of horses' hoofs dying away in the distance. The girl
was not crying, although one of her hands was held across her eyes, and
her bosom rose and fell tumultuously to labored breathing. She stood
silent, motionless, the strange radiance causing her to appear unreal,
some divinely moulded statue, an artist's dream carven in colored
stone. Suddenly she sprang backward from out that revealing tongue of
light and crouched low at the angle of the house, not unlike some
affrighted wild animal, her head bent forward intently listening.
There was a plainly perceptible movement in the gloom, the sound of an
approaching footstep and of rapid breathing, and finally a shadow
became visible. The watcher leaped to her feet half angrily.

"Ah! so eet vas you, senorita!" she exclaimed, her voice betraying her
emotion,--"you, who come so dis night. _Sapristi_! vy you follow me
dis vay? By all de saints, I make you tell me dat! You vant him, too?
You vant rob me of all thing?"

The visitor, startled by this sudden challenge, stood before her
trembling from head to foot with the nervous excitement of her journey,
yet her eyes remained darkly resolute.

"You recognize me," she responded quickly, reaching out and touching
the other with one hand, as if to make certain of her actual presence.
"Then for God's sake do not waste time now in quarrelling. I did not
make this trip without a purpose. 'He,' you say? Who is he? Who was
it that rode away from here just now? Not Farnham?"

Mercedes laughed a trifle uneasily, her eyes suddenly lowered before
the other's anxious scrutiny.

"Ah, no, senorita," she answered softly. "Eet surprises me mooch you
not know; eet vas Senor Brown."

Miss Norvell grasped her firmly by the shoulder.

"Brown?" she exclaimed eagerly. "Stutter Brown? Oh, call him back;
cannot you call him back?"

The young Mexican shook her head, her white teeth gleaming, as she drew
her shoulder free from the fingers clasping it.

"You vas too late, senorita," she replied, sweetly confident. "He vas
already gone to de 'Little Yankee.' But he speak mooch to me first."

"Much about what?"

"Vel, he say he lofe me--he say eet straight, like eet vas vat he
meant."

"Oh!"

"Si, senorita; he not even talk funny, maybe he so excited he forgot
how, hey? An' vat you tink dat he say den to Mercedes--vat?"

The other shook her head, undecided, hesitating as to her own purpose.

"He ask me vould I marry him.