ail next day at noon, she decided not to go back to the hacienda, and
took rooms at a hotel.

What would people say? She did not care; she was going. She had been
womanish and timorous too long; this was the great crisis which would
decide her future; she must be worthy of it and of _him_. But remembering
Aunt Maria, she sent a letter by messenger to the hacienda, explaining
that pressing business called her to be absent for some weeks, and
confessing in a postscript that her business referred to Lieutenant
Thurstane. This letter brought Coronado down upon her next morning.
Returning home unexpectedly, he learned the news from his friend Mrs.
Stanley, and was hammering at Clara's door not more than an hour later,
all in a tremble with anxiety and rage.

"This must not be," he stormed. "Such a journey! Twenty-five hundred
miles! And for a man who has not deigned to write to you! It is degrading.
I will not have it. I forbid it."

"Coronado, stop!" ordered Clara; and it is to be feared that she stamped
her little foot at him; at all events she quelled him instantly.

He sat down, glared like a mad dog, sprang up and rushed to the door,
halted there to stare at her imploringly, and finally muttered in a hoarse
voice, "Well--let it be so--since you are crazed. But I shall go with
you."

"You can go," replied Clara haughtily, after meditating for some seconds,
during which he looked the picture of despair. "You can go, if you wish
it."

An hour later she said, in her usually gentle tone, "Coronado, pardon me
for having spoken to you angrily. You are kinder than I deserve."

The reader can infer from this speech how humble, helpful, and courteous
the man had been in the mean time. Coronado was no half-way character; if
he did not like you, he was the fellow to murder you; if he decided to be
sweet, he was all honey. Perhaps we ought to ask excuse for Clara's
tartness by explaining that she was in a state of extreme anxiety,
remembering that Robinson had hesitated when he said Thurstane was not so
very ill, and fearing lest he knew worse things than he had told.

Meanwhile, let no one suppose that the Mexican meant to let his lady love
go to Fort Yuma. He had his plan for stopping her, and we may put
confidence enough in him to believe that it was a good one; only at the
last moment circumstances turned up which decided him to drop it. Yes, at
the last moment, just as he was about to pull his leading strings, he saw
g