quitted Sergeant
Cardono, to that when, drawing aside the hangings with his hand, he
stood behind her.

Nevertheless, Concha did not move immediately, and Rollo, standing thus
close to her, was, for the first time in his life, conscious of the
atmosphere, delicate yet vivid, of youth, beauty, and charm, with which
a loving and gracious woman surrounds herself as with a garment.

But these were stern times. He had come to her balcony for a purpose
and--there was no time to be lost.

"Concha," he began without ceremony--for after the kiss, regulated and
conscientious as it had been and clearly justifiable to his sense of
honour and duty, somehow the prefacing "Senorita" had come to be omitted
between them. "Concha, the little Queen is lost! She may be wandering
out there to meet her death among brigands and murderers! It is my duty
to go and seek her. Listen!"

And then when at last she turned from the window and slowly faced him,
Rollo told her all that had taken place below.

"I knew you were in danger when the shots went off," she said; "yet
since you had not called for me, nor given me leave to quit my
post----"

She did not finish her sentence. It was a kind of reproach that he had
called for the Sergeant and not for her in his hour of need. She knew on
whom _she_ would have called.

"You did well--better than well--to stand by your post," said Rollo;
"but now I must make over my authority to another. The Sergeant is to
command here in my absence."

"Do you then make _my_ allegiance over to the Sergeant?" asked Concha,
in a quiet tone.

"God forbid!" cried Rollo, impetuously.

And little Concha, looking abroad over the darkling hills, thought
within her heart that her morning was surely coming. It might be some
time on the way, but all the same it was coming.

But yet when he told her of the desperate quest on which he was bound,
that which had been glad became filled with foreboding, and the false
dawn died out again utterly. The hills were both distant and dark.

But as Rollo continued to speak bravely, confidently, and took her hand
to ask her bid him God-speed, Concha smiled once more to herself in the
darkness. And so, at the last, it came about that she even held up her
lips to be kissed. For now (so strangely natural grows this quaint
custom after one or two experiments) it seemed as if no other method of
saying good-bye were possible between them. And to Rollo the necessity
appeared even stro