“Then I’m rewarded for my long drive this afternoon.”  And indeed Carmen felt rewarded.  She thought of the crystal, and how Madame Vestris had seen the “fair woman” blotted out of the sunshine by a dark cloud.  And after that she had not come into the crystal again.  Carmen had been there with a man standing by her side.

“But what should I have done if the hateful creature had refused to visit me?” Carmen thought.  “Everything depended on that.”

Next day they took the long drive together, Mrs. Gaylor, Angela, and Nick, and Angela’s maid—­for Carmen had not brought Mariette to the Yosemite.  Mariette was too talkative, and had been sent home from San Francisco.  Carmen did not wish Nick to find out how hurried this journey of hers had been lest he should suspect that it was made in quest of him!  She wanted him to believe that she had been travelling leisurely for the benefit of her health, as she had taken pains to explain.

Nothing could spoil the azure mystery of Inspiration Point:  nothing could dim the brightness of the Bridal Veil, seen from a new point of view.  So near that a strong wind might have driven the spray into their faces, they saw the white folds of the waterfalls, embroidered with rainbows, and the dark rocks behind its rushing flood, stained deep red, and gold and blue, as if generations of rainbows had dried there.  Nothing could stifle the thrill of that wild drive, down steep roads that tied themselves ribbonlike, round the mountain-side, and seemed to flutter, as ribbons might flutter, over precipices.  Yet the magic of four days ago was dead.  Carmen, sitting between Nick and Angela, had killed it.  Neither rivers nor trees sang their old song; and the white witch of the Bridal Veil had turned her face away.

XXVII

SIMEON HARP

Nick’s detective in San Francisco had no news; at all events no news with which he could be induced to part.  “Wait a few days longer,” he said.  “That’s the only favour I ask.  Maybe by that time we shall both know where the poison-oak came from, who posted the box, who sent it, and why, and all the rest there is to know.”

“Haven’t you any suspicions yet?” Nick asked impatiently.

“I don’t go so far as to say that.”

“What—­that you have, or you haven’t?”

“That I haven’t.”

“You mean you do suspect some one?”

“Well, my mind’s beginning to hover.”

“Tell me where.”

“No.  I won’t tell you that, Mr. Hilliard.”

“You won’t——­”

“Not while I’m hovering.  Not till there’s something to light on.  I may be doing an innocent person a big injustice.”