icans
wanted doctors. They offered him his life for his services, but he would
not have it unless his friend's life also was spared. They were shot
holding each other's hands, and fell together. I was watching their
faces at the moment. There wasn't a bit of fear in them."

The Senora rose, and came as swiftly as a spirit to them. She looked
like a woman walking in her sleep. She touched the stranger. "I heard
you. You saw Dare Grant die. But my boy! My boy! Where is my Juan?"

"Maria, darling."

"Don't speak, Roberto. Where is my Juan? Juan Worth?"

"Madam. I am sorry enough, God knows. Juan Worth--was shot."

Then the wretched mother threw up her hands, and with an awful cry
fell to the ground. It was hours ere she recovered consciousness, and
consciousness only restored her to misery.

The distress of the father, the brother and sisters of the dead youth
was submerged in the speechless despair of the mother. She could not
swallow food; she turned away from the the{sic} sympathy of all who
loved her. Even Isabel's caresses were received with an apathy which was
terrifying. With the severed curl of her boy's hair in her fingers, she
sat in tearless, voiceless anguish.

Poor Antonia, weighed down with the double loss that had come to her,
felt, for the first time, as if their condition was utterly hopeless.
The mental picture of her brother and her lover meeting their tragic
death hand in hand, their youth and beauty, their courage and fidelity,
was constantly before her. With all the purity and strength of her true
heart, she loved Dare; but she did not for a moment wish that he had
taken a different course. "It is just what I should have expected from
him," she said to Isabel. "If he had let poor Jack die alone, I
could never have loved him in the same way again. But oh, Isabel, how
miserable I am?"

"Sweet Antonia, I can only weep with you. Think of this; it was on last
Sunday morning. Do you remember how sad you were?"

"I was in what seemed to be an unreasonable distress. I went away to
weep. My very thoughts were tired with their sorrowful journeys up and
down my mind, trying to find out hope and only meeting despair. Oh, my
brave Jack! Oh, my dear Dare, what a cruel fate was your's!"

"And mi madre, Antonia? I fear, indeed, that she will lose her senses.
She will not speak to Thomas, nor even to me. She has not said a prayer
since Jack's death. She cannot sleep. I am afraid of her, Antonia."

"To-nig