o--but you hate Dick. I don't see how you could
help him."

"I don't hate him any more, Tony. At least I don't think I do. At any
rate whether I do or don't won't make the slightest bit of difference. I
shall look after him as well as your uncle or your brothers would--better
perhaps because I know Mexico well and how to get things done down there.
I know how to get things done in most places."

"Oh, I know. I have often thought you must have magic at your command the
way people fly to do your bidding. It is startling but it is awfully
convenient."

"Money magic mostly," he retorted grimly.

"Partly, not mostly. You are a born potentate. You must have been a
sultan or a pashaw or something in some previous incarnation. I don't
care what you are if you will find Dick and see that he gets well. Alan,
don't you think--couldn't I--wouldn't it be better--if I went too?"

There was a sudden gleam in Alan's eyes. The hour was his. He could take
advantage of the situation, of the girl's anxiety for his cousin, her
love for himself while it was at high tide as it was at this over
stimulated hour of excitement. He could marry her. And once the rite was
spoken--not John Massey--not all Holiday Hill combined could take her
from him. She would be his and his alone to the end. Tony was ripe for
madness to-night, overwrought, ready to take any wild leap in the dark
with him. He could make her his. He felt the intoxicating truth quiver in
the touch of her hand, read it in her eager, dark eyes lifted to his for
his answer.

Alan Massey was unused to putting away temptation but this, perhaps the
biggest and blackest that had ever assailed him he put by.

"No, dear I'll go alone," he said. "You will just have to trust me, Tony.
I swear I'll do everything in the world that can be done for Carson. Let
us have just one dance though. I should like it to remember--in Mexico."

Tony hesitated. It was very late. The Hostelry would ill approve of her
going anywhere to dance at such an hour. It ill approved of Alan Massey
any way. Still--

"I am going to-morrow. It is our last chance," he pleaded. "Just one
dance, _carissima_. It may have to last--a long, long time."

And Tony yielded. After all they could not treat this night as if it were
like all the other nights in the calendar. They had the right to their
one more hour of happiness before Alan went away. They had the right to
this one last dance.

The one dance turned into many b