She remembered Garcia's claims upon her grandfather, and her own supposed obligations to Coronado. She informed the executors that she wished to make over half her property to the old man, trusteeing it so that it should descend to his nephew. Their reply, translated from roundabout and complimentary Spanish into plain English, was this: "You can't do it. The estate is not settled, and will not be for a year. Moreover, you have no power to part with it until you are of age, which will not be for three years. Finally, your proposition defies your grandfather's wishes, and it is altogether too generous." Clara's simple and firm reply was, "Well, I must wait. But it would seem better if I could do it now." There was one reason why Clara should be so calm and unselfish in her elevation; her sorrows served her as ballast. Why should she let riches turn her head when she found that they could not lighten her heart? There was a certain night in her past which gold could not illuminate; there had once been a precious life near her, which was gone now beyond the power of ransom. Thurstane! How she would have lavished this wealth upon him. He would have refused it; but she would have prayed and forced him to accept it; she would have been the meeker to him because of it. How noble he had been! not now to be brought back! gone forever! And his going had been like the going away of the sun, leaving no beautiful color in all nature, no guiding light for wandering footsteps. She exaggerated him, as love will exaggerate the lost. Of course she did not always believe that he could be dead, and in her hours of hope she wrote letters inquiring about his fate. In other days he had told her much of himself, stories of his childhood and his battles, the number of his old regiment and his new one, titles of his superiors, names of comrades, etc. To which among all these unknown ones should she address herself? She fixed on the commander of his present regiment, and that awfully mysterious personage the Adjutant-General of the army, a title which seemed to represent omniscience and omnipotence. To each of these gentlemen she sent an epistle recounting where, when, and how Lieutenant Ralph Thurstane had been ambushed by unknown Indians, supposed to be Apaches. These letters she wrote and mailed without the knowledge of Coronado. This was not caution, but pity; she did not suspect that he would try to intercept them; only that it would pain him to learn how much she yet thought of his rival. Indeed, it would have been cruel to show them to him, for he would have seen that they were blurred with tears. You perceive that she had come to be tender of the feelings of this earnest and scoundrelly lover, believing in his sincerity and not in his villainy.