"Aunt," said Magdaléna, with her hand on the door of the sick room, "will—will—you kiss uncle?"
Mrs. Polk raised her eyebrows. "Why, yes, is he wanting; but I never kiss him in my life. Why now?"
"He is dying, and he has wanted you more than anything."
"So queer fancies the seeck people have. But I kiss him, of course."
As she entered the room, Mr. Polk raised himself slightly and stared at her with an expression she had never seen in his young eyes. It thrilled her nerves within their mausoleum of flesh. She bent over and kissed him. "Poor Eeram!" she said. "So sorry I am. But you no suffer, no?"
He made no reply. He sank back to his pillows; and after greeting her brother, she took a chair beside the bed and sat there until her husband died, in the ebb of the night. He held her hand, his eyes never leaving her beautiful face, never losing their hunger until the film covered them. What thoughts, what bitter regrets, what futile desires for another beginning may have moved sluggishly in that disintegrating brain, he carried with him into the magnificent vault which his widow erected on Lone Mountain.
His will was read on the day following the funeral, in the parlour where his coffin had rested, and by the light of a solitary gas-jet. Magdaléna had never heard a will read before: she hoped she might never hear another. The three women in their black gowns, the four executors and trustees in their crow-black funeral clothes,—her father, Colonel Belmont, Mr. Washington, and Mr. Geary,—the big rustling document with its wearisome formalities,—made a more lugubrious picture than the lonely coffin of the day before. The terms of the will were simple enough: the interest of the vast fortune was left to Mrs. Polk; upon her death it was to be divided between his sister and niece, the principal to go to Magdaléna upon Mrs. Yorba's death. When Mr. Washington finished reading the document, Don Roberto spoke for the first time in four days.
"I go to resign. I no will be executor or trustee. No need me, anyhow." And he would listen to no argument.
The next day he called a meeting of the bank's board of directors and resigned the presidency, requesting that Mr. Geary, a cautious and solid man, should succeed him. His wish was gratified, and he walked out of the bank, never to enter it again. His many other interests were in the hands of trustworthy agents: neither he nor his brother-in-law had ever made a mistake in their choice of servants. When he reached home, he wrote to each of these agents demanding monthly instead of quarterly accounts. He had a bed brought down to a small room adjoining the "office," and in these two rooms he announced his intention to live henceforth. At the same time he informed his wife and daughter that their allowance hereafter would be one hundred dollars a year each, and that he would pay no bills. Ah Kee, who had lived with him for twenty years, would attend to the domestic supplies. Then he ordered his meals brought to the office, and shut himself up.
On the third day Mrs. Polk said to Magdaléna,—