Angela was torn between several emotions, none of which she was able clearly to define. If she refused, it might seem ungracious, because already, half in earnest, half in play, she had partly promised Nick to go some time and have a glimpse of Lucky Star ranch and city. Yet, less than ever did she wish to be indebted for hospitality to Mrs. Gaylor.

"Could I go for a day?" she inquired.

"You could for two days and a night," said Carmen, "if you couldn't give us more time. You see, you'd have to travel all night from San Francisco to Bakersfield, or rather to Kern--which is the same thing. And my place is a good long drive from there, even in a motor, which I could easily hire."

"You needn't do that. I've bought one," Nick cut in eagerly. "She's in San Francisco. I was looking forward to showing her to you. But now I can do better. If Mrs. May consents, I'll ship the auto by train in advance and send the shuvver--my a.s.sistant, I mean--on ahead, so as to look the car over and see that she's ready to run us all out to your ranch after we arrive at Bakersfield in the morning. Now, aren't you surprised at my news, Mrs. Gaylor--that I've got an automobile of my own? Or did they tell you that, among other things, at River Camp?"

"Yes, they told me," answered Carmen, with the same praiseworthy calmness which she had been admiring in herself, and wondering at, as if it were a marvellous performance on the stage by an actress.

"Anyhow, I expect my yellow car will excite more interest at Lucky Star than a new schoolmistress," said Nick, laughing, almost light-hearted again. But he did not give more than a thought to the schoolmistress. Of what possible importance could she be to him?

"Will you run over from Kern to the Gaylor ranch in his yellow car?" asked Carmen, softly and kindly, seeing that the enemy hesitated.

"Yes--thank you both. I will go," Angela said.

"Then I'm rewarded for my long drive this afternoon." And indeed Carmen felt rewarded. She thought of the crystal, and how Madame Vestris had seen the "fair woman" blotted out of the sunshine by a dark cloud. And after that she had not come into the crystal again. Carmen had been there with a man standing by her side.

"But what should I have done if the hateful creature had refused to visit me?" Carmen thought. "Everything depended on that."

Next day they took the long drive together, Mrs. Gaylor, Angela, and Nick, and Angela's maid--for Carmen had not brought Mariette to the Yosemite.

Mariette was too talkative, and had been sent home from San Francisco.

Carmen did not wish Nick to find out how hurried this journey of hers had been lest he should suspect that it was made in quest of him! She wanted him to believe that she had been travelling leisurely for the benefit of her health, as she had taken pains to explain.

Nothing could spoil the azure mystery of Inspiration Point: nothing could dim the brightness of the Bridal Veil, seen from a new point of view. So near that a strong wind might have driven the spray into their faces, they saw the white folds of the waterfalls, embroidered with rainbows, and the dark rocks behind its rushing flood, stained deep red, and gold and blue, as if generations of rainbows had dried there. Nothing could stifle the thrill of that wild drive, down steep roads that tied themselves ribbonlike, round the mountain-side, and seemed to flutter, as ribbons might flutter, over precipices. Yet the magic of four days ago was dead.

Carmen, sitting between Nick and Angela, had killed it. Neither rivers nor trees sang their old song; and the white witch of the Bridal Veil had turned her face away.

XXVII

SIMEON HARP

Nick's detective in San Francisco had no news; at all events no news with which he could be induced to part. "Wait a few days longer," he said.

"That's the only favour I ask. Maybe by that time we shall both know where the poison-oak came from, who posted the box, who sent it, and why, and all the rest there is to know."

"Haven't you any suspicions yet?" Nick asked impatiently.

"I don't go so far as to say that."

"What--that you have, or you haven't?"

"That I haven't."

"You mean you do suspect some one?"

"Well, my mind's beginning to hover."

"Tell me where."

"No. I won't tell you that, Mr. Hilliard."

"You won't----"

"Not while I'm hovering. Not till there's something to light on. I may be doing an innocent person a big injustice."

And Nick could squeeze no more hints from Max Wisler. Herein lay one secret of the man's success; he had his own methods, and no one could persuade or bribe him to depart from them. This caused him to be respected. And Nick had to leave San Francisco with Mrs. Gaylor and Angela, tingling with unsatisfied curiosity. Mrs. May had forbidden him to speak to Carmen of the mysterious box, having grown sensitive on the subject. More than once she had asked herself if it were possible that some one very, very far away--some one whose photograph was in the _Ill.u.s.trated London News_--hated her enough to do her an injury: some one she had believed to be completely indifferent in these days. The thing savoured of the Latin mind, she could not help thinking, rather than the Anglo-Saxon. Perhaps Princess di Sereno was not quite forgotten in Italy, after all. And Mrs. May could imagine a motive, for in San Francisco she had been able to find a duplicate of that ill.u.s.trated paper. There were three photographs in it: one rather bad one of herself, taken years ago in Rome; one of Paolo, dressed as an aeronaut; and one of a certain handsome young woman, very becomingly dressed to accompany the Prince for a flight in his new aeroplane.

Angela was not happy in this expedition to the Gaylor ranch, though she rea.s.sured herself from time to time, by saying that it was better to accept than refuse the invitation; and she was to be Mrs. Gaylor's guest only for a day, part of another, and one night. Still, she was vaguely troubled. The warm consciousness of being surrounded by kindness which had made the California sunshine doubly bright, was chilled. This visit would be like other visits which she had made in the past, before she was "Mrs.

May, whom n.o.body knows." In Rome, in Paris, in London, Princess di Sereno had been obliged sometimes to go to houses of women whom she disliked or distrusted, and to have them in hers. Such obligations had been part of the inevitable disagreeableness of daily existence for the wife of Paolo di Sereno; but going to Mrs. Gaylor was the first false note in the music of this free, new world. Angela consoled herself by thinking of Lucky Star Ranch. She would like to see Nick Hilliard's home.

"Simeon, she's here," said Carmen, in a low voice, to the old squirrel poisoner.

They stood together in the grove of bamboos, where they had talked about Nick, and about "old Grizzly Gaylor," on the May night when Nick was leaving for New York. Counting by time, that was not long ago. But Carmen's whole outlook on life was changed. She felt and looked years older.

"That's all right then, my lady," Simeon Harp answered. "The whole thing's all right. Don't you worry."

"Oh, I do worry. Every minute I'm in h.e.l.l," she groaned. "Oh, Simeon, what will become of me?"

"You'll be happy, and marry the man you love, my lady," the old man soothed her, the red-rimmed eyes, which had once been handsome, sending out a faint gleam of the one emotion that still burned in the ashes of his wrecked soul: devotion to the woman who had saved his life, who had given him a roof and food, and--above all--drink.

"I can never be happy again, whatever happens," Carmen said, with anguish.

"He loves some one else. He doesn't care for me."

"He'll learn to care. This slip of a thing that's come between you and 'im, my lady, will fly away out of his mind like a bit of thistledown.

When I'm done with her--she's got rid of for good."

"Oh, but the horror of it--the getting rid of her! It don't weaken one bit, Simeon. I've brought her here for that, _just that_, and it shall be done. In some moods, for a minute or two, I rejoice in the thought of it.

I want it. I'd even like to be there and see. Madame Vestris says that in my last incarnation I was a Roman Empress--that I used to go to the gladiator shows, and turn my thumb down, as a sign that the wounded ones who failed in the fight were to be killed by their conquerors in the arena. And that, once when I hated a Christian girl, I went to see her killed by lions. She--Madame Vestris--watched the whole scene in her crystal. Very likely it's true, what she says. I believe in her. She's wonderful. But I'm softer in this incarnation than in the last, I guess.

It frightens me and turns me sick when I think how I shall dream and wake up nights afterward--even if I'm married to Nick. Oh, it's awful! But it's the only way. He was meant for me! He's mine. She'll have to go. And I don't care how much I suffer, if only I have him for my husband in the end."

"You'll have him," said Simeon Harp. "It's going to be. And there ain't no need for you to dream bad dreams. _You_ ain't doing the thing. It's me. It was me thought of it. It's me who'll carry it out."

"Supposing you fail?" she whispered.

"I won't, if you'll do your part. Just the little part, my lady; we can't get on without your doin'. You send her there, to the right place; that's all. For the rest you can count on me."

"Oh!" Carmen shuddered, and put her hands before her face. "To think it's for to-day--_to-day!_ If only the _other thing_ had gone through all right, and she'd been made so hideous that he couldn't look at her, this horror might have been saved. I'd have wanted no more. Once he'd seen her face, that he thinks so angelic, red, and swollen and hardly human, he could never have felt the same toward her again. And it wouldn't have hurt her much in the end. But evidently she isn't the kind that's affected by that stuff. I know there are some who aren't. Those two haven't spoken about the box to me, Simeon. I was afraid at first Nick might suspect, and be watching. But that's nonsense, of course. And she wouldn't be here now if the idea had crossed his mind."

"n.o.body'll ever know," said Simeon. "I went such a long way. I changed trains three times and walked miles in between. Besides, when I posted the box I was wearin' something different from what I ever wear here. I was another man to look at."

"Oh, yes, I'm sure you did your part well," Carmen said quickly. "It was Fate interfered. I felt it would. All the cards near me were black just then. I don't know what I should do without you, Simeon--good old watch-dog! You shall be rich the rest of your life if you win me happiness."

"I've got all I want," the squirrel poisoner answered. "It's a pleasure to me to serve you. You don't need to offer no rewards, except to keep me near you, my lady, and give me my bite and sup. You ought to know that by this time--_anyhow since a year ago_."