interesting enough to spend
an hour by her bedside daily. It was manifestly impossible to transfer a
woman of Lady Victoria's heroic proportions down that rickety and almost
perpendicular flight of steps to an ambulance, but the best of nurses
were engaged, Anne Montgomery agreed to come every morning and attend to
the housekeeping, Gwynne established a long-distance telephone beside
the bed, and Mrs. Trennahan, whom Lady Victoria liked--she could not
stand Mrs. Hofer--promised a daily visit; and an automobile trip to the
south as soon as the doctor would permit.

It was nearly a week before Isabel, who had sat up with Gwynne during
the first two nights, and been on the rush ever since, was able to
return to her ranch. She had offered to remain in town altogether, but
Lady Victoria replied with some show of irritation that if either she or
her son sacrificed their time and interests on her account it would
oppress her mind with a sense of guilt, and hinder her recovery. She
would telephone to them at a certain hour every day, and if they came
down once a week as usual she should enjoy seeing them, instead of being
worried by a sense of obligation. In truth she was glad to be rid of
them for more reasons than one.

It was late in the afternoon when Isabel arrived in Rosewater, and
business detained her there for several hours. She dined with the Tom
Coltons, and the conversation was a quaint mixture of babies, politics,
servants, and the Hofer ball. Colton drove her home, and talked the
steady monotonous stream with which he tricked the world into believing
that his own ideas were still in the germ. Upon this occasion he might
as well have betrayed his secrets or quoted the poets, for Isabel paid
no attention whatever to his monologue. She was consumed with her desire
to be alone once more. She was tired of the very sound of the human
voice, and remembered with satisfaction the silence of her Chuma and the
taciturnity of her men.

When she finally reached her home she illuminated it from top to bottom
and wandered about in a passion of delight. Her sensation of gratitude
and novelty in her solitude and freedom could not have been keener if
she had been absent for six months. Although it was too cold to sit
out-of-doors, she walked up and down the piazza for an hour, watching
the crawling tide and the brown tumbled hills. The boat was late, and
every other light was out when it appeared, a mere string of magic
lantern