Hardin looked far into the future. His very isolation and inaction was a proof of no overt treason. With the power of this wealth he might, when a few years rolled away, reach lofty civic honors. Young at sixty, as public men are considered, he wonders, looking over the superb estate, if a high political marriage would not reopen his career. In entertaining royally at San Francisco and Sacramento, with solid and substantial claims in society, he may yet be able to place his name first in the annals of the coast. A senator. Why not? Ambition and avarice.
With prophetic insight, he knows that sectional rancor will not long exist in California. Not really, in the war, a divided community, a debatable land, there will be thousands of able, hardy men, used to excitement, spreading over the West. It is a land of easy and liberal opinion. Business and the mine's affairs cause him to visit San Francisco frequently. He reaches out for all men as his friends. Seated in his silent parlors, walking moodily through the beautiful rooms, haunted with memories of the splendid "anonyma" whose reign is yet visible, he dreams of his wasted past, his lonely future. Can he repair it? Enveloped in smoke wreaths, from his portico he surveys the thousand twinkling city lights below. He is careless of the future movements of his Parisian goddess.
It cost Philip Hardin no heart-wrench to part with voluptuous Hortense Duval. Partners in a crime, the stain of "French Charlie's" blood crimsoned their guilty past. An analytical, cold, all-mastering mind, he had never listened to the heart. He supposed Hortense to be as chilly in nature as himself. Yet she writes but seldom. Taught by his profession to dread silence from a woman, he casually corresponds with several trusted friends of the Confederate colony in France. What is her mystery? Madame Natalie de Santos is now a personage. The replies tell him of her real progress in the glittering ranks of the capital, and her singularly steady life. As the months roll on, he becomes a little anxious. She is far too cool and self-contained to suit him. He wishes women to lean on him and to work his will. Does she intend to establish a thorough position abroad, and claim some future rights? Has she views of a settlement? Who knows?
Hardin sees too late, that in the control of both children, and her knowledge of his past, she is now independent of his mere daily influence. The millions of Lagunitas mine cannot be hidden. If he recalls the heiress, will "Natalie de Santos" be as easily controlled as "Hortense Duval"?
And his own child, what of her? Hardin dares not tie himself up by acknowledging her claims. If he gives a large sum to the girl, it will give his "sultana" a powerful weapon for the future.
Is she watching him through spies? She betrays no anxiety to know anything, save what he imparts. He dare not go to Paris, for fear of some public scandal and a rupture. He must confirm his position there. What new friends has she there?
Ah! He will wait and make a final settlement of a handsome fortune on the child. He will provide a future fixed income for this new social star, now, at any rate, dependent on her obedience. Reports, in due form, accompany the occasional communications forwarded from the "Sacred Heart" as to the heiress. This must all be left to time.
With a deep interest, Hardin sees the cessation of all hostilities, the death of Lincoln, the disbandment, in peace, of the great Union armies.
Bayonets glitter no more upon the crested Southern heights. The embers of the watchfires are cold, gray ashes now. The lonely bivouac of the dead is the last holding of the foughten fields.
While the South and East is a graveyard or in mourning, strange to say, only a general relief is felt in the West. The great issue easily drops out of sight. There are here no local questions, no neighborhood hatreds, no appealing graves. Happy California! happy, but inglorious. The railway approaches completion. A great activity of scientific mining, enterprises of scope and local development, urge the Western communities to action. The bonanza of Lagunitas gives Judge Hardin even greater local prominence. He establishes his residence at the old home in the Sierras.