plumb the depths; she had a
substantial distaste for the Spanish nature when roused.

Her husband was expected to return in time for dinner. She went to bed
with an attack of neuralgia a little after six.

Magdalena did not see her father until he entered the dining-room with
her uncle. He inquired immediately for Trennahan, who usually dined with
him when there were no engagements elsewhere.

"He decided suddenly to go to the Sandwich Islands and sailed
yesterday."

"Very sorry he no wait until I come back. I think I gone with him.
Always I want to see the Islands. I work long enough now: go to travel
some and see the world. So queer to think is so much world outside
California. When you go to Europe, I go too. And you, too, Eeram. You no
can go with us, for both cannot leave the bank, but when we coming back
you take the vacation, too."

"I never expect to see the outside of California again," said Mr. Polk,
shortly.

Magdalena's nerves shook for the first time in seventy-two hours. She
appreciated the ordeal she had to face within the next. The dull ache in
every nerve of her gave place to a certain keenness of apprehension.
What would that terrible little man do? She had absorbed something of
her father's personality as a child. During the last year she had talked
much with him and had discovered the strange weaknesses and fears which
lurked in that manufactured character. She fully realised what a
son-in-law like Trennahan meant to him. He was quite capable of killing
her. And during the last three or four weeks he had flown into more than
one violent passion, prompted by a liver disordered by too much dining
out.

While the two men were drinking their coffee, she left the room and went
to the office. The riding-whip was in its old place; on a shelf in the
cupboard was a brace of pistols. Magdalena threw the whip into the
cupboard, locked the door, and slipped the key behind a book on the
mantel. Her father came in a moment later. She handed him a cigar and a
match. He drew his heavy brows together and puckered his eyelids.

"What the matter?" he demanded drily. "So white you are, and the hand
tremble."

Magdalena sat down and took control of herself.

"I am not going to marry Mr. Trennahan," she said.

She held her breath for the expected outburst; but Don Roberto only
stared at her, his eyes slowly expanding. The cigar dropped from his
fingers.

"He no want marry you?" he ejaculated finally.

"