nderstood now the meaning of Chiquita's passionate longing for the
man she loved; a thing which the worldliness of the life she had lived
hitherto had taught her to be too extravagant to exist anywhere outside
of books, but which was true nevertheless. Her intuition told her this
in the face of all the world might say to the contrary. As she looked
back over the years and thought of her friends, she realized that she
like them had submerged her life in the superficial pleasures of the
world; but had they filled her cup of happiness? Until now she had not
felt the lack of life's crowning joy, for the reason that youth is
buoyant and full of hope, and the grand passion had not yet entered into
her life. These and a thousand other thoughts ran through her mind that
night as she recalled Dick's words.

She could not sleep. From where she lay she could see the moonlight in
the _patio_ and hear the murmur of the fountain in its center. The night
seemed to beckon and whisper to her to come outside. So she arose and
silently dressed herself in the dimly moonlit room without disturbing
Blanch, who murmured incoherently in her sleep of the things she was
thinking of. She slipped noiselessly through the low window to the
_patio_ without and stealthily made her way in the shadow of the
overhanging arcades to the garden beyond.

The hour was late--close on to dawn. The silvery half-moon hung low in
the west accompanied by great cohorts of stars that shone with a
brilliancy she had never before seen, and which seemed to be waiting
with the moon to usher in the new dawn. All was silence and mystery--all
earthly ties seemed severed. Under the cover of the night all things
seemed equal. There were no high, no low, no eyes to see, no ears to
hear, no towns, no cities, no conventions. All things that hold and bind
us had slipped away into the shadows and she seemed to breathe again the
primeval freshness of life.

She knew that she must decide between Dick and her family. Her father
had given her plainly to understand as much, and this she knew meant the
loss of her fortune--the giving up of all for him. Her father
threatened, raged and fumed with the petulance of a spoiled child, his
paternal displeasure taking that uncompromising form of obstinacy with
which the world has long been familiar. She was amazed at herself for
being able to take his displeasure with so little concern; a thing
which, had it occurred at home, would have cause