“And I suppose,” said Clarence, with an unchanged smile, “that this valuable information came from your husband—­my old friend, Jim Hooker?”

“No,” she answered sharply, “it comes from Cencho—­one of your own peons—­who is more true to you and the old Rancho than you have ever been.  He saw what was going on, and came to me, to warn you!”

“But why not to me directly?” asked Clarence, with affected incredulity.

“Ask him!” she said viciously.  “Perhaps he didn’t want to warn the master against the mistress.  Perhaps he thought we are still friends.  Perhaps”—­she hesitated with a lower voice and a forced smile—­“perhaps he used to see us together in the old times.”

“Very likely,” said Clarence quietly.  “And for the sake of those old times, Susy,” he went on, with a singular gentleness that was quite distinct from his paling face and set eyes, “I am going to forget all that you have just said of me and mine, in all the old willfulness and impatience that I see you still keep—­with all your old prettiness.”  He took his hat from the table and gravely held out his hand.

She was frightened for a moment with his impassive abstraction.  In the old days she had known it—­had believed it was his dogged “obstinacy”—­but she knew the hopelessness of opposing it.  Yet with feminine persistency she again threw herself against it, as against a wall.

“You don’t believe me!  Well, go and see for yourself.  They are at Robles now.  If you catch the early morning stage at Santa Clara you will come upon them before they disperse.  Dare you try it?”

“Whatever I do,” he returned smilingly, “I shall always be grateful to you for giving me this opportunity of seeing you again as you were.  Make my excuses to your husband.  Good-night.”

“Clarence!”

But he had already closed the door behind him.  His face did not relax its expression nor change as he looked again at the tray with its broken viands before the door, the worn, stained hall carpet, or the waiter who shuffled past him.  He was apparently as critically conscious of them and of the close odors of the hall, and the atmosphere of listless decay and faded extravagance around him, as before the interview.  But if the woman he had just parted from had watched him she would have supposed he still utterly disbelieved her story.  Yet he was conscious that all that he saw was a part of his degradation, for he had believed every word she had uttered.  Through all her extravagance, envy, and revengefulness he saw the central truth—­that he had been deceived—­not by his wife, but by himself!  He had suspected all this before.  This was what had been really troubling him—­this was what he had put aside, rather than his faith, not in her, but in his ideal.  He remembered letters that had passed between her and Captain Pinckney—­letters that she had openly sent to notorious Southern leaders; her nervous anxiety to remain at the Rancho; the innuendoes and significant glances of friends which he had put aside—­as he had this woman’s message!  Susy had told him nothing new of his wife—­but the truth of himself!  And the revelation came from people who he was conscious were the inferiors of himself and his wife.  To an independent, proud, and self-made man it was the culminating stroke.