d
collapsed; but, with fewer temptations, and a remnant of his legal
brilliancy, he supported his family after a fashion; and fed his pride
to the day of his death with the fact that his wife, unlike the
forgotten half of many another comet, had never been obliged to do her
own work.

During that last visit to San Francisco, Isabel, guided by her amused
brother-in-law, routed him out of no less than fourteen saloons, and
spent night after night walking the streets with him to conquer the
restlessness that otherwise would find a prolonged surcease beyond her
influence. When she finally steered him back to Rosewater he fell into
an exuberant fit of repentance, during which he was so charming and so
legal that Isabel forgave him, laid by her bitterness and
mortification, and hoped. But although no repentance could maintain a
grip upon that slippery flabby substance which he still called his
character, at least he never went to San Francisco again. Occasionally
he permitted Isabel to spend a week with her sister, while he pledged
himself to good behavior during her absence; and kept his word. He
always kept his word; and he took care to withhold it except when he was
sure of himself. Isabel decided that as everything was relative it was
better to have a dipsomaniac as her life portion than a drinking-machine
of more steady and industrious habits.

Finally his patient clients left him, he sold the cottage in
Rosewater--all that remained of his inheritance--to pay its mortgages,
and moved with Isabel out to the ranch-house, preserved with a few
hundred acres by the more canny and less thirsty Hiram. When the elder
brother died James would have returned forthwith to the sources of
supply, but by this time Isabel had the upper hand, and although he
disappeared for days at a time, he was always forced to return to the
ranch when the small monthly sum allowed him by the terms of his
brother's will was exhausted; no one in Rosewater would give him credit.
As he invariably left a note behind him promising to "be quiet about
it," Isabel ceased to haunt his footsteps. His appetite was far beyond
his control or hers, and as he kept his word and spent his time in the
back parlor of a saloon, and had no longer the digestive capacity to
achieve his former distinction, she merely sat at home and waited.
Fortunately he did not live long enough after his brother hopelessly to
embitter his daughter's youth. Liberty came to her when she had