at one swift, anguished, shame-smitten, appealing,
worshipping look on Alessandro's face, as his eyes rested on Ramona, was
like a flash of light into Margarita's consciousness. Far better than
Alessandro himself, she now knew his secret. In her first rage she did
not realize either the gulf between herself and Ramona, or that between
Ramona and Alessandro. Her jealous rage was as entire as if they had
all been equals together. She lost her head altogether, and there was
embodied insolence in the tone in which she said presently, "Did the
Senorita want me?"

Turning swiftly on her, and looking her full in the eye, Ramona said:
"I saw you go to the orchard, Margarita, and I knew what you went for. I
knew that you were at the brook last night with Alessandro. All I wanted
of you was, to tell you that if I see anything more of this sort, I
shall speak to the Senora."

"There is no harm," muttered Margarita, sullenly. "I don't know what the
Senorita means."

"You know very well, Margarita," retorted Ramona. "You know that the
Senora permits nothing of the kind. Be careful, now, what you do." And
with that the two separated, Ramona returning to the veranda and her
embroidery, and Margarita to her neglected duty of making the good
Father's bed. But each girl's heart was hot and unhappy; and Margarita's
would have been still hotter and unhappier, had she heard the words
which were being spoken on the veranda a little later.

After a few minutes of his blind rage at Margarita, himself, and fate
generally, Alessandro, recovering his senses, had ingeniously persuaded
himself that, as the Senora's; and also the Senorita's servant, for the
time being, he owed it to them to explain the situation in which he had
just been found. Just what he was to say he did not know; but no sooner
had the thought struck him, than he set off at full speed for the house,
hoping to find Ramona on the veranda, where he knew she spent all her
time when not with Senor Felipe.

When Ramona saw him coming, she lowered her eyes, and was absorbed in
her embroidery. She did not wish to look at him.

The footsteps stopped. She knew he was standing at the steps. She would
not look up. She thought if she did not, he would go away. She did not
know either the Indian or the lover nature. After a time, finding the
consciousness of the soundless presence intolerable, she looked up, and
surprised on Alessandro's face a gaze which had, in its long interval
of f