ll you come away with me?" said Morgana--"I'll take you at once if
you like!"

Manella stared in a kind of child-like wonderment,--her big dusky eyes
grew brilliant,--then clouded with a sombre sadness.

"Thank you, Senora!" she answered, pronouncing the Spanish form of
address with a lingering sweetness, "It is very good of you! But I
should not please you. I do not know the world, and I am not quick to
learn. I am better where I am."

A little smile, dreamy and mysterious, crept round Morgana's lips.

"Yes!-perhaps you are!" she said--"I understand! You would not like to
leave HIM! I am sure that is so! You want to feed your big bear
regularly with bread and milk--yes, you poor deluded child! Courage!
You may still have a chance to be, as you say, 'his woman!' And when
you are I wonder how you will like it!"

She laughed, and began to brush her shining hair out in two silky
lengths on either side. Manella gazed and gazed at the glittering
splendour till she could gaze no more for sheer envy, and then she
turned slowly and left the room.

Alone, Morgana continued brushing her hair meditatively,--then,
twisting it up in a great coil out of her way, she proceeded with her
toilette. Everything of the very finest and daintiest was hers to wear,
from the silken hose to the delicate lace camisole, and when she
reached the finishing point in her admirably cut summer serge gown and
becoming close-fitting hat, she studied herself from head to foot in
the mirror with fastidious care to be sure that every detail of her
costume was perfect. She was fully aware that she was not a newspaper
camera "beauty" and that she had subtle points of attraction which no
camera could ever catch, and it was just these points which she knew
how to emphasise.

"I hate untidy travellers!"--she would say--"Horrors of men and women
in oil-skins, smelling of petrol! No goblin ever seen in a nightmare
could be uglier than the ordinary motorist!"

She had no luggage with her, save an adaptable suitcase which, she
declared "held everything." This she quickly packed and locked, ready
for her journey. Then she stepped to the window and waved her hand
towards the near hill and the "hut of the dying."

"Fool of a bear man!" she said, apostrophising the individual she chose
to call by that name--"Here you come along to a wild place in
California running away from ME,--and here you find a sort of untutored
female savage eager and willing to be your