Mrs. MacGregor's veiled advances to Elijah were rapidly having the effect which her designing mind had forecast; more and more he was coming to lean upon her; more and more he was coming to be guided by her.

Perhaps he was not conscious that an engagement to meet and talk over business matters with Mrs. MacGregor, was shaping his meditations with regard to the fifty thousand dollars concealed in his private box.

Perhaps he was not conscious that he was proposing to do what he knew to be wrong and then, if things went against him, to say, as did our common ancestor, "The woman tempted me."

As he drove up to the Rio Vista on the day of his engagement with Mrs.

MacGregor, Elijah was placid under his old refuge. In the progress of his day he would be guided. Unfortunately for Elijah, in the progress of her day, Mrs. MacGregor would guide. She was a human pirate, pure and simple. In her piratical cruises, she flew any pennon which policy dictated, while Elijah took refuge under letters of marque.

Mrs. MacGregor shrugged her shoulders gently as she took her place beside Elijah and threw a suggestive backward glance at the Rio Vista.

"I think it is wonderful that you have pa.s.sed through such fires with no smell of smoke on your garments."

"If you could see what I have seen, it would not seem so wonderful."

"But I have seen, and it only increases my wonder. You might have acc.u.mulated safely in weeks what will take you years in the line you have chosen."

Elijah laughed. It was a gratified laugh.

"It isn't what I am after. These boomers are trying to give nothing the appearance of something. They began to build on nothing; I am laying a foundation. I may build the super-structure or I may not, that is for the Lord to say; but on my foundation the future of this part of California must be built."

"And where no blade of gra.s.s grew, you have made a paradise! Your modesty may call it accident, but I call it a design which has been given into hands willing and able to execute it."

Elijah looked thoughtful. Mrs. MacGregor's words were grateful to him, but they were wide of his purpose just now. He made up his mind to a bold plunge.

"It may be a design, but others now see not only the design, but its possibilities as well." Elijah hesitated for a moment, then resumed slowly. "It may be that I have blazed the way; it seems to me that I have. But here is my problem. Shall I rest content with having blazed the way, or shall I struggle with others for the rewards?"

Mrs. MacGregor did not hesitate.

"I have often thought of the parable of the talents. I have thought of another bit of scripture that is not a parable. 'To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath.'"

"You think then, that I have no right to rest on what I have done, or rather, that I ought to finish what I have undertaken?"

"Most a.s.suredly."

Elijah felt solid ground beneath his feet. There was more than a touch of pride in his voice.

"Do you know that my every word is snapped up; my every action watched by those sharks?" he indicated Ysleta with his whip. "If I should point my whip to those hills to which I am pointing now, they would snap them up and organize an orange growing company." Elijah paused and turned his eyes to Mrs. MacGregor. She knew what he would say, but she preferred to let him speak.

"Well?"

"They would do by this as they have done by Ysleta."

Mrs. MacGregor laughed.

"Why don't you take them then?"

"Is it my duty? That is the question that is troubling me. I haven't the money to buy them even at their present rates. If I had, my way would be open."

"Why not have faith that the way will open in the future as it has in the past?"

Elijah drew himself together.

"I am going to tell you the whole thing, then you can judge me as you will." He told of the fifty thousand dollars, his disposition of it, the fact that the pa.s.s-book of the company showed a balance unpaid of fifty thousand dollars, his provisional deal with Pico. He hesitated as he closed the recital, then after a moment he concluded. "This deal with Pico must be decided at once. Has the way opened?"

Mrs. MacGregor had grasped every point. When Elijah ceased speaking her answer was ready.

"There are emergencies in life so fraught with grave possibilities that every law of man, I might almost say of G.o.d, must be thrust aside. Every one who does great things, must at times do doubtful ones. That is, they are doubtful to eyes unable to penetrate the future."

Elijah waited to make sure that Mrs. MacGregor had finished. She had purposely avoided a direct answer. This did not suit him. His eyes shone hard as steel through his half-closed lids.

"Am I justified in using that fifty thousand?"

Mrs. MacGregor's lips set.

"In my opinion you are."

Elijah's question had not surprised her; but she inwardly resented it.

Her plan had been to deal out generalities, leaving her own skirts free.

She realized that he had gained all that he wanted from her and had given her nothing.

"There is another matter that has troubled me for a long time, Mrs.

MacGregor. I have tried to shut my eyes to it, but I cannot. I can see great things to be done and I can help others to see, but there are times when I need help; when I long for human sympathy, intelligent sympathy that can see what I see, that can have faith in my work,--" he paused.

Mrs. MacGregor was watching him narrowly, every sense alert.

"The intelligent sympathy which a wife may give, but which Amy cannot?"

It was a daring forecast. Mrs. MacGregor held her breath in spite of herself.

Elijah's face grew drawn and white. This was the first time that, either to himself or to another, he had stated the case baldly. Hitherto, even to himself, he had decently veiled his unholy thoughts. The appealing eyes of his wife were upon him, now that he was striving to turn his own away from them. He had not imagined that it would be so hard. Even the eyes of Helen Lonsdale could not comfort him. The thought of what he was clearing from the way, in order to look into them, appalled him.

Mrs. MacGregor prepared to sell the last remnant of her soul to the devil. Upon Helen Lonsdale she had no hold. She had noted the girl's interest in Elijah, an interest of which the girl herself was unconscious. If now, she cleared Helen's path of obstructions, would not she win her grat.i.tude? Slowly and deliberately, she spoke.

"You never loved Amy Eltharp. The woman whom you could love, who could return a love as deep and lasting as your own is separated from you. You are paying the penalty of your mistake. Amy is paying for it, even"--she paused, then went on without a quaver,--"even as Helen Lonsdale is paying for it."

Elijah was as one stricken. For a long time he remained silent. Mrs.

MacGregor watched him narrowly. He was striving to do justice to himself and to his better nature, but the habit of years was strong upon him. He had strayed into a tempting path without definite thought as to where it would lead either himself or others. He had compared Helen Lonsdale with his wife; his life that might have been with Helen, with his life that was with Amy. Mrs. MacGregor's words had defined his position clearly and sharply. In innocence, he could go no farther. From now on, he must act decisively and with full knowledge of what his actions meant. At last he spoke, as one broken on a wheel.

"Don't torture me any longer. Tell me what you mean."

"I want to save you from yourself. You have made a mistake. You have had a loveless life. You married weakness where you needed strength. You married selfishness, where you needed unselfishness, devoted sympathy.

You have fled to a common refuge; you have sought in a mistress all that you have lacked in a wife."

Elijah burst out furiously.

"Helen Lonsdale is not that! She is as pure as sunlight."

"You cannot make her your wife; she knows that as well as you do. You are walking in a path the end of which is certain."

Elijah made no immediate reply. His reason told him the end of Mrs.