Six months had passed.

The Villa of Maecenas was closed at Los Osos Canyon, and the southwest trade-winds were slanting the rains of the wet season against its shut windows and barred doors.

Within that hollow, deserted shell, its aspect--save for a single exception--was unchanged; the furniture and decorations preserved their eternal youth undimmed by time; the rigidly-arranged rooms, now closed to life and light, developed more than ever their resemblance to a furniture warehouse.
The single exception was the room which Grace Nevil had rearranged for herself; and that, oddly enough, was stripped and bare--even to its paper and mouldings.
In other respects, the sealed treasures of Rushbrook's villa, far from provoking any sentimentality, seemed only to give truth to the current rumor that it was merely waiting to be transformed into a gorgeous watering-place hotel under Rushbrook's direction; that, with its new ball-room changed into an elaborate dining-hall, it would undergo still further improvement, the inevitable end and object of all Rushbrook's enterprise; and that its former proprietor had already begun another villa whose magnificence should eclipse the last.

There certainly appeared to be no limit to the millionaire's success in all that he personally undertook, or in his fortunate complicity with the enterprise and invention of others.

His name was associated with the oldest and safest schemes, as well as the newest and boldest--with an equal guarantee of security.