He crept downstairs in the gray twilight of the scarce-awakened house, and made his way to the stables.  Saddling his horse, and mounting, he paced forth into the crisp morning air.  The sun, just risen, was everywhere bringing out the fresh color of the flower-strewn terraces, as the last night’s shadows, which had hidden them, were slowly beaten back.  He cast a last look at the brown adobe quadrangle of the quiet house, just touched with the bronzing of the sun, and then turned his face towards the highway.  As he passed the angle of the old garden he hesitated, but, strong in his resolution, he put the recollection of last night behind him, and rode by without raising his eyes.

“Clarence!”

It was her voice.  He wheeled his horse.  She was standing behind the grille in the old wall as he had seen her standing on the day he had ridden to his rendezvous with Susy.  A Spanish manta was thrown over her head and shoulders, as if she had dressed hastily, and had run out to intercept him while he was still in the stable.  Her beautiful face was pale in its black-hooded recess, and there were faint circles around her lovely eyes.

“You were going without saying ’goodby’!” she said softly.

She passed her slim white hand between the grating.  Clarence leaped to the ground, caught it, and pressed it to his lips.  But he did not let it go.

“No! no!” she said, struggling to withdraw it.  “It is better as it is—­as—­as you have decided it to be.  Only I could not let you go thus,—­without a word.  There now,—­go, Clarence, go.  Please!  Don’t you see I am behind these bars?  Think of them as the years that separate us, my poor, dear, foolish boy.  Think of them as standing between us, growing closer, heavier, and more cruel and hopeless as the years go on.”

Ah, well! they had been good bars a hundred and fifty years ago, when it was thought as necessary to repress the innocence that was behind them as the wickedness that was without.  They had done duty in the convent at Santa Inez, and the monastery of Santa Barbara, and had been brought hither in Governor Micheltorrenas’ time to keep the daughters of Robles from the insidious contact of the outer world, when they took the air in their cloistered pleasance.  Guitars had tinkled against them in vain, and they had withstood the stress and storm of love tokens.  But, like many other things which have had their day and time, they had retained their semblance of power, even while rattling loosely in their sockets, only because no one had ever thought of putting them to the test, and, in the strong hand of Clarence, assisted, perhaps, by the leaning figure of Mrs. Peyton, I grieve to say that the whole grille suddenly collapsed, became a frame of tinkling iron, and then clanked, bar by bar, into the road.  Mrs. Peyton uttered a little cry and drew back, and Clarence, leaping the ruins, caught her in his arms.

For a moment only, for she quickly withdrew from them, and although the morning sunlight was quite rosy on her cheeks, she said gravely, pointing to the dismantled opening:—­