Arrived at Bakersfield, fortunately without meeting Nick in his motor, she hired a large automobile.  And at the hour when Hilliard was being informed that Mrs. Gaylor had gone away for a few days, on business which had come up suddenly, she was travelling swiftly by road to San Francisco.

The car she had engaged was a powerful touring automobile, with side-curtains of canvas, and these she ordered to be kept down; for she had some wild fear that Nick might discover her plan, try to follow and find her during her journey, necessarily much longer by motor than by train.  Always by daylight she was peeping out, nervously, from under her thick veil, but the Bright Angel never flashed into sight.  She knew at last that it would not come, that Nick did not mean to follow; that she would not see him again this side the grave; for she did not intend ever to return to the Gaylor ranch.  Where she would live she did not know yet, though she thought vaguely of some great city in Europe—­Paris, perhaps, where there would be plenty of excitement which might help her to forget.  Meanwhile, the thing was to get away—­away, not only from California, but even from America—­as quickly as possible, it hardly mattered how, for luckily—­the one piece of luck she had left!—­there was plenty of money.  And the ranch could take care of itself.

The day Carmen reached San Francisco a ship happened to be sailing for Japan.  She was able to engage a cabin, and went on board almost at the last moment.  Among others who arrived very late was a bent old man, with a worn face which had once been handsome.  Carmen did not see him till the third day out.  Then, from the deck sacred to second-class passengers, a pair of dark blue, red-rimmed eyes looked up at her as she leaned listlessly on the rail, gazing down.

Madame Vestris had seen in the crystal a man standing beside her, a man in shadow.  After all, it was not Nick Hilliard but Simeon Harp.

XXX

THE MAKING OF A GENTLEMAN

One evening, when July was beginning, Nick Hilliard sat on the veranda of his plain little house, which he had grown to love.  Swinging back and forth in a big rocking-chair, he smoked a pipe and thought very hard.  As he thought and smoked, he looked dreamily at a young owl in a big cage; the owl he had sent home from Paso Robles.

If he had been thinking about it, he could have seen, dark against the pale fire of the desert sky, the source of his fortune; the great gusher throwing up its black spout of oil, like tons upon tons of coal.  For the famous Lucky Star oil supply showed no sign yet of giving out, though it had been playing like a huge geyser for many months; and already, since its mysterious birth, many younger brothers had been born, small and insignificant comparatively, but money-makers.  If Nick’s thought had not drawn down a curtain in front of his eyes, he must have seen, across a