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 stranger in her own house, these two had taken such authoritative control.

Don Abrahan turned his hand in slow, graceful motion to a chair, remaining standing in his punctilious way of deferential grace until she was seated. Roberto stood with his back to the door, his pistol at his side.

This house was not so pretentious as Don Abrahan's, there being nothing grand in its proportions at all, compared with the bright and beautiful homes which stand in that same valley today. It was a squat, flat building of gray adobe, severely simple, conforming in all particulars with the traditional plan of houses of the gentry in California of that period, following the older traditions of an older land. All rooms faced upon the patio, with doors admitting to it. In the front of the house there was the hall in the center, a room on either hand; in the wings the kitchen and sleeping rooms. The parlor in which this small party gathered this morning was not a large room. The morning sun did not brighten it, the house facing the west. Cedar beams across the ceiling, its dark draperies and somber furnishings, gave it a solemnity fitting to a solemn hour.

And this seemed to Helena a most solemn and portentous hour, indeed. Don Abrahan's face was grave, his demeanor judicially severe. Roberto, standing with arms folded on his breast, appeared like one waiting to enforce the judgment of some stern and pitiless court. They might have