the room, Mr. Polk raised himself slightly and stared at
her with an expression she had never seen in his young eyes. It thrilled
her nerves within their mausoleum of flesh. She bent over and kissed
him. "Poor Eeram!" she said. "So sorry I am. But you no suffer, no?"

He made no reply. He sank back to his pillows; and after greeting her
brother, she took a chair beside the bed and sat there until her husband
died, in the ebb of the night. He held her hand, his eyes never leaving
her beautiful face, never losing their hunger until the film covered
them. What thoughts, what bitter regrets, what futile desires for
another beginning may have moved sluggishly in that disintegrating
brain, he carried with him into the magnificent vault which his widow
erected on Lone Mountain.

His will was read on the day following the funeral, in the parlour where
his coffin had rested, and by the light of a solitary gas-jet. Magdalena
had never heard a will read before: she hoped she might never hear
another. The three women in their black gowns, the four executors and
trustees in their crow-black funeral clothes,--her father, Colonel
Belmont, Mr. Washington, and Mr. Geary,--the big rustling document with
its wearisome formalities,--made a more lugubrious picture than the
lonely coffin of the day before. The terms of the will were simple
enough: the interest of the vast fortune was left to Mrs. Polk; upon her
death it was to be divided between his sister and niece, the principal
to go to Magdalena upon Mrs. Yorba's death. When Mr. Washington finished
reading the document, Don Roberto spoke for the first time in four days.

"I go to resign. I no will be executor or trustee. No need me, anyhow."
And he would listen to no argument.

The next day he called a meeting of the bank's board of directors and
resigned the presidency, requesting that Mr. Geary, a cautious and solid
man, should succeed him. His wish was gratified, and he walked out of
the bank, never to enter it again. His many other interests were in the
hands of trustworthy agents: neither he nor his brother-in-law had ever
made a mistake in their choice of servants. When he reached home, he
wrote to each of these agents demanding monthly instead of quarterly
accounts. He had a bed brought down to a small room adjoining the
"office," and in these two rooms he announced his intention to live
henceforth. At the same time he informed his wife and daughter that
their allowance hereaf