Don Abrahan sat at a small table near the window, papers spread before him; Roberto waited at the door like a butler, closing it behind Helena sharply when she entered, shutting Doña Carlota out with summary rudeness. Don Abrahan rose, tall, gaunt, his roomy clothing loose upon his limbs. Helena stood in questioning hesitation, looking from Don Abrahan to his son. She seemed a stranger in her own house, these two had taken such authoritative control. [Illustration] 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. The form was that of a letter E without the centre bar. All rooms faced upon the patio, with doors admitting to it. In the front of the house there was the hall in the centre, 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. Its cedar beams across the ceiling, its dark draperies and sombre 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 been officers of the Holy Inquisition, Helena thought, judged by the unsympathetic harshness of their faces, their fixed determination upon the business that lay in their hands. Don Abrahan sat silent a little spell, drawing the written sheets of paper together before him, arranging them in a way that seemed to tell of his thoughts being detached from the action of his hands. Helena's heart was laboring as if it lay under a stone; her limbs trembled, her hands were cold. She did not know that Don Abrahan was a master of suspense; that every movement of his hand was calculated, every moment of silence gauged against the perturbation of her breast. "There is a matter of gravity on our hands, Helena, my desired," Don Abrahan began, his measured words, his slowly lifted head, his deliberate, searching eyes, all adding to the weight of that cold stone which seemed pressing upon the warmth of her redundant heart. "If I have your permission, I will speak." "Assuredly, Don Abrahan." "We spoke last night, Helena, of your betrothal to my son."