men who have led a roving life, and partly as a check to her growing and
feverish desire for change and excitement. He had at first enjoyed with
an almost parental affection her childish unsophisticated delight in
that world he had already wearied of, and which he had been prepared
to gladly resign for her. But as the months and even years had passed
without any apparent diminution in her zest for these pleasures, he
tried uneasily to resume his old interest in them, and spent ten months
with her in the chaotic freedom of San Francisco hotel life. But to his
discomfiture he found that they no longer diverted him; to his horror he
discovered that those easy gallantries in which he had spent his youth,
and in which he had seen no harm, were intolerable when exhibited to his
wife, and he trembled between inquietude and indignation at the copies
of his former self, whom he met in hotel parlors, at theatres, and
in public conveyances. The next time she visited some friends in San
Francisco he did not accompany her. Though he fondly cherished his
experience of her power to resist even stronger temptation, he was too
practical to subject himself to the annoyance of witnessing it. In her
absence he trusted her completely; his scant imagination conjured up no
disturbing picture of possibilities beyond what he actually knew. In his
recent questions of Ezekiel he did not expect to learn anything more.
Even his guest's uncomfortable comments added no sting that he had not
already felt.

With these thoughts called up by the unlooked-for advent of Ezekiel
under his roof, he continued to gaze moodily into the garden. Near the
house were scattered several uncouth varieties of cacti which seemed to
have lost all semblance of vegetable growth, and had taken rude likeness
to beasts and human figures. One high-shouldered specimen, partly hidden
in the shadow, had the appearance of a man with a cloak or serape thrown
over his left shoulder. As Demorest's wandering eyes at last became