to write had
been a matter of momentous consideration to Magdalena. After the
resignation of her faith and her conversation with Colonel Belmont, she
had determined to adhere rigidly to the truth and to the right way of
living, to conquer the indolence of her moral nature and jealously train
her conscience. The result, she felt, would be a religion of her own,
from which she could derive strength as well as consolation for what she
had lost. She knew, by reading and instinct, that life was full of
pitfalls, but her intelligence would dictate what was right, and to its
mandates she would conform, if it cost her her life. And she knew that
the religion she had formulated for herself in rough outline was far
more exacting than the one she had surrendered.

She had finally decided that it was not her duty to tell her parents
that she was trying to write. When she was ready to publish she would
ask their consent. That would be their right; but so long as they could
in no way be affected, the secret might remain her own. And this secret
was her most precious possession; it would have been firing her soul at
the stake to reveal it to anyone less sympathetic than Helena; she was
not sure that she could even speak of it to her.

Her time was her own in the country. Her father and uncle came down
three times a week, but rarely before evening; her mother's mornings
were taken up with household matters, her afternoons with siesta,
calling, and driving; frequently she lunched informally with her
friends. How Magdalena spent her time did not concern her parents, so
long as she did not leave the grounds and was within call when visitors
came.

Don Roberto would not keep a horse in town for Magdalena, but in the
country she rode through the woods unattended every morning. The
exhilaration of these early rides filled Magdalena's soul with content.
The freshness of the golden morning, the drowsy summer sounds, the deep
vistas of the woods,--not an outline changed since unhistoried races had
possessed them,--the glimpses of mountain and redwood forests beyond,
the embracing solitude, laid somnolent fingers on the scars of her inner
life, letting free the sweet troubled thoughts of a girl, carried her
back to the days when she had dreamed of caballeros serenading beneath
her casement. For two years she had dreamed that dream, and then it had
curled up and fallen to dust under Helena's ridicule. Magdalena was
fatally clear of vision, an