but were it not for the light
in his eyes, he might have been taken for a dead man. Yes, the man was
dead; only the judge lived.

When I had convinced myself of this, I turned and looked at the
accused. Good God! Gabriela Zahara was not only Blanca, the woman my
friend so deeply loved, but she was also the woman I had met in the
stagecoach and subsequently at Granada, the beautiful South American,
Mercedes!

All these fantastic women had now merged into one, the real one who
stood before us, accused of the murder of her husband and who had been
condemned to die.

There was still a chance to prove herself innocent. Could she do it?
This was my one supreme hope, as it was that of my poor friend.

Gabriela (we will call her now by her real name) was deathly pale, but
apparently calm. Was she trusting to her innocence or to the weakness
of the judge? Our doubts were soon solved. Up to that moment the
accused had looked at no one but the judge. I did not know whether she
desired to encourage him or menace him, or to tell him that his Blanca
could not be an assassin. But noting the impassibility of the
magistrate and that his face was as expressionless as that of a corpse,
she turned to the others, as if seeking help from them. Then her eyes
fell upon me, and she blushed slightly.

The judge now seemed to awaken from his stupor and asked in a harsh
voice:

"What is your name?"

"Gabriela Zahara, widow of Romeral," answered the accused in a soft
voice.

Zarco trembled. He had just learned that his Blanca had never existed;
she told him so herself--she who only three hours before had consented
to become his wife!

Fortunately, no one was looking at the judge, all eyes being fixed upon
Gabriela, whose marvelous beauty and quiet demeanor carried to all an
almost irresistible conviction of her innocence.

The judge recovered himself, and then, like a man who is staking more
than life upon the cast of a die, he ordered the guard to open the
black box.

"Madame!" said the judge sternly, his eyes seeming to dart flames,
"approach and tell me whether you recognize this head?"

At a signal from the judge the guard opened the black box and lifted
out the skull.

A cry of mortal agony rang through that room; one could not tell
whether it was of fear or of madness. The woman shrank back, her eyes
dilating with terror, and screamed: "Alfonzo, Alfonzo!"

Then she seemed to fall into a stupor. All turned to the judge,
mu