The next morning MagdalÉna did as wise a thing as if inspired by reason instead of blind instinct: she got on her horse and rode for six hours. When she returned home she was exhausted of body and inert of brain. She found a note from Helena awaiting her.

MagdalÉna got some luncheon from the pantry, then went to bed and slept until six o'clock. At dinner Mr. Polk said to her,—

"I saw Trennahan this afternoon in a hack with a lot of luggage on behind, and I stopped the driver and got in, and went to the ferry with him. His engagement with Helena Belmont is broken, it seems, and he is off for Samoa. Looked like the devil, but was as polite as ever, and asked me to say good-bye to all of you."

Don Roberto looked up. "When he coming back?" he asked.

"You know as much about that as I do; or as he does, I guess. He told me that he was going to explore the South Seas thoroughly, and that ought to take as many years as he's got left, and more too."

It was two or three days before MagdalÉna realised what a relief it was to have Trennahan out of the country. It moved him back among the memories, and struck from her imagination agitating possibilities. And he belonged to no woman! He could never be hers, but at least she could love him. Already she had begun to do so with a measure of calm. She could hide him in her soul and count him wholly hers; and the prospect seemed far sweeter and more satisfactory than she should have imagined of such immaterial union. And some day, she believed, he would write to her. He had spoken authoritatively of the permanence of their friendship, and of its necessity to him. He had not loved her, as men count love, but for a little she had been to him something more than other women had been. The spiritual sympathy which had been rudely interrupted, but had surely existed, taught her this. In time he would become conscious again of the bond, and his letters alone would be something to live for.

And she had much else. In the evenings when her father was weeding on the lawn, she devoted herself to her uncle; and he seemed grateful for her attentions, slight as was his response. He was visibly shrinking to his skeleton, although he neither coughed nor complained, and went to town every morning with the regularity of his youth. But his gaunt face was less savagely determined, his eyes had lost the hard surface of metal; and one evening when MagdalÉna slipped her hand into his, he clasped and held it until Don Roberto, gloomy and perspiring, came panting across the drive.

And almost immediately MagdalÉna began to write. She did not go to her nook in the woods, but after her morning ride she wrote in her room until luncheon. She told her mother of her literary plans and asked her advice about making a similar announcement to her father. Between astonishment and consternation Mrs. Yorba gasped audibly, and her impassive countenance looked as if the hinges had fallen out of its muscles.

"For God's sake don't tell your father!" she exclaimed; and she was not given to strong language. "I don't believe you can write, anyhow, and we should only have a terrible scene for nothing."

MagdalÉna accepted the advice. Her father showed so little sense of his duty as a parent that her own was growing adaptable to circumstances, although she was still determined not to publish without his knowledge. She had not returned to her English romance: that had been consigned to the flames, and was now meditating in that limbo which receives the wraiths of the lame, the halt, and the blind of abortive talent. She was at work upon the simplest of the Old-Californian tales.

On the Saturday afternoon after Helena's departure for Monterey Rose called and invited MagdalÉna to drive with her to the train to meet Mr. Geary. Tiny and Ila, who were with her, added their insistence, and MagdalÉna, having no reasonable excuse, joined them. As they drove through the woods Ila confided her engagement to young Washington, and was kissed and congratulated in due form.

"I'm going to live in Paris," she announced. "No more California for me. You might as well be on Mars, in the first place, and everybody cackles over your private affairs, in the second. For the matter of that, you haven't any."

"I think it's disloyal of you to desert California," said Tiny. "I have a feeling that we should all keep together, and to the country."

"That's a very fine sentiment, but though I love you none the less, I want to live. I intend to be the best-dressed American in Paris. That's a reputation worth having."

"I'm going East to find a husband," said Rose, shamelessly. "There's no one to marry here. Alan Rush would not have been half bad, but he might as well be in an urn on Helena's mantel-piece. I like Eastern men best, anyhow."

"Why not go to Southern California?" asked Tiny. "It's not so far as New York; and there are always plenty of them there."

"I should feel like a ghoul,—man-hunting in One-lungdom, as Mr. Bierce calls it. Besides, I'd rather die an old maid than have a sick man on my hands for five minutes. I'm not heartless, but—well, we've all had our experiences with fathers and brothers. A sick man's an anomaly, somehow: he doesn't fit into a woman's imagination."

"I'm not going to marry at all," said Tiny. "Fancy what a lot of bother. It's so comfortable just to drift along like this."

"Tiny," said Rose, "you're a Menlo Park poppy."

They had arrived at the station, the pretty station under its great oak, and flanked by its beds of bloom. Eight or ten other equipages were there, waiting for the "Daisy train,"—the fast train from town which on Saturday afternoons carried many San Franciscans to Monterey.

The women were in their bright summer attire and full of chatter; as the train was not due for some moments, several got out of their carriages and went to other carriages to gossip. It was a very lively and agreeable scene: there being no outsiders, they were like one large family. In the middle of the large open space beside the platform stood several of the phaetons and waggonettes, whose horses stepped high at sight of the engine. On the far side was a row of Chinese wash-houses, in whose doors stood the Mongolians, no less picturesque than the civilisation across the way. Behind them was the tiny village of Menlo Park. On the opposite side of the track was a row of high closely knit trees which shut the Folsom place from the passing eye. Caro, under a big pink sunshade, had walked over to chat with her friends and escort her visitors home.

The train rolled in and discharged its favoured few. The wait was short, and Mr. Geary was still mounting the steps of his char-À-banc when MagdalÉna sat forward with a faint exclamation. The smoking-car was slowly passing. Four hats at four consecutive windows were raised as they drifted past. They were the hats of Alan Rush, Eugene Fort, Carter Howard, and "Dolly" Webster.