he
sky was brilliant with moon and stars; the bay and hills lovely with the
mystery of night. California had never been more unsympathetically
beautiful. She jerked the curtains together and went back to him. As she
did not sit down, he rose.

"That is all," she said, "except that you must let me explain to my
father."

"And let you bear the whole brunt of it. Not if I know myself."

"You must. I understand him, and you do not. Besides, if he knew that
you and Helena had anything to do with the breaking of the engagement he
would never let me speak to either of you again, and I have no other
friends. I shall tell him that I no longer wish to marry you, and he
cannot compel me to give reasons. If he speaks to you about it, you must
tell him that you will marry no woman against her will, and let him see
that you mean it."

"Magdalena, you are a grand woman."

"I am a very dull and stupid person who has made up her mind that the
only chance of making life bearable is to do what is right. I am
terribly commonplace. I wonder you stood me as long as you did."

"You are the reverse of stupid and commonplace; and I am by no means
sure that you are doing right. I, too, have thought over this matter,
for nearly as many days as you have hours. I have tried to get outside
myself, to view the case quite dispassionately; and I honestly believe
that--as you insist upon putting me before yourself--it would be better
for me to marry you than Helena."

"I do not believe it. Nor could I marry you after what you just
acknowledged. I have never had much pride with you, but I have that
much. Marry you when you said that you wanted nothing so much in the
world as to marry Helena Belmont? That was the end of everything."

He left the room and the house. Magdalena went up the stair slowly,
assisting herself with the banister. Her limbs felt as if their muscles
had fallen to dust. Her heart seemed to have taken it outside of herself
altogether; there was no sensation where sensation was supposed to sit,
unless it were that of vacancy. Her brain was not confused; she did not
feel in the least as if she were going to be ill. She knew what she had
done, what she had to do in the future; and she wished that her heavy
limbs were as dead as that something within her for which she had no
name.

XV

The next morning she received a note from Trennahan.

I am sailing for Honolulu. Do nothing until my return. I shall be
gon