He began to comprehend the trick that had been played upon him, although as yet he could not fully credit it.  What mainly bewildered him was that Clara, whom he had always supposed to be as artless as a child—­Clara, whom he had cared for as an elder and a father—­should have been able to keep a secret and devise a plot and carry out a mystification.

“Great ——­ Scott!” he gasped in his stupefaction, using the name of the then commander-in-chief for an oath, as officers sometimes did in those days.

“Yes, yes, yes,” laughed and chattered Clara.  “Great Scott and great Thurstane!  All yours.  Three hundred thousand.  Half a million.  A million.  I don’t know how much.  All I know is that it is all yours.  Oh, my darling! oh, my darling!  How I have fooled you!  Are you angry with me?  Say, are you angry?  What will you do to me?”

We must excuse Thurstane for finding no other chastisement than to squeeze her in his arms and choke her with kisses.  Next he held her from him, set her down upon a sofa, fell back a pace and stared at her much as if she were a totally new discovery, something in the way of an arrival from the moon.  He was in a state of profound amazement at the dexterity with which she had taken his destiny out of his own hands into hers, without his knowledge.  He had not supposed that she was a tenth part so clever.  For the first time he perceived that she was his match, if indeed she were not the superior nature; and it is a remarkable fact, though not a dark one if one looks well into it, that he respected her the more for being too much for him.

“It beats Hannibal,” he said at last.  “Who would have expected such generalship in you?  I am as much astonished as if you had turned into a knight in armor.  Well, how much it has saved me!  I should have hesitated and been miserable; and I should have married you all the same; and then been ashamed of marrying money, and had it rankle in me for years.  And now—­oh, you wise little thing!—­all I can say is, I worship you.”

“Yes, darling,” replied Clara, walking gravely up to him, putting her hands on his shoulders, and looking him thoughtfully in the eyes.  “It was the wisest thing I ever did.  Don’t be afraid of me.  I never shall be so clever again.  I never shall be so tempted to be clever.”

We must pass over a few months.  Thurstane soon found that he had the Munoz estate in his hands, and that, for the while at least, it demanded all his time and industry.  Moreover, there being no war and no chance of martial distinction, it seemed absurd to let himself be ordered about from one hot and cramped station to another, when he had money enough to build a palace, and a wife who could make it a paradise.  Finally, he had a taste for the natural sciences, and his observations in the Great Canon and among the other marvels of the desert had quickened this inclination to a passion, so that he craved leisure for the study of geology, mineralogy, and chemistry.  He resigned his commission, established himself in San Francisco, bought all the scientific books he could hear of, made expeditions to the California mountains, collected garrets full of specimens, and was as happy as a physicist always is.