e to force a little more speed
into her aching, blistered feet and to endure the pains that gripped
and racked her body, hoping only that she might reach the town and
find the priest before the end should come.

At last the gray, rolling waves of the foothills smoothed themselves
out and gently merged into the plain that rose from the valley below.
So near seemed the houses and the long streets of the town, with the
yellow cottonwoods flaming through its heart, that Amada felt
encouraged. She hurried limping down the road, her black dress gray
with dust, her mantilla pulled awry, her eyes wide with the terror
that filled her soul, and her face tense and drawn with the pain that
tortured her body.

She reached the edge of the town and saw people in the houses along
the street. But she met none and she could not make up her mind to
stop long enough to turn aside to one of the houses and ask the way to
the priest's dwelling. Presently she saw two children come hand in
hand through a gateway. One of them, a tiny boy with flaxen curls
about his neck and a thin white face, put his hands on the shoulders
of his baby girl companion and kissed the face she lifted to his. As
she went away she turned and threw kisses to him and he waved his hand
to her and called out "bye-bye, bye-bye."

Amada staggered against the fence and stood there resting a moment
while she smiled at the pretty scene, notwithstanding her suffering
and anxiety. When the child turned back into the yard she moved away
from the fence and tried to go on. But her knees trembled and gave
way, a cry of pain broke from her lips, and she fell upon the
sidewalk. For woman's greatest extremity was upon her and she could go
no farther.

Marguerite Delarue stood upon the veranda steps smiling fondly upon
little Paul as he came up the walk. She had noticed the strange young
Mexican woman leaning against the fence, and when Amada fell she ran
down to the gate to see if the stranger were ill. The look of awful
agony in Amada's face and eyes frightened her, and quickly calling the
maid, the two women took her into the house and put her to bed. Then
Marguerite sent in all haste for the physician, and herself removed
the dusty shoes and stockings, bathed the swollen, blistered feet,
took off the dust-filled garments and clothed the suffering girl in
one of her own night robes.

All night long the physician worked, his face anxious and troubled,
and in the early morning h