina's gown was of white nainsook ruffled to the waist with lace, and

very full. The low cut bodice was gathered into the belt like a child's.

Sometime since a local goldsmith of much cunning had, out of a bar of

native gold, fashioned for her three flexible serpents. She wore one

through her hair, one on her left arm, and a heavier one about her

waist.

"_Dios de mi alma_, Nina," exclaimed Mrs. Earle; "you look like an imp

to-night. What is the matter with you? Your eyes look--look--I hardly

know what you do look like."

"Are you well, Nina?" asked Miss Hathaway, turning and smiting the girl

with her polaric stare. "Have not you a headache? Why not lie down and

not bother with this ball?"

For a moment Nina did not reply. She brought her small teeth together,

and looked into Miss Hathaway's eyes with passionate resentment.

"Just mind your own business, will you?" she said, pitching her voice

for the other woman's ear alone. "And you'd oblige me by transfixing

some one else for the rest of the evening. I've had enough of your

attentions for one day."

Then she shook out her skirts as only an angry woman can, and left the

room.

"Nina is in one of her unpleasant moods to-night," said Mrs. McLane,

attempting a glimpse of herself over Miss McDermott's shoulder, that she

might adjust a hairpin. "I have not seen her like this for some

time--seven weeks," and she smiled.

"She looks like a little devil," said Mrs. Earle. "I have not been here

long enough to become intimate with her moods, and I must say I prefer

her without them. What are you scowling about, 'Lupie? Is your sash

crooked? Can I fix it? But I forgot: you are above such trifles--Holy

Mary! Guadalupe Hathaway! what on earth is the matter with your back?"

"What?" asked Miss Hathaway, presenting her back squarely. There was a

simultaneous chorus of shrieks.

"Guadalupe, for Heaven's sake, what have you been doing?" cried Mrs.

McLane. "Your back is striped--dark brown and white."

"Oh, is that all?" asked Miss Hathaway, gathering up her fan and gloves.

"I suppose it got sunburned this morning at croquet. I had on a blouse

with alternate thick and thin stripes. _Hasta luego!_" and she moved

out, not with any marked grace, but with a certain dignity which saved

the stripes from absurdity.

"_Bueno!_" exclaimed Mrs. Earle, "I'd like to have as little vanity as

that. How peaceful, and how cheap!"

"I suspect that it is her vanity to have no vanity," said Mrs. McLane,

who was the wisest of women. "And if she did not happen to be a

remarkably handsome girl, I fancy her vanity would take another form.

But come, come, _mes enfants_, let us go. I feel half dressed; but as

this is a picnic I suppose it does not matter."

The guests were assembled in the large hall of the Mission: Mr.

Randolph's party, Don Tiburcio's, and several priests. The musicians

were on the corridor beyond the open window. Dona Eustaquia, Dona

Jacoba, Dona Prudencia, Mrs. Polk, and the priests sat on a dais at the

end of the room; behind them was draped a large Mexican flag. The rest

of the room was hung with the colours of the United States. The older

women of the late regime wore the heavy red and yellow satins of their

time, the younger flowered silks, their hair massed high and surmounted

by a comb. The caballeros were attired like their host.

The guests were standing about in groups after the second waltz, when

Don Tiburcio stepped to the middle of the room and raised his hand.

"My friends," he said, "my honoured compatriots, Don Hunt McLane and Don

Jaime Randolph have request that we do have the contradanza. Therefore,

if my honoured friends of America will but stand themselves against the

wall, we of California will make the favourite dance of our country."

The Americans clapped their hands politely. Don Tiburcio walked up to

Mrs. Earle, bowed low, and held out his hand. She rattled her fan in

token of triumph over her Northern sisters, and undulated to the middle

of the room, her hand in her host's.

The swaying, writhing, gliding dance--the dance in which the backbone of

men and women seems transformed into the flexible length of the

serpent--was half over, the American men were standing on tiptoe,

occasionally giving vent to their admiration, when Nina, her eyes

sparkling with jealously and excitement, moved along the wall behind a

group of people and stood beside Thorpe. He did not notice her approach.

His hands were thrust into his pockets, his eyes eagerly fixed on the

most graceful feminine convolutions he had ever seen.

"Dudley!" whispered Nina. He turned with a jump, and forgot the dancers.

"Well?" he whispered. "Nina! Nina!"

She slipped her hand into his. He held it in a hard grip, his eyes

burning down into hers. "Why--why?--I must respect your moods if you

wish to avoid me at times--but--"

"Do you admire that?"

"I did--a moment ago."

"Tell me how much."

"More than any dancing I have ever seen, I think," his eyes wandering

back to the swaying colorous groups of dancers. "It is the perfection of

grace--"

"Would you like to see something far, _far_ more beautiful?"

"I fear I should go off my head--"

"Answer my question."

"I should."

"You say you respect my moods. I don't want--I particularly don't want

to kiss you to-night. Will you promise not to kiss me if we should

happen to be alone?"

Thorpe set his lips. He dropped her hand. "You are capricious--and

unfair," he said; "I have not seen you alone for two days."

"It is not because I love you less," she said, softly. "Promise me."

"Very well."

"It is now ten. We shall have supper at twelve. At one, go down the

corridor behind this line of rooms to the end. Wait there for me. Ask no

questions, or I won't be there. This waltz is Captain Hastings'. I am

engaged for every dance. _Au revoir._"

Thorpe got through the intervening hours. He spent the greater part of

them with the four donas of the dais, and was warmly invited to visit

them on their ranchos and in the old towns; and he accepted, although he

knew as much of the weather of the coming month as of his future

movements.

XIII

In the supper-room he sat far from Nina; but promptly at one he stole

forth to the tryst. The windows looking upon the back corridor were

closed. No one was moving among the mass of outbuildings. Not far away

he could see the rolling surface and stark outlines of the Mission

cemetery. A fine mist was flying before the stars; and a fierce wind,

the first of the trades, was screaming in from the ocean.

Nina kept him waiting ten or fifteen minutes. Her white figure appeared

at the end of the corridor and advanced rapidly. Thorpe met her half

way, and she struck him lightly with her fan.

"Remember your promise," she said. "And also understand that you are not

to move from the place where I put you until I give you permission. Do

you take that in?"

"Yes," he said, sullenly; "but I am tired of farces and promises."

"Shh, don't be cross. This has been a charming evening. I won't have it

spoiled."

"Are you quite well? Your colour is so high, and your eyes are

unnaturally bright."

"Don't suggest that I am getting anything," she cried, in mock terror.

"Small-pox? How dreadful! That is our little recreation, you know. When

a San Franciscan has nothing else to do he goes off to the pest-house

and has small-pox. But come, come."

He followed her into the room at the end of the corridor, and she lit a

taper and conducted him up a steep flight of stairs which was little

more than a ladder. At the top was a narrow door. It yielded to the

knob, and Thorpe found himself in what was evidently the attic of the

Mission.

"I was up here a month or two ago with the girls," said Nina. Her voice

shook slightly. "I know there are candles somewhere--there were, at

least. Stand where you are until I look."

She flitted about with the taper, a ghostly figure in the black mass of

shadows; and in a few moments had thrust a half-dozen candles into the

necks of empty bottles. These she lit and ordered Thorpe to range at

intervals about the room. He saw that he was in a long low garret, at

one end of which was a pile of boxes, at the other a heap of carpeting.

To the latter Nina pointed with her lighted taper. "Sit down there," she

said, and disappeared behind the boxes.

Thorpe did as he was bidden. His hands shook a little as he adjusted the

carpet to his comfort. The windows were closed. A tree scraped against

the pane, jogged by the angry wind. The candles shed a fitful light,

their flames bending between several draughts. The floor was thick with

dust. Rafters yawned overhead, black and festooned with cobwebs. It was

an uncanny place, and the sudden apparition of a large and whiskered rat

scuttling across the floor in terrified anger at having his night's rest

disturbed was not its most enlivening feature.

"Dudley!" said Nina, sharply.

"Yes?"

"Was that a rat?"

"It was."

"Oh, dear! dear! I never thought of rats. However," firmly, "I'm going

to do it. I told you that you were not to move; but if you should happen

to see a rat making for me, you go for him just as quickly as you can."

"The rats are much more afraid of you. The only danger you need worry

about is pneumonia. I expect to sneeze throughout your entire

performance--whatever it is to be."

"You press your finger on the bridge of your nose: if you sneeze, it

will spoil the effect of--of--a poem. Now, keep quiet."

For a moment he heard no further sound. Then something appealed to his

ear which made him draw a quick breath. It was a low sweet vibrant

humming, and the air, though unfamiliar, indicated what he had to

expect. Sinking deeper into his dusty couch, he propped his chin on his

hand; and, simultaneously, a vision emerged and filled the middle

distance.

For a moment it stood motionless, poised, then floated lightly toward

him, scarcely touching the floor, with a lazy rhythmic undulation which

was music in itself. The full soft gown with its ruffles of lace rose

and fell like billows of cloud, and in and out of a strip of crimson

silk she twined and twisted herself to the slow scarce-audible vibration

of her voice. She did not approach him closely, but danced in the middle

and lower part of the room, sometimes in the full light of the candles,

such as it was, at others retreating into the shadows beyond; where all

outline was lost, and she looked like a waving line of mist, or a

wraith writhing in an unwilling embrace.

And Thorpe? Outside, the storm howled about the corner of the Mission,

or whistled a discord like a devil's chorus; but in the brain of the man

was a hot mist, and it clouded his vision and played him many a trick.

The dust of the floor, the grime of the walls, the unsightly rafters

were gone. He lay on a couch as imponderable as ether. Overhead were

strangely carven beams, barely visible in the dusk of the room's great

arch. A gossamer veil of many tints, stirring faintly as if breathed

upon, hung before walls of unimaginable beauty. The floor trembled and

exhaled a delicious perfume. Flame sprang from opal bowls. But nothing

was definite but the floating undulating shape which had wrought this

enchantment. Its full voluptuous beauty, he recalled confusedly; dimmed

by the shadows which clung to it even in the light, it looked vaporous,

evanescent, the phantasm of a lorelei riding the sea-foam. Its swaying

arms gleamed on the dark; the gold-scaled sea-serpents glided and

twisted from elbow to wrist. Only the eyes were those of a woman, and

they burned with a languid fire; but they never met his for a moment.

Suddenly, with abrupt transition, she changed the air, which had been

almost a chant, and began dancing fast and furiously. Flinging aside the

scarf, she clasped her hands under rigid arms, as if leaning on them the

full weight of her tiny body. She danced with a headlong whirl that

deprived her of her wraith-like appearance, but was no less graceful.

With a motion so swift and light that her feet seemed continually

twinkling in space, she sped up and down the garret like a mad thing;

then, unlocking her hands, she flung them outward and spun from one end

of the room to the other in a whirl so dizzy that she looked like a

cloud blown before the wind, streaming with a woman's hair and cut with

yellow lightning.

She flew directly up to where Thorpe lay, and paused abruptly before

him. For the first time their eyes met. He forgot his promise. He

stumbled to his feet, grasping at her gown even before he was risen. For

a second she stood irresolute; then her supple body leaped backward,

and a moment later had flashed down the room and through the door.

Thorpe reached the door in three bounds. She was scrambling backward

down the stair, her white frightened excited face dropping through the

heavy dark. Thorpe got down as swiftly as he could; but she was far

ahead, and he could not chase her into the Mission. When he re-entered

the ball-room some time after, the guests were on the corridor waiting

for their char-a-bancs. He returned to the Presidio in the ambulance.

XIV

The next day Thorpe called at the Randolphs'. The man, Cochrane, who,

himself, looked yellow and haggard, informed him that the ladies were

indisposed with severe colds. Thorpe went home and wrote Nina a letter,

making no allusion to the performance at the Mission, but insisting that

she recognise his rights, and let him know when he could see her and

come to a definite understanding. A week passed without a reply. Then

Thorpe, tormented by every doubt and fear which can assail a lover,

called again. The ladies were still indisposed. It was Sunday. Thorpe

demanded to see Mr. Randolph, and was shown into the library.

Mr. Randolph entered in a few moments, and did not greet Thorpe with his

customary warmth. There were black circles about his eyes. His cheeks

looked thinner and his hand trembled.

"Have you been ill, too?" asked Thorpe, wondering if South Park were a

healthy locality.

"No; not ill. I have been much harassed--business."

"Nothing serious, I hope."

"It will right in time--but--in a new city--and with no telegraphic

communication with the rest of the world--nor quick postal

service--there is much to impede business and try the patience."

Thorpe was a man of quick intuitions. He knew that Mr. Randolph was

lying. However, that was not his business. He rose and stood before the

fire, nervously flicking his trousers with his riding-whip.

"Has it occurred to you that I love your daughter?" he asked, abruptly.

"Or--perhaps--she has told you?"

"She has not spoken to me on the subject; but I inferred as much."

"I wish, of course, to marry her. You know little about me. My

bankers--and Hastings--will tell you that I am well able to take care of

your daughter. In fact, I am a fairly rich man. This sort of thing has

to be said, I suppose--"

"I have not misunderstood your motives. I misjudge few men; I have lived

here too long."

"Oh--thanks. Then you have no objection to raise?"

"No; I have none."

"Your daughter loves me." Thorpe had detected a slight accent on the

pronoun.

"I am sure of that."

"Do you mean that Mrs. Randolph might object?"

"She would not be consulted."

Thorpe shifted his position uneasily. The hardest part was to come.

"Nina has intimated to me," he said, haltingly, "that there is a--some

mysterious reason which would prevent her marrying. I have utterly

disregarded that reason, and shall continue to do so. I purpose to marry

her, and I hope you will--will you?--help me."

Mr. Randolph leaned forward and twisted his nervous pale hands together.

It was at least three minutes before he spoke, and by that time Thorpe's

ear-drums were pounding.

"I must leave it to her," he said, "utterly to her. That is a question

which only she can decide--and you. Of course she will tell you--she is

too honest not to; but I am afraid she will stave it off as long as

possible. I cannot tell you; it would not be just to her."

"But you will do nothing to dissuade her?"

"No; she is old enough to judge for herself. And if she decides in your

favour, and you--are still of the same mind, I do not deny that I shall

be very glad. I should even be willing for you to take her to England,

to resign myself never to see her again--if I could think--if you

thought it was for the best."

"I wish I knew what this cursed secret was," said Thorpe, passionately.

"I am half distracted with it."

"Have you no suspicion?"

"It seems to me that I have thought of everything under heaven; and she

denied one question after the other. I am bound to take her word, and to

believe that the truth was the one thing I did not hit upon."

"Yes; if you had guessed, I think she would have told you, whether she

was ready or not. It is very strange. You are one of the sharpest men I

have ever met. Still, it is often the way."

"When can I see Nina?"

"In a few days--a week, I should say. Her cold is very severe."

"I have written to her, and she has not answered. Is it possible that

her illness is serious? I have put it down to caprice or some new

qualm."

"There is no cause for alarm. But she has some fever, and pain in her

eyes, and is irritable. When she is well I will take it upon myself to

see that you have an interview."

"Thank you." Mr. Randolph had not risen, but Thorpe felt himself

dismissed. He left the house in a worse humour than he had entered it.

He felt balked, repulsed, and disagreeably prescient. For the first time

in his life, he uneasily admitted that an iron will alone would not keep

a man on the straight line of march to his goal, that there was a chain

called Circumstance, and that it was forged of many metals.

XV

Thorpe determined not to go to the house again until either Nina or Mr.

Randolph sent for him. He would not run after any woman, he told himself

angrily; and once or twice he was in a humour to snap the affair in two

where it was and leave the country. But, on the whole, the separation

whetted his passion. That airy fabric of sentiment, imagination, and

civilisation called spiritual affinity, occasionally dominated him, but

not for long. His last experience of her had gone to his head: it was

rarely that of all the Nina Randolphs he knew he could conjure any but

the one that had danced his promise out of memory. There were times

when he hated himself and hated her. Then he told himself that this

phase was inevitable, and that later on, when the better part of their

natures were free to assert themselves, they would find each other.

A week after his interview with Mr. Randolph, he found himself in South

Park a little after eleven at night. He had dined on Rincon Hill, and

purposed spending the night at the Oriental Hotel; he rarely returned to

the Presidio after an evening's entertainment.

He had avoided the other men, and started to walk into town. Almost

mechanically he turned into South Park, and halted before the tall

silent house which seemed such a contemptible barrier between himself

and the woman he wanted. His eyes, travelling downward, noted that a

basement window had been carelessly left open. He could enter the house

without let--and the opportunity availed him nothing. He wished that he

were a savage, with the traditions and conventions of a savage, and that

the woman he loved dwelt in a tent on the plain.

Lights glimmered here and there in the houses of South Park, but the

Randolphs' was blank; everybody, apparently, was at rest. To stand there

and gaze at her window was bootless; and he cursed himself for a

sentimental ass.

He walked up the semi-circle and returned. This time he moved suddenly

forward, lifting his head. It seemed to him that a sound--an odd

sound--came from the bedroom above the parlour, a room he knew to be

Mrs. Randolph's.

At first the sound, owing to the superior masonry of the walls, was

muffled; but, gradually, Thorpe's hearing, naturally acute, and

abnormally sensitive at the moment, distinguished the oral evidence of a

scuffle, then the half-stifled notes of angry and excited voices. He

listened a moment longer. The sounds increased in volume. There was a

sudden sharp note, quickly hushed. Thorpe hesitated no longer. If the

house of a man whose guest he had been were invaded by thieves, and

perhaps murderers, it was clearly his duty to render assistance, apart

from more personal reasons.

He took out his pistol, cocked it, then vaulted through the window, and

groping his way to a door opened it and found himself in the kitchen

entry. A taper burned in a cup of oil; and guided by the feeble light he

ran rapidly up the stair.

He opened the door at the head, paused a a moment and listened intently.

The house teemed with muffled sounds; but they fell from above, and

through closed doors, and from one room. Suddenly the hand that held the

pistol fell to his side. The colour dropped from his face, and he drew

back. Was he close upon the Randolph skeleton? Had he not better steal

out as he had come, refusing to consider what the strange sounds

proceeding from the room of that strange woman might mean? There were no

signs of burglars anywhere. A taper burned in this hall, likewise, and

on the table beside it was a gold card-receiver. There had been a heavy

rainfall during the evening, but there was no trace of muddy boots on

the red velvet carpet.

Then, as he hesitated, there rang out a shriek, so loud, so piercing, so

furious, that Thorpe, animated only by the instinct to give help where

help was wanted, dashed down the hall and up the stair three steps at a

time. Before he reached the top, there was another shriek, this time

abrupt, as if cut short by a man's hand. He reached Mrs. Randolph's room

and flung open the door. But he did not cross the threshold.

The room flared with light. The bedding was torn into strips and

scattered about. Every fragile thing the room contained was in ruins and

littered the carpet. And in their midst, held down by Mr. Randolph and

his servant, Cochrane, was a struggling, gurgling, biting thing which

Thorpe guessed rather than knew was the mother of Nina Randolph. Her

weak evil face was swollen and purple, its brutality, so decently

cloaked in normal conditions, bulging from every muscle. Her ragged hair

hung in scant locks about her protruding eyes. Over her mouth was the

broad hand of the man, Cochrane. Mrs. Rinehardt, her face flushed and

her dress in disorder, stood by the mantel crying and wringing her

hands.

Thorpe's brain received the picture in one enduring flash. He was dimly

conscious of a cry from unseen lips, and the vanishing train of a

woman's gown. And then Mr. Randolph looked up. He relaxed his hold and

got to his feet. His face was ghastly, and covered with great globes of

sweat.

"Thorpe!" he gasped. "You! Oh, go! go!"

Thorpe closed the door, his fascinated gaze returning for a second to

the Thing on the floor. It no longer struggled. It had become suddenly

quiet, and was laughing and muttering to itself.

He left the house, and walked out of the park and city, and toward the

Presidio. It was a long walk, over sand drifts and rocks, and through

thickets whose paths he had forgotten. The cold stars gave little light,

for the wind drove a wrack aslant them; and when the colder dawn came,

greying everything, the flowers that looked so brilliant in the

sunlight, the heavy drooping trees, the sky above, he found himself

climbing a high sand hill, with no apparent purpose but to get to the

top; a cut about its base would have shortened the journey. He reached

the summit, and saw the grey swinging ocean, the brown forts in their

last sleep.

He sat down, and traced figures on the sand with his stick. Chaos had

been in him; but the tide had fallen, and his thoughts were shaping

themselves coherently. Nina Randolph was the daughter of a madwoman, and

the seeds were in her. Her strange moods, her tragic despair, her hints

of an approaching fate, her attitude to himself, were legible at last.

And Miss Hathaway knew, and had tried to warn him. Doubtless others

knew, but the secret had been well kept.

He was filled with bitterness and dull disgust, and his heart and brain

were leaden. The mad are loathsome things; and the vision of Nina,

foaming and hideous and shrieking, rose again and again.

That passed; but he saw her without illusion, without idealisation. She

had been the one woman whose faults were entrancing, whose genuine

temperament would have atoned for as many more. She seemed now a very

ordinary, bright, moody, erratic, seductive young person who was making

the most of life before she disappeared into a padded cell. He wondered

why he had not preferred Miss Hathaway, or Mrs. Earle, or Miss

McDermott. He had not, and concluded that her first influence had been

her only one, and that his imagination had done the rest.

The sunrise gun boomed from the Presidio. The colours of dawn were on

horizon and water. He rose and walked rapidly over the hills and levels;

and when he reached his room, he went to bed and slept.

XVI

At two o'clock, just after Thorpe had breakfasted, Mr. Randolph's card

was brought to him, and he went at once into the general sitting-room.

No one but Mr. Randolph occupied it at the moment. He was sitting

listlessly on the edge of a chair, staring out of the window. Commonly

the triggest of men, his face to-day was unshaven, and he looked as if

he had not been out of his clothes for forty-eight hours. And he looked

as if he had been picked up in the arms of Time, and flung across the

unseen gulf into the greyness and feebleness of age.

As he rose mechanically, Thorpe took his hand in a strong clasp,

forgetting himself for the moment.

Mr. Randolph did not return the pressure. He withdrew his hand

hurriedly, and sat down.

"An explanation is due you," he said, and even his voice was changed.

"You have stumbled upon an unhappy family secret."

Thorpe explained how he had come to enter the house.

"I supposed that it was something of the sort, or rather Cochrane did;

he found the window and lower door open. It was a kind and friendly act.

I appreciate the motive." He paused a moment, then went on, "As I said

just now, an explanation is due you, if explanation is necessary. As you

know, I had recognised that as Nina's right--to speak when she saw fit.

That is the reason I did not explain the other day--I usually manage to

have her in the country at such times," he added, irrelevantly.

"Such attacks are always more or less unexpected, I suppose." Thorpe

hardly knew what to say.

Mr. Randolph fumbled at his hat, "More or less."

"Were any other members of her family--similarly afflicted?"

"Her father and mother were well-conducted people. I know nothing of any

further antecedents."

"It sometimes skips a generation," said Thorpe, musingly.

Mr. Randolph brought his hand close above his eyes, and pressed his lips

together. He opened his mouth twice, as if to speak, before he

articulated, "Sometimes, not always."

Thorpe rose abruptly and walked to the window, then returned, and stood

before Mr. Randolph.

"And Nina?" he demanded, peremptorily. "What of her?"

Mr. Randolph pressed his hand convulsively against his face.

Thorpe turned white; his knees shook. He went out and returned with some

brandy. "Here," he said. "Let us drink this and brace up and have it

out. We are not children."

Mr. Randolph drank the brandy. Then he replied, "She is on the way. In a

few years she will be as you saw her mother last night; no power on

earth can save her. I would give my wretched failure of a life, I would

burn at the stake--but I can do nothing."

"Perhaps I can. I intend to marry her."

"No! No! She, who is stronger than I, would never have permitted it. She

told me that this morning. For the matter of that I am her ambassador

to-day. She charged me to make it clear to you that she expected you to

stand by your part of the compact. She is immovable; I know her."

"Tell her that I will take no messages at second hand, not even from

you. Unless she sees and comes to an understanding with me, I shall

consider myself engaged to her, and shall announce it."

"Do you mean to say that you would marry her, knowing what you do?"

"I would rather I had known it when I first came. I should have avoided

her, or left the place. But I gave her my word, voluntarily, that

nothing, no matter what, should interfere with my determination to

marry her, and nothing shall."

"You _are_ an Englishman!" said Mr. Randolph, bitterly. "I wish I were

as good a one; but I am not. My record is clean enough, I suppose; but I

am a weak man in some respects, and I started out all wrong. I wish to

God that everything were straight, Thorpe; I would rather you married

her than any man I have ever known."

"Thank you. Will you arrange an interview for me?"

Mr. Randolph fidgeted, "I tell you what I think, Thorpe; you had

better wait a little. She is in no mood to listen to reason, nor

for love-making--take my word for that. I have never seen her in so

black a mood. But women are naturally buoyant, and she particularly so.

Go and take your trip through the State. Let it last--say two months,

and then appear unexpectedly at Redwoods. I do not give you any

encouragement,--in all conscience you ought not to want any; but I think

that under the circumstances I suggest your final interview will at

least not be an unpleasant one. Nina lives an out of door life there

and is with the other girls most of the time."

"Very well. I don't know but that I prefer it that way. Meanwhile, will

you tell her all that I have said?--except that I would rather I had

known it sooner."

Mr. Randolph rose and gathered up his hat and gloves. "I will tell her,"

he said. "Good-bye. You are badly broken up, but you may be thankful

that you are in your shoes, not mine."

XVII

Dona Prudencia had sent Thorpe a pressing invitation to be a guest at

Casa Grande during the festivities celebrating the nineteenth birthday

of her son. The day after his interview with Mr. Randolph, in company

with Don Tiburcio Castro, Captain Brotherton and his wife, Dona

Eustaquia, Mrs. Polk, and a half-dozen other native Californians, he

took passage on a steamboat bound for Santa Barbara. The journey lasted

four days, and was very uncomfortable; but the happy careless Spanish

people were always entertaining, and the girls demanded the constant

attentions of the Englishman. Thorpe had little time for thought and

wished for none. When not playing squire to the women, he listened to

Don Tiburcio's anecdotes of Old California, or discussed the future of

the territory with Captain Brotherton, who was living a life of peace

and plenty on a rancho, but nevertheless took an unfailing interest in

the country his gallantry had helped to capture and hold.

The ship rode to anchor in the Santa Barbara channel before an animated

scene. The adobe walls of Casa Grande had a new coat of white, the tiles

a new coat of red; so had the great towers and arches and roof of the

Mission, jutting before the green of its hills, a mile beyond. The

houses about the fort looked fresh and gay. Many horses, richly

caparisoned, pranced in the open court of Casa Grande, or pawed the

ground by neighbouring trees. Caballeros, in their rich native costumes,

were sauntering about, smoking cigaritos. On the corridors of the great

and lesser houses were the women, brilliantly dressed, their heads

draped with the reboso or mantilla, manipulating the inevitable fan.

Indians in bright calico garments stood on the beach, awaiting the

luggage of the guests. Between them and the houses was a large booth,

defiantly flaunting the colours of Mexico. Far to the left was a rude

street, flanked on either side by a row of cheap wooden houses, the ugly

beginning of an American town.

"It is all like a scene out of a picture-book," said Thorpe. "Can San

Francisco--awful San Francisco!--be in the same territory? It looks like

Arcadia."

"Si, is pretty," said Mrs. Polk, with a pensive sigh. "But no all the

same like before, senor. Not the same spirit, for all know that their

country is gone for ever, and that by and by the Americanos live in all

the towns, so that the Spanish towns will be no more--and in a few

years. But they like to meet and try to think is the same, and forget."

The passengers were landed in boats. The young heir, a tall lad with a

handsome indolent face, and a half-dozen of his guests, came down to

the shore to welcome the newcomers.

"Very good look, that boy," said Dona Eustaquia. "I not have seen him

for some years, so uncomfortable this treep. But he have the face weak,

like the father. Never I like Reinaldo Iturbi y Moncada; but I wish he

not have been kill by Diego Estenega. Then, how different is

California!"

As the boat touched the sands young Reinaldo came forward with a

charming grace to help the ladies to land, and was kissed by each, with

effusion. Indeed, there was so much kissing, and such an immediate high

shrill chattering, such a profusion of "_queridas_," and "_mijitas_,"

and "_mi amigas_," that Thorpe, after exchanging a few words with his

host, made haste to the house.

Dona Prudencia, clad in the richest of black satins, with a train a yard

long and a comb six inches high, came forward to the edge of the

corridor to greet him. She looked very pretty and plump and

consequential.

"So good you are to come, Senor Torp," she said softly, giving him her

little hand with a gesture which drew down his lips at once.

"I shall never forget how good you have been to ask me," he said,

enthusiastically. "This picture alone was worth coming to California

for."

"Ay! You shall see more than theese, Senor Torp. It ees an honour to

receive you in the _casa_ of the Iturbi y Moncadas. It ees yours, senor,

burn it if you will. Command my servants like they are your own."

Thorpe, by this time, knew something of the peculiar phrasing of native

Californian hospitality, and merely bowed and murmured acknowledgments.

The other guests came up at the moment, and there was another Spanish

chorus, an agitated wave along the three-sided corridor. Thorpe glanced

curiously about him. The black-eyed women were undulating and coquetting

for the benefit of the new men, while throwing kisses and rapturous

exclamations to Dona Eustaquia and the girls in her charge. Thorpe

looked over more than one big fan. Suddenly his attention was attracted

by a woman on the opposite corridor. She had risen, and was looking

intently at Dona Eustaquia, who as yet had not glanced across the court.

She was a very beautiful woman, the most beautiful woman Thorpe had

seen in California, and her face was vaguely familiar. She looked very

Spanish, but her hair was gold and her eyes were as green as the spring

foliage. Then there was a sharp feminine shriek behind him; he was

thrust aside, and Dona Eustaquia ran past him, crying, "Chonita!

Chonita!" The beautiful stranger met her half way, and they embraced

and kissed each other on either cheek some fifteen times.

"Que! Que! Que!" the women of his party were exclaiming, and then

followed a deluge of words of which he could separate only "Chonita

Estenega." They, in turn, ran forward, and were received with a manner

so polished that it was almost cold. Thorpe had recognised her. He had

met her at a court ball in Austria, where, as the wife of the Mexican

minister, she had been the most admired woman in the palace.

"Is Don Diego Estenega here?" he asked Prudencia. "I met him a number of

times in Vienna, and should like to meet him again."

Prudencia drew up her small important person with an expression of

conscious virtue that did not confine itself to her face, but made her

very gown swell and rustle.

"Si!" she said. "He ees here--for the firs' time in mos' twenty years,

senor. You never hear? He killing my husban'. But I forgive him because

ees in the fight and no can help. Reinaldo attack, and Diego mus'

defend, of course. Still, he _kill_ him, and I am the wife. But bime by

I forgive, for that ees my religion. And I love Chonita. So she come to

the old house, the firs' time in so many years, for the birfday de my

son. Diego is horseback now, but come back soon. You no like go to your

room? So dirt that treep, no? Reinaldo!" Her son came forward at once.

"Show the Senor Torp to his room, no? and the other gentlemens."

Thorpe followed young Iturbi y Moncada down the corridor and into a

small room. The floor was bare, the furniture prison-like; but he had

heard of the simplicity of the adobe mansions of Californian grandees.

Reinaldo jerked open the upper drawer of the bureau, disclosing several

rows of large goldpieces.

"At your service, senor," he said with a bow. "I beg that you will use

it all."

Thorpe reddened to his hair. He hardly knew whether to be angry or not.

Did these haughty grandees take him for a pauper? However, he merely

bowed and thanked the youth somewhat drily, and at the same moment

Captain Brotherton entered the room.

"The hospitality of the Californian!" he cried, taking in the situation

at a glance. "Reinaldo, I see the new generation has forgotten nothing,

despite the Americans."

"No, senor," said the young man, proudly. "What ours is, is our guests.

That is right always, no? But perhaps the gentleman no like, perhaps he

no have the custom in his country."

"We have not, I regret to say, Don Reinaldo. We are a tight-fisted

practical race. But I can the more deeply appreciate your hospitality;

and, believe me, I do appreciate it."

"And you will use it--all, senor?"

Thorpe hesitated the fraction of a moment, then replied with some

difficulty, "Certainly, senor. I will use it with the greatest

pleasure."

"Many thanks, senor. _Hasta luego!_" And he left the room.

"What an extraordinary custom!" exclaimed Thorpe. "I can't use that

man's money."

"Oh, you must! He'd be terribly cut up if you did not--think you flouted

him."

"Well, I'll gamble with him, and let him win it back. I suppose he

gambles."

"Rather. Before he is forty the Americans will have had his last acre,

and he inherits four hundred thousand. They have not even the soil in

which to plant a business instinct, these Californians. I am glad you

have come in time. They are worth seeing, and their like will never be

seen again."

"I should think they were worth seeing. What did Dona Prudencia mean by

saying that Diego Estenega killed her husband?"

"There was a fight to the death between them, and it was one or the

other. Chonita, to the surprise of everybody, and to the horror of

some--including the clergy--married Estenega at once, and went with him

to Mexico. The old gentleman was in a towering rage, but forgave them

later and visited them several times. He had large sums of money

invested in Mexico which he left to Chonita. His Californian estates he

left to young Reinaldo, whom he idolised. Estenega had had great hopes

and plans in connection with this country which were dashed by Iturbi y

Moncada's death. However, it was as well, for he is now one of the

wealthiest and most powerful men in the Mexican government, and has been

ambassador or minister abroad several times. But my wife will tell you

the whole story when you come to visit us. Perhaps she will read it to

you, for she has made a novel out of it, which may or may not be

published after the death of all concerned. Here is your trunk. I'll

leave you to clean up."

XVIII

Thorpe dressed for dinner, pocketed a roll of the gold with a wry face,

and went to the _sala_, a long room opening on the middle corridor.

Prudencia, in a red-satin gown, so thick that it stood out about her as

if hooped, and flashing jewels on a great deal of white skin, her hair

piled high and surmounted with a diamond comb, sat in the middle of the

room talking volubly to her sister-in-law, who stood by the mantel

looking sadly about her. Chonita had lost little of her beauty. She had

had but two children; and vanity had kept the lines of her figure, the

gliding grace of her walk, unchanged. She had known, during the twenty

years of her married life, the great joys and the great disappointments,

the exaltation and the terrified recognition of mortal weakness and

limitations, inseparable to two such natures. But, on the whole, she was

happy, and she and her husband were very nearly one.

"No, no, my Chonita!" Prudencia was exclaiming in her own tongue. "Why

shouldst thou be sad? It is nearly twenty years; one cannot remember so

long. Thou hast thine own house, far more elegant than this, I am told:

why shouldst thou feel sad to come back? Thou art wealthy, and hast a

devoted husband,--_ay de mi_, my Reinaldo! (but I could have had

others),--and art as beautiful as ever, although I do not agree with

some that thou hast not grown a day older. Thou hast the expression of

years, if not its lines and grey hairs. I need not have grown stout; but

I have no vanity, and walking is such trouble, and I love _dulces_.

Besides, we do not carry our flesh into the next world; so Reinaldo, who

hated fat women--Ay, Senor Torp, pardon me, no? I not did see you. I

wish mooch to present you to my sister-in-law--Dona Chonita Iturbi y

Moncada de Estenega, Senor Torp of Eengland, _mijita_."

Chonita came forward and held out her hand, smiling. "I remember meeting

you in Austria," she said. "It was so warm that night in the palace, I

remember, it made me talk of California to you. My husband is very glad

to think that he shall meet you again."

"I am glad you come to cheer her up, Senor Torp," said Prudencia. "She

feel blue because coming to the old house once more."

Thorpe looked at Chonita with the quick sympathy of the Englishman for

terra ego, and Chonita flashed her acknowledgment. "Yes, I am a little

sad," she said; "not only because it is the first time in so many years,

but because it is probably for the last time in my life. My husband does

not care for California. Here he is."

Estenega entered with several other men, and, recognising Thorpe at

once, greeted him with a warmth that was more cosmopolitan than

Californian, but none the less sincere. He showed the wear and tear of

years. Ambitions, scheming, hard work had left their furrows, and the

grey was in his hair. But his nervous vitality was undiminished, and

his air of command even more pronounced than in the old days. He

carried Thorpe off to discuss the growing complications between the

North and South; and the conversation was resumed after dinner,

despite the attractions of the _sala_; for news of the great world came

infrequently to California, and the stranger who had recently lived in

the midst of affairs was a welcome acquisition. Thorpe spent the greater

part of the night in the billiard-room with Reinaldo, and got rid of his

gold.

XIX

At sunrise he was awakened by the booming of cannon and the ringing of

bells. He sprang out of bed, thinking that the United States was firing

on the Mexican flag, then remembered that it was the birthday of the

young heir, and turned in again.

Two hours later, he was shaken out of his morning nap by Estenega.

"How would you like a dip before breakfast? They are all up at mass,

and Brotherton and I are going down to a very good cove I know of."

"Get out, and I'll be with you in ten minutes."

Santa Barbara looked like a necropolis when he emerged. Every soul in

the town, with the exception of himself, Estenega, Brotherton, and the

servants preparing the birthday breakfast, was on his knees in the

Mission mumbling aves for young Reinaldo. The three men walked down to

the bright-blue channel motionless under a bright-blue sky. The air was

warm; the waves were warm; the fruit was ripening on the walls. The

poppies were opening their deep yellow lips, breathing forth the languor

of the land. The palms were tall and green. The spiked cactus had burst

into blood-red flower.

"This is not America," said Thorpe. "It is Italy or Spain or Greece. It

is another atmosphere, physical as well as mental. One could lie on the

sands all day and think of nothing."

"California has a physical quality which the Americans and all the

other races that will eventually pour into her can never change," said

Estenega. "She will never cease to protest that she was made for love

and wine and to enfold with content in the mere fact of existence, to

delight the eye, the soul, and the body, to inspire poetry and romance,

and that the introduction of the commercial element is an indignity. I

used to think differently when California and my own ambitions seemed

identical; but San Francisco gave me a nightmare."

"On the ranches it is much the same as ever," said Captain Brotherton,

"and will remain so long beyond our time. You will return with us, Mr.

Thorpe? Estenega and Chonita go too."

And Thorpe gratefully accepted.

As they returned, they saw the great company streaming down from the

Mission, a mass of colour. Few were on foot. No Californian walked a

mile, if he had a horse to ride.

Thorpe hastened to his room to make his morning toilet. When he left it,

the court and corridors were crowded with the brilliantly plumaged men

and women. Reinaldo, in blue silk, was strutting about among the girls,

as proud and happy as a girl dressed for her first party. There was no

question in his mind who was the most important young man in California

that morning. He was the head and front of California's wealthiest

and haughtiest family, the scion of the only aristocracy that great

territory would ever know. The Americans he regarded as a mere

incident,--a brusque unpolished breed whose existence he rarely

recalled. The Jews, up in the town, he considered with more favour; his

fond mamma was inclined to be close-fisted with growing sons.

The tables had been set about the three corridors, as not only the

neighbours were bidden to the breakfast, but many from distant ranchos.

The poor were fed in the open beyond, on pigs roasted whole, and many

dulces. The Presidio band played the patriotic and sentimental airs of

Mexico.

Thorpe sat between Prudencia (who appeared to have marked him for her

own) and Dona Eustaquia. Chonita was opposite, between two of her old

admirers.

"It is the same, yet not the same--like the old time," said Dona

Eustaquia, with a sigh.

"It is not the same at all," said Chonita. "It is a theatre, and we are

performing--for Mr. Thorpe's benefit."

"No is theatre at all," said Prudencia, disapprovingly. "All is

exactamente the same. Few years older, no more; but no one detail

differente. And next year the same, and every year,--one, two, three

hundred years what coming."

Chonita shrugged her shoulders, and did not condescend to answer,

although every Californian within earshot, except Dona Eustaquia,

assured her that Prudencia was right.

To Thorpe, who had no fond reminiscences, it all seemed natural

and surpassingly picturesque. The highly seasoned dishes held hot

controversy with his English stomach; and he found it hard to catch the

meaning of the pretty broken-English wafted to him from prettier lips;

but he was deeply thankful that for the moment his personal life could

have no voice in so incongruous a setting.

After breakfast, the party went at once to a large arena near the

pleasure-grounds of Casa Grande, and sat upon the raised seats about the

ring, while Reinaldo and other young caballeros exhibited their skill

and prowess against the pugnacious bull.

After siesta the people danced their national jigs in the court of Casa

Grande, while the men and women of the aristocracy lounged over the

railing of the corridors and encouraged them with handfuls of silver

coins.

Thorpe, Estenega, and Captain Brotherton, in the ugly garb of a wider

civilisation, stood apart.

"They are an anachronism," said the Englishman, "and will never be able

to hold their own, namely, their vast possessions, against the

sharp-witted American."

"Not ten years," said Estenega. "The sharpers are crouching like

buzzards on the edge of every town. Up there in the village they have

wares to tempt the Californians,--fashions and ornaments that cannot be

bought otherwise without a trip to San Francisco. As there is little

ready money, the Californians--who make their purchases by the

wholesale, and would disdain to buy less than a 'piece' of silk or

satin--mortgage small ranchos at an incredible rate of interest, against

the next hide yield. Then the squatters have come, imperturbable and

patient, knowing that when their case is tried, it will be before an

American judge. When my father-in-law asked me whether I would prefer at

his death his Mexican investments or half of his Californian leagues, I

chose the former unhesitatingly: although he reckoned his landed estates

at twice the value of the other. But I had no wish to come back here to

live, and could trust no one else to look after my interests. Eustaquia

is all right, for she has Brotherton. I notice the Californian women are

marrying Americans wherever they can."

"And the matches are rather successful," said Brotherton, laughing.

"Unfortunately, the American girls won't marry Californians, or the

problem would be easily solved."

The day finished with a dance in the sala; and later, in Reinaldo's

room, Thorpe lost the last of his host's gold and a roll of his own. The

game was monte, and the young Californians grew so excited that Thorpe

momentarily expected to see the flash of knives. They shouted and swore;

and Reinaldo even wept with rage, and vowed that Thorpe was his only

friend on earth. However, the night ended peacefully. When the young

men had become so laden with mescal that they could no longer see their

cards, they embraced affectionately and went to bed.

XX

The next day there were races, and in the evening another dance, on the

day following a _rodeo_ and _merienda_.

"How long do they keep this thing up without breaking down?" asked

Thorpe, on the evening of the sixth day, and after another race where

the women had screamed themselves hoarse, and one man had stabbed

another. All were now fraternal and enthusiastic in a _cascarone_

frolic.

"They are made of elastic, as far as pleasure is concerned," replied

Estenega. "If they had to work six hours out of twenty-four, they would

be haggard, and weak in the knees."

Thorpe entered the sala. The furniture, with the exception of the

tables, had been removed; and men and women, with the abandon of

children, were breaking eggshells, filled with cologne, tinsel, and

flour, on the back of each other's heads. Black hair was flowing to the

floor; white teeth were set behind arch tense lips; black eyes were

snapping; nostrils were dilating. Even Dona Eustaquia and Chonita had

joined in the romp. Prudencia, alone, ever mindful of her dignity,

stood in a corner, the back of her head protected by the wall. She

raised her fan to Thorpe, and he made his way to her under a shower of

_cascarones_. The cologne ran down his neck, and made a paste of flour

and tinsel on his head.

"Ay, senor!" exclaimed the chatelaine of Casa Grande, as he bowed before

her. "No is unbecome at all. How you like the way we make the fun?"

Thorpe assured her that life was unmitigated amusement for the first

time.

"No? You no laughing at us, senor?"

"It has been my good fortune to laugh with you for six days."

"Si: I theenk you like. I watching you." Prudencia gave her head a

coquettish toss. She was still a very pretty woman, despite her flesh.

"Oh, now you flatter me awfully. Why should you watch your most

insignificant guest?"

"You no are the more--how you call him?--eens--_bueno! no importa_. You

are the more honour guest I have. Si you like California, Senor Torp,

why you no living here?"

"Oh--I--" He had heard that question before, in different circumstances.

He was standing with his back to the wall. The brilliant picture before

him became the mise-en-scene of an opera, the babble of voices its

chorus. To his reversed vision, it crowded backward and cohered. And

upon its shifting front, upon the wall of light and laughter and beauty,

was projected the tragic figure of Nina Randolph.

Thorpe felt that his dark face was visibly paling. A small angry fist

seemed to strike his heart, and all his being ached with sudden pity and

longing.

A soft hand brushed his. He turned with a start and looked down into the

coquettish eyes of his hostess. He noted mechanically that she had a

very determined mouth, and that her colour was higher than usual.

"I beg pardon?" he stammered.

"Why you no stay here?" whispered Prudencia.

"Well, I may, you know; my plans are very unsettled."

"You ever been marry, senor?"

"No, senora."

"I have; and I love the husband, before; but so many years that ees

now. You think ees possiblee keep on love when the other have been

dead twenty years?"

"I think so."

"Ay! So I theenk once. But no was intend, I theenk, to live 'lone

alway."

"Then why have you never married again, dear senora!" Thorpe found the

conversation very tiresome.

"Ay! The men here--all are alike the one to the other. Never I marry

another Californian."

"Ah!"

"No!"

His restless eyes suddenly encountered hers. He felt the blood climb

to his hair, his breath come short. His hands desperately sought his

pockets.

"I am sure, if you went to San Francisco, you would be overwhelmed with

offers--from Americans. This room is frightfully warm, don't you think

so, senora? Shall I open the door? Ah, what a nuisance! here comes Don

Adan Menendez to talk to you, and two other admirers are in his wake. I

must release you for the moment. _Hasta luego_, dear senora!"

He made his way rapidly down the room, and out of the house.

"Great heaven!" he thought. "It is well the week is over. Good God, what

a travesty!" and he laughed aloud.

He passed through the screaming crowd, which also had its _cascarones_,

and walked rapidly and aimlessly up the valley until the white placid

walls of the Mission were so close that he could count its arches. He

sat down on a rock, and pressed his hands against his head.

He resented the quiet and beauty of the night, the repose of the

Mission, the dark-blue spangled sky, the soft sobbing of the ocean. If

Queen Mab and her train had come down to dance on the brink of hell, the

antithesis could not have jarred more hatefully than the night upon his

thoughts. He felt a desire to strike something, and hit the rock with

his fist. He dug his heel into the ground, then thought of the flour and

tinsel on his hair, and laughed aloud. After a time he put his face into

his hands and wept. The sobs convulsed him, straining his muscles; the

tears seemed wrung from some inner frozen fountain.

The storm passed. Calmer, he sat and thought. His love for Nina

Randolph, during this interval of quiescence, had lost nothing of its

iron. Idealised, she came back to him. Or, rather, he told himself he

looked through the husk that the hideous circumstances of her life had

bundled into shape, to the soul which spoke to his own. He worshipped

her courage. He forgot himself and suffered with her. He hated himself

for not having guessed the truth at once, and borne her burden. True,

she had lied to him; but the lie was pardonable, and he attached no

significance to it. If she had loved him less, she would have confessed

the truth, indifferently. Others knew.

Her moods passed in review, with keen allurement. He wondered that he

had ever wished her a woman of even and tangible temperament. The

thought of her variety intoxicated him. The very equilibrium of the

world might be disturbed, but he would have her.

The horror of her impending fate jibbered at him. He set his teeth, and

compelled his mind to practical deduction. Her mother was only insane at

intervals; there was no reason why the daughter should be affected in

a dissimilar manner. Why, indeed, should not her attacks be far less

frequent, if she were happy and her life were alternately peaceful and

diversified? He would have the best advice in Europe, and guard her

unremittingly.

His impulse was to return to her at once. He cogitated until dawn, then

concluded to take her father's advice in part; he would remain away a

month, then come down upon her unexpectedly. But he went to his room

and wrote her a letter, begging for a word in return.

XXI

Early in the forenoon he started northward with the Brothertons

and Estenegas. Reinaldo kissed him on both cheeks, much to his

embarrassment; but Prudencia accepted his farewells with chilling

dignity, and did not invite him to return.

The Rancho de los Pinos was some ten miles from Monterey. Behind the

house was a pine forest whose outposts were scattered along the edge of

the Pacific; facing it were some eight thousand acres of rolling land,

cut with willowed creeks, studded with groves of oaks, dazzling, at this

season, with the gold of June. Thousands of cattle wandered about in

languid content; the air lay soft and heavy on unquiet pulses.

The Brothertons and their guests "horse-backed" in the morning, but

spent the greater part of the day in the hammocks swung across the long

cool corridors. After supper, they rambled through the woods, sometimes

as far as the ocean, where they sat on the rocks until midnight. The

conversation rarely wandered from politics; for it was the summer

of 1860, and the approaching national earthquake rumbled loudly.

Nevertheless, life on the Rancho de los Pinos was less in touch with the

world than any part of the strange new land which Thorpe had visited;

and he hardly felt an impulse to speed the lagging moments. Dona

Eustaquia, who had been one of the very pulses of the old regime, still

beat with loud and undiminished vigour; but Chonita was very restful,

and the country enfolded one with a large sleepy content. He received

nothing from Nina Randolph, but her father wrote once or twice saying

that she was well, but taking little interest in the summer gaieties.

On the first of July, he took the boat from Monterey to San Jose. There

he was the guest of Don Tiburcio Castro for a few days, and attended a

bull fight, a race at which the men bet the very clothes off their

backs, a religious festival, and three balls; then took the stage which

passed Redwoods on its way to San Francisco. It was a ride of thirty

miles under a blistering sun, through dust twelve inches deep which the

heavy hoofs of the horses and the wheels of the lumbering coach tossed

ten feet in the air, half smothering the inside passengers, and coating

those on top within and without. Thorpe had secured the seat by the

driver, thinking to forget the physical discomforts in the scenery. But

the tame prettiness of the valley was obliterated by the shifting wall

of dust about the stage; and Thorpe closed his eyes, and resigned

himself to misery. Even the driver would not talk, beyond observing

that it was "the goldarndest hottest day he'd ever knowed, and that was

saying a darned sight, _you_ bet!" It was late in the afternoon when

the stage pulled up at the "hotel" of a little village.

"That there's Redwoods," said the driver, pointing with his whip toward

a mass of trees on rising ground. "Evenin'. I wish I wuz you."

The hotel seemed principally saloon; but the proprietor, who was chewing

vigorously, told Thorpe he guessed he could accommodate him, and led

him to a small room whose very walls were crackling with the heat.

Thorpe distinctly saw the fleas jumping on the bare boards, and

shuddered.

"Can I have a bath?" he asked.

"A what?"

"A bath."

"Oh!--we don't pronounce it that way in these parts. And bath-tubs is a

luxury you'll have to go to 'Frisco for, I guess."

"Hav'n't you any sort of a tub you could bring me? I have a call to pay,

and I must clean up."

"Perhaps the ole woman'd let you have one of her wash-tubs. I'll ask

her."

"Do. And I should like supper as soon after as possible."

The old woman contributed the tub. It leaked, and it was redolent of

coarse soap and the indigo that escapes from overalls. Thorpe got rid

of his dust; but the smells, and the hot room, and the cloud of dust

that sprang back from his clothes as he shook them out of the window,

improved neither his aching head nor his temper. To make matters worse,

the steak for his supper was fried, the potatoes were swimming in

grease, the butter was rancid, and the piecrust hung down with its own

weight. He ate what little of this typical repast he could in a close

low room, crowded with men in their shirt-sleeves, who expectorated

freely, mopped their faces and necks with their napkins, and smelt. The

flies swarmed, a million strong, and invaded the very plates; a previous

battalion lay, gasping or dead, on the tables, some overcome by the

heat, others by the sharp assaults of angry napkins. When Thorpe left

the room, he had half made up his mind not to call on Nina Randolph that

evening; he felt in anything but a loverlike mood. Moreover, such an

introduction to a reunion was grotesque; but after he had smoked his

cigar in the open air, he felt better, concluded not to be a romantic

ass, and started for the house.

He climbed the dusty road toward the two tall redwoods (the only ones

in the valley) that gave her home its name, then turned into a long

cool avenue. Beside it ran a creek, dry already, its sides thick with

fragrant shrubs. So closely planted was the avenue that he did not catch

a glimpse of the house until he came suddenly upon it; then he paused a

moment, regarding it with pleasure. It looked like a fairy castle, so

light and delicate and mediaeval of structure was it. The yellow plaster

of its walls, the vivid bloom of the terrace on which it stood, were

plainly visible in the moonlight. The dark mountains, covered with their

redwood forests, seemed almost directly behind, although they were

twenty miles away. Thorpe was glad he had come. The hideous afternoon

and evening slipped out of his thought.

The front doors were open. Cochrane was walking up and down the hall,

his hands clasped behind him, his head bent. He looked like a man who

was listlessly awaiting a summons.

Light streamed from open windows to the verandah on the right of the

house. Thorpe, conceiving that Nina was there, determined to look upon

her for a moment unobserved. He skirted the house, and heard Nina's

voice. To command a view of the interior, he must reach the verandah.

He mounted the steps softly, but other sounds rose high above his

footfalls as he walked toward the window. A peal of coarse laughter

burst forth. The light swept obliquely across the verandah; he stood

in the shadows just beyond it, and looked into the room.

Nina sat in a corner, her elbows on her knees, her eyes fixed on

the floor. Her black dress was destitute of any feminine device.

Mrs. Randolph and Mrs. Reinhardt sat on opposite sides of a table.

Between them was a steaming bowl of punch. There were two unopened

brandy-bottles on the table. The faces of both women were flushed,

and their hair was disordered.

"Tha't a fool, Nina," remarked Mrs. Randolph, in a remarkably steady

tone. "Coom and 'ave a glass. My word! it's good."

Nina made no reply.

"Such nonsense," wheedlingly. "It's the best a iver made, and the Lord

knows a've made mony. Coom and try just one glass."

"I am sitting here to test my strength. I shall not touch it."

Mrs. Randolph laughed, coarsely and loudly. "Tha't a fool. Tha doon't

knoo what tha't talking aboot. It strikes me a 've 'eard thot before.

Coom. Tha mought as well give in, fust as last."

Nina made no reply.

Mrs. Randolph's evil eyes sparkled. She filled an empty glass with the

punch, and walked steadily over to where her daughter sat. Nina sprang

from her chair, overturning it, thrusting out her hands in a gesture

eloquent with terror, and attempted to reach the door. Mrs. Randolph was

too quick for her; with a dexterous swoop, she possessed herself of the

girl's small hands and pressed the goblet to her nostrils. Nina gave a

quick gasp, and, throwing back her head, staggered slightly, the glass

still against her face. Outside Thorpe reeled for a moment as if he too

were drunk. The blood pounded in his ears; his fingers drew inward,

rigid, in their desire to get about the throat of some one, he did not

much care whom.

Nina wrenched one hand free, snatched the goblet and held it with

crooked elbow, staring at her mother. Mrs. Randolph laughed. Mrs.

Reinhardt held her breath in drunken awe at the tragedy in the girl's

face. Nina brought the goblet half way to her lips, her eyes moving to

its warm brown surface with devouring greed. Then she flung it at her

mother's breast, and sank once more to her chair, covering her face with

her hands.

Mrs. Randolph, cursing, returned to the table and consoled herself with

a brimming glass. Outside, the man's imagination played him an ugly

trick. A picture flashed upon it, vivid as one snatched from the dark by

the blaze of lightning. A struggling distorted foaming thing was on the

floor, held down by the strong arms of two men, and the face of the

thing was not the face of Mrs. Randolph. She stood apart, looking down

upon her perfected work with a low continuous ripple of contented

laughter. The vision passed. Thorpe leaped from the verandah and

wandered aimlessly about the grounds. He cursed audibly and repeatedly,

not caring whether he might be overheard or not. He felt as if every

nerve in his body were a separate devil. He hated the thought of the

next day's sunlight, and wondered if it would shine on a murderer or a

suicide; he felt capable of crime of the blackest variety.

Fascinated, he returned to the verandah. Mrs. Randolph had fallen

forward on the table. The man Cochrane entered and took her by the

shoulders. She flung out her arm and struck him.

"Give oop! Give oop!" she muttered. But he jerked her backward, and half

dragged, half carried her from the room. Mrs. Reinhardt staggered after,

slamming the door behind her. Then Nina rose and came forward, and

leaned her finger-tips heavily on the table.

"Come in," she said; and Thorpe entered.

They faced each other in silence. For a moment Thorpe was conscious only

of the change in her. Her cheeks were sunken and without colour; her

eyes patched about with black. The features were so controlled that they

were almost expressionless.

"Sit down," she said. "I will tell you the story."

He took the chair Mrs. Reinhardt had occupied, Nina her mother's. She

pressed her knuckles against her cheeks, and began speaking rapidly, but

without excitement.

"My father's home in Yorkshire was near the town of Keighley, which is a

few miles from Haworth, the village where the Brontes lived. He and

Branwell Bronte were great friends, and used to meet at the Lord Rodney

Inn in Keighley, as Haworth is an almost inaccessible place. They were

both very brilliant young men; and many other young men used to drop in

on Saturday evenings to hear them talk politics. Of course the night

ended in a bout, which usually lasted over Sunday. My mother was

bar-maid at that inn. She made up her mind to marry my father. It is

said that at that time she was handsome. She had an insatiable thirst

for liquor, but was clever enough to keep my father from suspecting it.

Once my father--who cared little for drink, beyond the conviviality of

it--and Bronte went on a prolonged spree, the result of a bet. When he

came to himself, he found that he had married her before the registrar.

He belonged to one of the oldest families in the county. He had married

a woman who could neither read nor write, and who talked at all times as

she does now when she is drunk. Nevertheless, he determined to stand by

her, because he thought he deserved his fate, and because he thought she

loved him. But he left the country. To introduce her to his people and

friends was more than he was equal to. To bury himself with her on his

estate, denying himself all society but hers, was equally unthinkable,

to say nothing of the fact that he was ashamed to introduce her to the

servants. He wished to go away and be forgotten, begin life over in a

new land where social conditions were as the builders made them. He came

to California. She was furious. She had married him for the position she

had fancied such a marriage would give her: she wanted to be a lady. Her

mind was somewhat diverted by travel, and she kept her peace until she

reached San Francisco--Yerba Buena, it was called then. It was a tiny

place: a few adobe houses about the plaza, and a warehouse or two at the

docks. Then there was a frightful scene between the two. My father

learned why she had married him, and that she had instigated the wager

which led to the spree which enabled her to accomplish her purpose. She

ordered him to take her back to England at once, threatening to punish

him if he did not. He refused, and she went on a prolonged drinking

bout. This was shortly before my birth. They were the guests of Mr.

Leese, a German who had married a native Californian and settled in the

country. These people were very kind; but it was horribly mortifying for

my father. He built her a house as quickly as possible, in order to hide

her in it. I forgot to say that he had brought over Cochrane, who took

charge of his household affairs. At the end of a year there was another

scene, in which my father made her understand that he would never return

to England; and that, were it not for me, he would turn her out of the

house and let her go to the devil as fast as she liked. It was the

mistake of his life that he did not, both for himself and for me. He

should have taken or sent me back to England, and left her with a

subsistence in the new country. But he is a very proud man. He feared

that she would follow him home, and publish the story. There is no

getting away from a woman like that.

"She was forced to accept the position; but she hated him mortally, and

no less than he hated her. She had threatened again to make him rue his

refusal to return to England, but refused to explain her meaning. This

is what she did. He idolised me. She put whisky in my baby food until I

would not drink or eat anything that was not flavoured with it. She was

very cunning: she habituated my system to it gradually, so that it never

upset me. She also gave it to me for every ailment. My father suspected

nothing. There were depths of depravity that neither his imagination nor

his observation plumbed. When I was about thirteen, he left us in

charge of Cochrane--who had more influence over my mother than any

one--and went off to the Crimean war, rejoining his old regiment. The

necessity to get away from her for a time overrode his paternal

instinct--everything. Moreover, he wanted to fight somebody. He

distinguished himself. Just after his return, he discovered what my

mother had made of me. His rage was awful; he beat her like a navvy. For

once she was cowed. I went off my head altogether. When I came to, he

was crouching in a corner as if some one had flung him there, sobbing

and gasping. It was awful--awful! Then he sent me to the Hathaways to

study with the girls. They knew, and promised to keep me away from her,

and to see that I had nothing to drink. My mother sent me a bottle of

whisky every week in my clean clothes. I did not tell him, for I wanted

it. He found that out, too, and then debated whether he had not better

send me away from the country. But he knew that the cry was in my blood,

and that if I went to his people in England the chances were I would

disgrace him. Then he made his second mistake: he did not throw her

out. He ordered her to go, and she laughed in his face and asked him how

he would like to read every morning in the _Golden Era_ that James

Randolph's wife had spent the night in the calaboose. Now, only two or

three people besides the Hathaways and Shropshires even suspected it, so

carefully had Cochrane watched her.

"He sent me to boarding-school. She kept me in money, and I got what I

wanted, although my father's pride was in me, and I never took enough to

betray my secret. It was not until I had finished school that I really

gave way to the appetite. My father, closely as he watched me, did not

suspect for a long time. He was very busy,--he threw himself heart and

soul into the development of the city,--and when the appetite mastered

me, I either feigned illness or went to the country. At last he found it

out. There have been many bitter hours in my life, but that was

incomparably the bitterest. I had always loved him devotedly. When he

went down on his knees and begged me to stop, of course I swore that I

would. I kept my promise for six months, she doing all she could to

entice me the while. Then I yielded. After that, after another interview

with my father, I restrained the intolerable craving for another six

months. Then it went on irregularly. I don't know that I began to think

much, to look into the future, until about a year ago--it was when I

first saw her as you saw her that night. Then I aged suddenly. My moral

sense awakened, my sense of personal responsibility. I loathed myself.

I looked upon what I had become with horror. I struggled fiercely,--but

with indifferent success,--although, I must add, there were weeks at a

time when I never thought of it; for I have the _joie de vivre_, and

there are many distractions in society. Then you came. For a time I

was happy and excited, and the thing was in abeyance. I touched

nothing: that was my only chance. I fought it under,--after that first

night,--and the desire did not come again until I drank the mescal at

Don Tiburcio's _merienda_. But I had known that it would come back

sooner or later, and was determined not to marry you, nor to let myself

fall seriously in love with you. But after that first night out on

the strawberry patches I knew that I loved you, and, as I am not a

light-minded person, irrevocably. But I made up my mind to enjoy that

week, and look no farther. You know the rest. What I have suffered

since perhaps you can divine, if you love me. If you don't, it doesn't

matter." Her monotonous calm left her suddenly. She brought her fist

down on the table. "This room is full of the smell of it!" she cried.

"And I want it! I want it!"

She pushed back her chair. "Come," she said, "let us go outside."

She ran out to the verandah. He followed, and she grasped his arm. "Let

us go for a ride," she said. "I shall go off my head, if I keep still

another moment. I want motion. Are you tired?"

"No, I am not tired."

She led the way to the stables. The men in charge had gone to bed. She

and Thorpe saddled two strong mustangs, rode rapidly down the avenue

and out into the high road. For some time they followed the stage-route,

then struck into a side road leading to the mountains. Nina did not

speak, nor did Thorpe. He was thankful for the respite. Once he touched

his cheek mechanically, wondering if it had fallen into wrinkles.

They rode at a break-neck pace. The night had become very dark: a great

ocean of fog had swept in from the Pacific, blotting out mountains and

stars. The mustangs moderated their pace as they began to ascend the

foot-hills. The long rush through the valley had quickened Thorpe's

blood without calming his brain. He did not speak. There seemed to be

a thousand words struggling in his brain, but they would not combine

properly. He could have cursed them free, but although he was too bitter

and excited to have tenderness or pity for the woman beside him, he

considered her in a half blind way; she was the one woman on earth who

had ever sent him utterly beside himself. They ascended, two black spots

of shifting outline in the fog, for an hour or more. Neither below nor

above could an object be seen, not a sound came to them. It was unreal,

and ghostly, and portentous. Then, almost abruptly, they emerged, the

mustangs trotting on to the flat summit of a hill. Nina sprang to the

ground.

"Tie the horses," she said; and Thorpe led them to a tree some yards

away.

Nina stood with her back to him, her hands hanging listlessly at her

sides, looking downward. Thorpe, after he had tethered the horses,

paused also.

The world below was gone. In its place was a vast ocean of frothy

milk-white fog. On each side, melting into the horizon in front, until

it washed the slopes of the Contra Costa range, lay this illimitable

ocean pillowed lightly on sleeping millions. Now calm and peaceful, now

distorted in frozen wrath, it was so shadowy, so unreal, that a puff of

wind might have blown it to the stars. Out of it rose the hill-tops,

bare weather-beaten islands. Against them the sea had hurled itself,

then clung, powerless to retreat. Upon some it had cast its spray half

way to the crest, over others it rushed in mighty motionless torrents;

here and there it but half concealed the jagged points of ugly rocks.

Beating against solitary reefs were huge, still, angry breakers,

sounding no roar. A terrible death-arrested storm was there in

mid-ocean,--a storm which appalled by its very silent wrath. On one of

the highest and barest of the crags an old building looked, in that

sunless light, like a castle in ruin. Above, the cold blue sky was

thickly set with shivering stars. The grinning moon hung low.

There was not a sound; not a living creature was awake but themselves.

They might have been in the shadowy hereafter, with all space about

them; in the twilight of eternity. Where they rested, the air was clear

as a polar noon; not a stray wreath of that idle froth floated about

them.

"I came here," said Nina, turning to Thorpe, "because I knew it would be

like this. It will be easier to hear what you think of me, than it would

have been down there."

He brought his hands down on her shoulders, gripping them as if

possessed of the instinct to hurt.

"Once or twice I could have killed you as you spoke," he said. "I shall

marry you and cure you, or go to hell with you. As I feel now, it does

not matter much which."

And then he caught her in his arms and kissed her, with the desire which

was consuming him.

"But even you cannot conquer me," she said to him an hour later. "I

shall not marry you until I have conquered myself. I believe now that I

can. I got your letter. I very nearly knew that you would say what you

have done, after I told you the truth. I won't marry you, knowing that,

in spite of your love, which I do not doubt, at the bottom of your

intelligence, you despise me. I have always felt that if I could make

a year's successful fight, I should never fall again. There may be

no reason for this belief; but we are more or less controlled by

imagination. There is no doubt in my mind on this point. If I win

alone, you will respect me again, and love me better."

"I do not despise you. I hardly know what I felt for you five weeks ago.

But I have only sympathy for you now--and love! You must let me do the

fighting. It will knit us the more closely--"

"It would wear me out, kill me, knowing that you were watching my

struggles, no matter how lovingly. Besides, I know myself; my moods are

unbearable at such times. I cannot control my temper. Before the year

was over, we should have bickered our love into ruins. We could not

begin over again. If you will do as I wish, I believe we can be happy.

It is not long to wait--we are both young. Cannot you see that I am

right?"

"I don't want to leave you, not for a day again!"

"And I don't want you to go! But I know that it is our only chance. If

you marry me now, you will hate me before the year is over; and, what is

worse, I shall hate you. The steamer sails to-morrow. Will you go?"

He hesitated, and argued, a long while; but finally he said: "I will

go."

"Don't go all the way back to England. I should like to think you were

in America; that would help me."

"I will stay in New Orleans, and write by every steamer."

"Oh, do, do! And if I do not write as regularly, you will understand.

There will be times when I simply cannot write. But promise that, no

matter what you hear, you will not lose faith in me."

"I promise." Involuntarily his mouth curled into a grin. The ghosts of a

respectable company of extorted promises capered across his brain, as

small irreverent ghosts have a habit of doing in great moments. But his

mouth was close upon hers, and she did not see it.

An hour later she pointed outward. Far away, above the Eastern

mountains, was a line of flame. The sun rose slowly. It smiled down upon

the phantom ocean and flung bubbles of a thousand hues to the very feet

of the mortals on the heights.

Then slowly, softly, the ocean moved. It quivered as if a mighty hand

struck it from its foundations, swayed, rose, fled back to the sea that

had given it birth.

A moment more and the world was visible again, awake, and awaiting them.