The life of Gabriel hung by a very frail thread for several days, and Clarence did not have the heart to leave him. He did not telegraph to Mercedes their arrival, for he would then have been obliged to give a reason for delaying. He wrote her saying that Gabriel had accidentally fallen from a ladder, and not knowing how seriously he might have been hurt, George and himself had decided to remain with Lizzie, who was very much frightened and distressed.

Mercedes answered, thanking him in the warmest terms of gratitude for remaining with her darling brother, adding that much as she wished to see the long-lost Clarence, she preferred to endure the pains of waiting rather than to have him leave Gabriel now.

The proudest man in America was Clarence. He knew that in the gratitude of her heart she would allow him to press her to his, and he longed to have that bliss. But faithfully he kept his watch at the hospital, and Gabriel lived yet. No doctor dared say whether he would die or survive his terrible fall, or his health remain impaired. No one dare venture a prophecy for so dark a future.

In the meantime Clarence got his house ready for occupation, and as soon as Gabriel could be removed without danger, they took up their residence there. In the silent recesses of her heart Lizzie thanked God that her surroundings were again those of a lady. She shuddered to remember the poverty she endured for so long a time, and she would have felt really happy could she have been sure that her beloved Gabriel would live.

“George,” said she to her brother, as they walked towards the library, when Clarence had relieved their watch, and was sitting by Gabriel's bedside, “I have an idea in my head which I think we might put into practice, if you will help me.”

“What is it, dear sister?” asked George, tenderly, observing how thin and haggard she looked.

“It is this, that if you and I write to Mercedes that she ought to marry right away, so that Clarence can bring her to be with me, to help me take care of Gabriel, that she will do so.”

“By, Jove! It is a splendid idea, little sister, and I'll write to Mercita and to DoÑa Josefa at once.”

“It is little enough, George, for you and I to do, when Clarence has been so devoted to my darling,” said she, her eyes filling with tears of heart-felt gratitude.

“Of course it is, but it comes so natural to Clarence to act always like the noble fellow he is, that it would surprise me if he had acted otherwise than nobly.”

“But we ought to consult him about our project.”

“Certainly. I'll go and stay with Gabriel and send him to you that you may disclose your plan.”

“No, let me go to Gabriel, while you tell him the plan,” said she, hurrying off to the invalid, whom she found sleeping.

She whispered to Clarence that George wished to speak to him, and took his place by the bedside.

Clarence could find no words to express to George his joy and gratitude. He flushed and paled by turns, and finally, stroking his mustache with trembling fingers, and trying to bite it, in his agitation, sat down in silence, while George went into the details of the matter.

“But will she consent?” Clarence exclaimed at last.

“I think she will, for you know how all of them love Gabriel, Mercedes more than all,—and the thought that he is suffering, and Lizzie's distress, and your kindness to him,—all that will furnish a most excellent excuse to do what her heart has been begging for,” said George. “I am going to write now about it.”

“Oh, I shall be so grateful!” Clarence exclaimed.

“Send Lizzie to me, we both must write,” George said.

Clarence went back to the sick room, and said to Lizzie that George wanted her.

Kissing her hand most fervently, he exclaimed in a tremulous whisper: “You are my angel!”

George and Lizzie's letters were very pleading. Clarence wrote also, imploring Mercedes to forgive the stupidity that took him away, and beseeched her to yield to his prayer, and be his wife, after so many years of suffering.

Mercedes kissed the letter, and cried over it, of course, as women must, but referred the subject to her mother. DoÑa Josefa must also cry a good deal before she said anything, for the memory of her husband made such subjects most painful to her.

But Victoriano stormed from his bed. He would have no delay. He sent for Everett, so that he would in person carry a dispatch to town, saying to Clarence, by telegraph, to come in the very first steamer. Victoriano would have no contradiction.

“If Mercedes don't marry Clarence, as George advises, I want to be taken by the legs—my mean, cripple legs, my ridiculous kangaroo legs—and dragged out of this bed, and out of this house. I don't want to live under the same roof with people that will refuse so just and reasonable a request.”

“But who has refused it, Tano? Wait, won't you?” said Rosario, seeing that Tano had hidden his head under the covers.

Victoriano's head came out again, and said: “Nobody says yes.”

But the yes was said.

Everett took a dispatch from DoÑa Josefa to George, saying that whenever Clarence came, Mercedes would go with him, as George suggested.

There would be five days only before another steamer would arrive, but by telegraphing to Clarence on that day, he would have time to take the steamer next morning, or go on the cars to Los Angeles, and take the steamer at Wilmington. And this was what Clarence telegraphed he would do, suggesting that if Mercita would be ready, they could take the same boat, and by again taking the cars at Los Angeles, be with Gabriel in two days.

Was it a dream? To see Clarence within five days, and be his wife, when she thought she might never see him on this earth again! Thus ran Mercedes' reflections, when she had gone to her room to open a wardrobe which had been locked for three years. That wardrobe held the trousseau sent by Mrs. Lawrence Mechlin in '74, and the jewelry which Clarence had given her in New York.

Mercedes thought of those days, and the image of her father arose before her vividly. She sat by the window to think of him with loving tenderness and ever living regret.

“But, mon Dieu, mademoiselle,” said Madame Halier, coming in, “why don't you come? Miss Carlota is waiting to begin getting your things ready.”

“I beg pardon; I had forgotten,” said Mercedes, rousing herself from her reverie. Carlota, Rosario and Alice now came in, and soon the contents of the wardrobe were distributed all over the room. Madame Halier was to pack in trunks all Mercedes' things, leaving out only her bridal attire and traveling dress. The madame did her work with pleasure, as she was going with Mercedes, and had been wishing to visit the city of San Francisco for a long time.

Everything was ready. A dispatch came from George saying that Clarence had started; that Gabriel was a little better, and anxious to see Mercedes. This made DoÑa Josefa feel that it was her imperative duty to send Mercedes to her brother at once.

Mrs. Darrell went to see the priest about going to the rancho to perform the marriage ceremony there. The good man would have preferred that it were solemnized in the church, but, considering that Victoriano could not leave his bed and DoÑa Josefa was still in very deep mourning, he consented.

There would be no invited guests except the Holmans and Darrells. There would be no bridesmaids either, though there were plenty of young girls that could act as such.

Everett went to town the night before the arrival of the steamer to bring Clarence as soon as he landed, and they came from town so quickly and noiselessly that no one knew when they arrived at the rancho.

The ladies were all in Mercedes' room discussing the wedding outfit and other matters, when it occurred to her to go out and from the veranda look towards the road, as she might perhaps see the carriage in the distance. What was her surprise when, on passing by the parlor door, she saw Everett coming through the gate, and there, right there, where Clarence had stood on that terrible night when he left her, there he stood again, looking at her with those same speaking, glowing, loving eyes. He seemed to her like an apparition, and she uttered an exclamation of surprise, turning very pale and tottering as if about to fall. In an instant he was by her side pressing her to his heart and covering her face with kisses.

Surely this was no ghost. His warm kisses and beating heart spoke of the lover full of life and hope, trembling with the realization of years of longing to hold her thus close, very close in his loving, chaste embrace.

“Mercedes, my own, my sweet wife,” he said, and his voice had so much the same tone and vibration as in that last memorable night, that the rush of sad memories and painful emotions made her for a moment feel confused, bewildered, almost losing consciousness. As her yielding form relaxed in his arms he carried her to the sofa and sat there holding her, scarcely realizing it was not all a dream.

Everett had gone to Victoriano's room, and now that impatient invalid was screaming for Clarence to come. His loud calling brought DoÑa Josefa to him, and then all the family learned that Clarence had arrived.

“Come here, you truant,” said Victoriano to Clarence, “come here, you ugly man.” And as Clarence stooped to embrace him, he clasped him to his heart, making him lie down by his side. “There,” said he, “I have given you a good hugging; now go and kiss the girls.”

Which Clarence did gladly, but his mother and DoÑa Josefa he kissed first. He then went to the parlor, where he was kindly greeted by no less than fourteen girls, counting thus: three Alamares, three Holmans, four Darrells, and four other Alamares, cousins of Mercedes.

Clarence was a brave fellow, so he never flinched and kissed them all, very deliberately. “Not to give offence,” he said.

There was one duty which Clarence shrank from performing, but which he submitted to quietly, and that was meeting his father.

Darrell came to the Alamar house for the first time in his life, and as he said he would like to be alone when he met Clarence, Rosario conducted him to the office, a room used by her father when he saw people on business and where he wrote his letters, but where others of the family scarcely ever entered.

Clarence was shocked to see how aged his father was. When he left, the auburn hair of the old man showed no white lines at all. Now he was so gray that his hair was almost white. The sight of that white hair swept from Clarence's heart all trace of resentment, and his love for his father seemed to rush back to him with pain, but with great force.

“Oh, father!” exclaimed Clarence, seeing the open arms before him.

“My boy, my best beloved,” said the old man, with a sob and a checking of breath, holding his son close to his breast.

“Father, why are you so gray?” Clarence asked.

“Because I did you a great wrong. Because I murdered the Don, and he was the best man I ever saw.” When Darrell said this he completely lost his self-control and wept like a child. Clarence wept with him, for he felt deeply Don Mariano's death, but thought he must speak kindly to his father.

“You did not murder him; don't think that,” he said.

“Yes, I did. My wickedness helped the wickedness of others to kill him. And our wickedness combined brought infinite misery upon this innocent family. But a merciful God brought you back, and I know you will devote your life to repair as much as it is possible the wrong your father did. I know you will be a good husband, but for my sake, also, I beg you to be a devoted son to the widowed lady whom I have injured so frightfully. A wrong legislation authorized us squatters, sent us, to the land of these innocent, helpless people to rob them. A wrong legislation killed the Texas Pacific, and such legislation is the main cause of the Don's death. But I, too, helped the wrong-doers.”

“Don't blame yourself so much,” Clarence remonstrated gently, trying to soothe his father. “George and Lizzie told me that all the family believe that the disappointment at the failure of the Texas Pacific was what killed Don Mariano. It preyed upon his mind; it saddened, worried and sickened him until it utterly undermined his health and broke down his nervous system. It did the same with Mr. Mechlin. So, you see, those who defeated the Texas Pacific are to blame for the death of these two most excellent men, but not yourself.”

“Yes, I am. No man can injure his fellow-man, and then shift the blame on some one else's shoulders, because others had a share in the wrong done. Each man must stand and bear his proportion of blame. I could and should have prevented the settlers from destroying the Don's cattle. If I had done so, he would not have been obliged to take them all at once. He could have sent them in small bands, but he was afraid of the murderous rifles of my friends. So the poor, dumb animals perished in the snow. But this was not the worst; the saddest was yet to come. Victoriano lost his health, and the Don lost his life. The good, the best of men, was right when, in his dying moments, he said: ‘The sins of our legislators brought me to this.’ That was a truth uttered by a just and noble soul as it passed away. Still, I must feel I am individually to blame for the sorrow brought upon this family. I know that if the railroad had been built the Don could have recuperated his fortune, but yet my share of wrong-doing stands there all the same; I must bear it myself. If I had not driven you away, you could have prevented their misfortunes. I was a monster. So now I beg and entreat, for my own sake, and as a slight reparation for my cruelty, that you be kind to that lady, as kind as if you were her own child.”

“I will, father; I vow I will.”

“That is enough. I know you'll keep your word. Now, my boy, heaven bless you, and your father's blessing will go with you always. Now, go, and when the ceremony is to be performed, send Willie to call me.”

As everything was ready, the marriage ceremony took place as soon as the priest arrived. Victoriano was brought to the parlor in an arm-chair, and managed to stand up, held by Everett and Webster. DoÑa Josefa wept all the time and so did her daughters, but everybody understood that memories of the sad past, but no fears for the future, caused those tears to flow.

The parting with her mother and sisters was most painful to Mercedes. Clarence feared she would make herself ill with weeping. He put his arms around her waist and said:

“Don't be disheartened. I have been thinking that DoÑa Josefa and all the family had better come to San Francisco to live. If she does, I think we can persuade George to bring his family also to reside there.”

DoÑa Josefa shook her head doubtingly, but Mercedes asked:

“Do you think George might come?”

“I do, and he can then carry out there our plan of establishing a bank. San Diego is dead now, and will remain so for many years, but San Francisco is a good business field. So we can all locate ourselves there, and Gabriel and Tano go into business easily.”

“Business without capital? See where my poor Gabriel is now,” DoÑa Josefa answered, sadly.

“That is true, but if you will sell your rancho, they will have plenty of capital. Even at two dollars per acre, your rancho, being forty-seven thousand acres—if sold at that low figure—would bring you ninety-four thousand dollars.”

“But who, who will buy mortgaged land, full of squatters, and without a patent, in this dead place?”

“I will. I will pay you more than ninety-four thousand dollars—more than double that amount—besides paying you for the lost cattle, which will be no more than what is right.”

“Oh, no, I couldn't agree to that, but as for selling the land, if my children are willing, I shall be, for this place is too full of sad memories, and will be sadder yet if I cannot have my children with me. When Gabriel and Victoriano get well, talk to them about buying the rancho, though I don't think you ought to pay any such high price. You are too generous to us.”

“Indeed, I am not. Don't forget I am a money-making Yankee. I think four—or even three—dollars per acre is a high price for land in this county now, but I can wait years, and then I shall double the price paid now. So, you see, I am not a bit generous. I am trying to make money out of you.”

“Talk to the boys. See what George and Gabriel say,” DoÑa Josefa said, smiling sadly at Clarence's wily argument and earnest manner.

The last adieux were said, but the parting was less painful to Mercedes, with the new hope held out by Clarence of a probability of being reunited soon in San Francisco.

When Clarence and Mercedes arrived at their home they found that George and Lizzie had propped up Gabriel with pillows, and he was sitting up to receive his sister. From that day he began to improve slowly but perceptibly.

The letters from home spoke of Victoriano's marked improvement, but still his malady was not cured; so Clarence proposed that DoÑa Josefa, the two girls and Tano should come up immediately. She could then make up her mind whether she would like to make San Francisco her home, and the change of climate would perhaps do Victoriano good. The idea was highly approved by all, and that same evening Mercedes wrote to her mother, begging her to come and see whether she liked San Francisco for a home; that she and Clarence were going to Europe on a visit in the fall, and she wanted to leave her mamma and sisters and brothers all together; that George and Gabriel liked the plan of selling the rancho to Clarence very much, and wanted to talk to her and Tano about it. Thus DoÑa Josefa was enticed and persuaded to leave the home of her joys and sorrows, where she had lived for thirty years. Carlota and Rosario were willing to go, and Tano was most anxious to find a way of making a living, for he was every day more in love with Alice, but could not think of marrying her until he knew how he was going to support a family.

DoÑa Josefa, Carlota and Rosario, therefore, escorted by Victoriano, found themselves, on a bright morning, in the Southern Pacific Railroad cars, on their way from Los Angeles to San Francisco. There were only about a dozen persons besides themselves on the entire train.

“I wonder why they put on so many cars. One would carry all the passengers,” said Rosario.

“Half a car would be more than enough,” Carlota added.

“They must lose money running empty cars,” Tano observed. “I am glad of it. They were so anxious to leave San Diego out in the cold, I hope they will lose money with this road.”

“Don't wish that, it is unkind, unchristian, ungenerous,” said DoÑa Josefa, with a sigh.

“And why not? Didn't they kill our road, the Texas Pacific, to build this road? What consideration had they for us? I am glad that many years will pass before they will run crowded cars over this desert. They are old men, they won't live to see this, their pet road, with well-filled cars, running over it, and I bet on that,” said Tano, exultingly.

“Perhaps they will,” said Carlota.

“I know they'll not,” Tano retorted, emphatically.

In the afternoon, Clarence and Mercedes met them in Oakland, and together they crossed the bay.

And now on that same night as DoÑa Josefa looked from her bedroom window upon the lighted city, she noticed that a large mansion near by, was very brightly illuminated, and Mercedes told her that one of the railroad kings, who had killed the Texas Pacific, lived there, and was giving a “silver wedding” party to the elite of San Francisco. DoÑa Josefa sighed, and sat at the window to think.

Truly, San Francisco had been in a flutter for ten days past, and the “best society” had stretched its neck until it ached to see who got invitations for “The Great Nob Hill Silver Wedding Ball” of one of San Francisco's millionaires. Mrs. Grundy ascertained who were to be the best-dressed ladies, what their pedigree was, and how their money had been made, and then Mrs. Grundy went to the ball, too.

When all the elegance of San Francisco had arrived, nobly sprinkled with a Baron or two, and ornamented with a Lord and Lady and a Marquise or Count, the great millionaire proceeded to astonish his guests in the manner he had conceived to be most novel and startling.

The band struck up a wedding march, and Mr. Millionaire, with his wife leaning on his arm, proceeded to the last of an elegant suite of rooms, where, under a canopy of fragrant flowers, a mock marriage ceremony was to be performed. After conducting the blushing bride to the mock altar, and the ceremony being over, the millionaire thought he would treat his guests to what he imagined to be a real hymenean oration. He prefaced his homily with what he believed to be witticisms and quotations of his own. He then thought it was time to wax eloquent and didactic, above prejudices, truly large-minded.

“But let me read to you a short, telling lesson now,” he said, swelling with just pride; “I speak most particularly to the young men, to those who have yet their fortunes to make. Be not discouraged if you meet with hardships and trials. Go ahead and persevere. Look at all these luxurious appurtenances surrounding us! I might well say, look at this wealth! Look at this splendor! Well, ladies and gentlemen, sixteen years ago we were in Sacramento, so poor, that we had to put tin pans over our bed to catch the water that leaked through our roof, and keep our bed-clothes dry. I had not money enough to get a better roof over our heads,” and the millionaire looked around for applause, but none came, because the guests possessed the good taste, or, perhaps, bad, which their host lacked, and were pained and mortified; they did not see the good of waking up memories of unsavory poverty. The foreign nobility was not so proud, perhaps, as they had been at the hour of receiving an invitation to all this so very newly created splendor. But the rich man, still inflated with pride, hurriedly wound up his peroration as best he could, feeling vague misgivings that he had marred the eclat of his magnificent illumination shining over his costly furniture, by trying to rise above himself to make a high-minded, witty speech. “Be plucky, and persevering, and go ahead, as I did,” said he to close his oration, bowing to his foreign guests.

The company scattered in couples or in groups over the luxuriously furnished and richly decorated rooms, and Mrs. Grundy hurried about everywhere to catch the comments made by the grateful guests upon “the brilliant speech of their amiable host.” At the very first group she heard a young man say:

“Yes, I would be plucky and persevering if I had an associate in Washington with plenty of money to bribe people so that no other railroad could be built to start competition in California.”

“I could be plucky, too, if the Government had given me millions of money and more millions of acres to build two railroads, and which millions I never intended to pay back,” said another.

“And for which millions you never paid taxes,” added another.

“Taxes? Bah! Let the poor people pay taxes. Why should railroad magnates pay taxes when they have money to fight the law? Absurd!” said a fourth. “Let us go and take ices; the brilliancy of our host's oration makes me thirsty.”

And while all this went on in the brilliantly lighted mansion, DoÑa Josefa sat at her window in the dark, thinking of what “might have been” if those railroad men had not blighted San Diego's prosperity. Her husband would have been alive, and Mr. Mechlin, also, and her sons would not have been driven to poverty and distress, and perhaps lost their health forever.

“God of Justice, is this right, that so many should be sacrificed because a few men want more millions? Our family is one of the many who have suffered so much. Oh! so much! And all to what end? For what? Ah! the same answer again, because a few heartless men want more millions,” said she, with her face bathed in tears.

DoÑa Josefa evidently did not believe that because “misery there must always be in the world, no matter who causes it,” that she was called upon to stoically submit to unmerited infliction. In a mild and dignified way, her mind rebelled. She regarded the acts of the men who caused her husband's ruin and death with genuine abhorrence. To her, rectitude and equity had a clear meaning impossible to pervert. No subtle sophistry could blur in her mind the clear line dividing right from wrong. She knew that among men the word business means inhumanity to one another; it means justification of rapacity; it means the freedom of man to crowd and crush his fellow-man; it means the sanction of the Shylockian principle of exacting the pound of flesh. She knew all this, but the illustration, the ocular demonstration, had never been before her until now in that gay house, in that brightly illuminated mansion, and she sadly contrasted her sorrow with their gayety, and continued her soliloquy: “No doubt those people think they have a right to rejoice and feast with the money extorted in crushing so many people—the killing of my darling. Doubtless they say that they earned the money in BUSINESS, and that allegation is all-sufficient; that one word justifies in the pursuit of riches everything mean, dishonest, rapacious, unfair, treacherous, unjust, and fraudulent. After a man makes his money no one cares how he made it, and so those people dance while I mourn for my beloved.”

For hours DoÑa Josefa sat at that window, weeping sadly, while the others danced gayly.

Afterwards, when she had been for some time in San Francisco, she had yet stronger demonstrations, and her sense of justice and her ideas of moral adjustment of men's actions with principle, received additional shocks, quite as painful as seeing the millionaire's palace illuminated, while the humble houses he had desolated must remain dark.

DoÑa Josefa frankly spoke to the ladies who had called on her, of the cause of her husband's death. She did so in answer to their inquiries. She, on two or three occasions, mentioned how painful it had been to sit by the window looking at that house of rejoicing, while thinking that if those rich men had had more sense of justice and less greed of money, that her husband could have been spared to her.

“Don't say that, my dear lady, for you will give great offense,” said an old friend, who having heard that Clarence was worth twelve million dollars, had called on her, suddenly remembering that she used to know the Alamares years ago.

“Why should I give offense? It is the truth,” DoÑa Josefa replied.

“That may be, but you cannot speak against such rich people; San Francisco society will turn against you,” was the rejoinder.

“Then it is a crime to speak of the wrongs we have suffered, but it is not a crime to commit those wrongs.”

“I don't know. I am not a moralist. But this I do know, that if you accuse those rich men of having done wrong, the society people will give you the cold shoulder.”

“Oh, very well, let it be so. Let the guilty rejoice and go unpunished, and the innocent suffer ruin and desolation. I slander no one, but shall speak the truth.”