And Nick could squeeze no more hints from Max Wisler.  Herein lay one secret of the man’s success; he had his own methods, and no one could persuade or bribe him to depart from them.  This caused him to be respected.  And Nick had to leave San Francisco with Mrs. Gaylor and Angela, tingling with unsatisfied curiosity.  Mrs. May had forbidden him to speak to Carmen of the mysterious box, having grown sensitive on the subject.  More than once she had asked herself if it were possible that some one very, very far away—­some one whose photograph was in the Illustrated London News—­hated her enough to do her an injury:  some one she had believed to be completely indifferent in these days.  The thing savoured of the Latin mind, she could not help thinking, rather than the Anglo-Saxon.  Perhaps Princess di Sereno was not quite forgotten in Italy, after all.  And Mrs. May could imagine a motive, for in San Francisco she had been able to find a duplicate of that illustrated paper.  There were three photographs in it:  one rather bad one of herself, taken years ago in Rome; one of Paolo, dressed as an aeronaut; and one of a certain handsome young woman, very becomingly dressed to accompany the Prince for a flight in his new aeroplane.

Angela was not happy in this expedition to the Gaylor ranch, though she reassured herself from time to time, by saying that it was better to accept than refuse the invitation; and she was to be Mrs. Gaylor’s guest only for a day, part of another, and one night.  Still, she was vaguely troubled.  The warm consciousness of being surrounded by kindness which had made the California sunshine doubly bright, was chilled.  This visit would be like other visits which she had made in the past, before she was “Mrs. May, whom nobody knows.”  In Rome, in Paris, in London, Princess di Sereno had been obliged sometimes to go to houses of women whom she disliked or distrusted, and to have them in hers.  Such obligations had been part of the inevitable disagreeableness of daily existence for the wife of Paolo di Sereno; but going to Mrs. Gaylor was the first false note in the music of this free, new world.  Angela consoled herself by thinking of Lucky Star Ranch.  She would like to see Nick Hilliard’s home.

* * * * *

“Simeon, she’s here,” said Carmen, in a low voice, to the old squirrel poisoner.

They stood together in the grove of bamboos, where they had talked about Nick, and about “old Grizzly Gaylor,” on the May night when Nick was leaving for New York.  Counting by time, that was not long ago.  But Carmen’s whole outlook on life was changed.  She felt and looked years older.

“That’s all right then, my lady,” Simeon Harp answered.  “The whole thing’s all right.  Don’t you worry.”

“Oh, I do worry.  Every minute I’m in hell,” she groaned.  “Oh, Simeon, what will become of me?”

“You’ll be happy, and marry the man you love, my lady,” the old man soothed her, the red-rimmed eyes, which had once been handsome, sending out a faint gleam of the one emotion that still burned in the ashes of his wrecked soul:  devotion to the woman who had saved his life, who had given him a roof and food, and—­above all—­drink.