a time the heavy dinner locked Talbot's brain, but finally he began
to dream of his youth, and the scenes of which Delfina Carillo had been
the heroine were flung from their rusty frames into the hot light of his
memory, until he lived again the ecstasy and the anguish of that time.
The morning's reminiscences had moved coldly in his mind, but so intense
was his vision of the woman he had worshipped that she seemed bathed in
light.

He awoke suddenly. The Senora still slept, and her face was as placid as
in consciousness. It was slightly relaxed, but the time had not yet come
for the pathetic loss of muscular control. Still, she looked so large
and brown and stout that Talbot rose abruptly with an echo of the agony
that had returned in sleep, and entered the _sala_ and stood
deliberately before the portrait. It had been painted by an artist of
much ability. There was atmosphere behind it, which in the dim room
detached it from the canvas; and the curved red mouth smiled, the eyes
flashed with the triumph of youth and much conquest, the skin was as
white as the moon-flowers in the fields at night.

Talbot recalled the night he had taken this woman in his arms--not the
woman on the veranda--and involuntarily he raised them to the picture.
"And I thought it was over," he muttered, with a terrified gasp. "But I
believe I would give my immortal soul and everything I've accomplished
in life if she would come out of the frame and the past for an hour and
love me."

"Whatte you say?" drawled a gentle voice. "I fall asleep, no? Si you
ring that little bell Marcia bring the chocolate. You find it too hot
out here?"

"Oh, no; I prefer it out-of-doors. It is cooler now, and I like all the
air I can get."

He longed to get away, but he sipped his chocolate and listened to the
domestic details of his four vicarious daughters. The Senora was
immensely proud of her five grandchildren. Their photographs were all
over the house.

At six o'clock he shook hands with her and sprang on his horse. Half-way
down the avenue he turned his head, as usual. She stood on the veranda
still, and smiled pleasantly to him, moving one of her large brown hands
a little. He never saw the Senora again.

II

Talbot was obliged to go to San Francisco a day or two later, and when
he returned the Senora was in bed with a severe cold. He sent her a box
of books and papers, and another of chocolates, and then forgot her in
the excitement of the elec