"No, no," she wailed. "And anyway, I would never be safe from Ru--from
him, that way. He would follow me about and try to meet me. He would. I
know he would."

Gallito drew back and looked at her with uplifted head. "Afraid! You?"
he asked in surprise.

"No," she flashed at him scornfully, lifting her head, but again she
dropped it brokenly on her arms. "I'm afraid of myself," she cried,
suffering causing her to break down those barriers of self-repression
which she usually erected between herself and everyone about her. "I'm
afraid of myself, because I love him. Yes, I do. I love him just as much
as ever--and I hate him, hate him, hate him." She hissed the words. Once
more she sobbed wildly and then she broke into speech again. "Oh, I want
to go somewhere and hide; somewhere where he'll never find me, where
I'll be safe from him."

"What's the matter with Colina?" said Bob Flick suddenly. "He'll never
come there. A good reason why!"

Pearl became perfectly still. It was evident that the suggestion had
reached her, and that she was thinking it over. Her father, too,
considered the matter. "Excellent," he cried; "excellent."

And Pearl looked up eagerly. "But when can we go, when?" she cried and
stretched out an imploring hand to touch his knee. "To-morrow? No,
to-day. You said yesterday, father, that you would be going back at
once. Oh, to-day! The afternoon train--" She looked eagerly from one man
to another.

"Yes, to-day," agreed Bob Flick. "You can go as well to-day as
to-morrow, Gallito."

The Spaniard had been thinking with thrust-out jaw and narrowed eyes,
now he threw out his hands and lifted his brows. "Have it so, then," he
said. "The train leaves this afternoon. Go, Pearl, and pack your things.
I promised Hughie that he should go back with me, but he had better wait
a few days until his mother can get her sister to stay with her. You had
better tell him, Pearl."

After she had gone into the house the two men sat in silence for a few
minutes and then Flick lifted his relieved face to the sky. "If there's
any God up there," he said, "I'm thanking him for that unexpected you
were talking about, Gallito."

"Ah, that unexpected!" returned Gallito. "It is more comforting than
many religions. More than once when I have been in a tight place I have
relied on it and not vainly. You will go with us this afternoon, Bob?"

Flick hesitated a moment. "I can't," he said. "I've got a lot to do at
the mines her