I
was more than willing to do mine by him: he can't deny it. But we all
know what reaction means, and it has set in in me. When I am my own
mistress, I'll give three balls and two dinners a week. I'll have the
finest carriages and horses ever seen in California. I'll have four
trousseaux a year from Paris, and I'll go to New York myself and buy the
most magnificent diamonds Tiffany's got. I'll refurnish this house and
Fair Oaks. The walls shall be frescoed, and every stick in them will
come from New York--"

She paused abruptly, springing to her elbow. The door was ajar. Through
the aperture came a long low chuckle. Magdalena jumped to her feet,
flung the door to, and locked it.

"Do you think he's gone mad at last?" gasped Mrs. Yorba.

"It sounded like it."

"For Heaven's sake, don't leave me for a minute. You must sleep here at
night. There's a cot somewhere,--in the attic, I think, if the rats
haven't eaten it. What a life to live!" She fell to weeping, as she
frequently did in these days. Suddenly her face brightened. "If he
should make a will disinheriting us, we could easily enough prove him
insane after the way he's been acting these four years. Thank Heaven,
this is California! General William could break any will that ever was
made."

Mrs. Yorba took an opiate and fell asleep. Magdalena went out, locking
the door behind her. She determined to ascertain at once if her father
was insane. If he was, he should be confined in two of the upper rooms
with a keeper. The world should know nothing of his misfortune; but it
would be absurd for herself and her mother to live in a constant state
of physical terror.

As she descended the stair, the door of her father's study opened
abruptly and a man shot out as if violently propelled from behind. The
door was slammed to immediately.

Magdalena ran downstairs and toward the stranger. He was a tall man
greatly bowed, and as she approached him she saw that he was old and
wore a long white beard. His head was large and suggested nobility and
intellect; but the eyes were bleared, the flesh of the face loose and
discoloured, and he was shabby and dirty. He looked like a fallen king.

"Was--was--my father rude?" asked Magdalena. "He is not very well.
Perhaps I can do something." The man appealed to her strangely, and she
had a dollar in her purse.

"We were great friends in our boyhood and youth," replied the stranger.
He spoke with an accent, but his English was unbr