ht, and we were coming home in our own hack?"

Magdalena thought a moment. "It might not to-night, but it would
to-morrow. I am sure of that," she said.

Helena groaned. "You are hopeless. Thank Heaven, I was born without a
conscience,--that kind, anyhow. I intend to be a law all to myself. I'm
Californian clear through into my backbone."

The hack stopped. The girls alighted and walked slowly forward. Mr.
Belmont's house was the first of the three.

"Well," said Helena, "here we are. I'm going to climb up the pillar and
walk along the ledge. How are you going in?"

"Through the front door."

"Well, if you will, you will, I suppose. Kiss me good-night."

Magdalena kissed her and walked on. A half-moment later Helena called
after her in a loud whisper,--

"Take off that shawl!"

Magdalena lifted her hand to her chin, then dropped it. When she reached
her own home, she rang the bell firmly. The Chinaman who opened the door
stared at her, the dawn of an expression on his face.

"Where is Don Roberto?" she asked.

"In loffice, missee."

Magdalena crossed the hall and tapped at the door of the small room her
father called his office. Don Roberto grunted, and she opened the door
and went in. He was writing, and wheeled about sharply.

"What?" he exclaimed. "What the devil! Take that shawl off the head."

Magdalena removed the shawl and sat down.

"I went to a fire," she said. "I got taken up by a policeman and went to
the station. A man named Tom Shannon said he wouldn't lock me up, and
sent me home. He paid for the carriage." She paused, looking at her
father with white lips.

His face had turned livid, then purple. "_Dios!_" he gasped. "_Dios!_"
And then she knew how furious her father was. When his life was in even
tenor he never used his native tongue. "_Dios!_" he repeated. "Tell that
again. You go with that little devil, Helena Belmont, I suppose. _Madre
de Dios!_ Again! Again!"

"I went to a fire--south of Market Street. A policeman arrested me for a
vagrant. He called me a greaser--"

Her father sprang to his feet with a yell of rage. He caught his
riding-whip from the mantel.

She stumbled to her feet. "Papa!" she said. "Papa! You will not do
that!"

A few moments later she was in her own room. The stars shone full on her
pretty altar. She turned her back on it and sat down on the floor. She
had not uttered a word as her father beat her. Even now she barely felt
the welts on her back. But he