f my hat. Then in both her hands she lifted something from the
chest, and, before I could stop her she had pressed it down upon my
head. Then she rose. Her face was flushed; her lips parted eagerly on
her gleaming teeth. She caught my hand and pulled me in front of a
great mirror that hung upon the wall.

I saw reflected there a small, shrinking figure, with a white face, in
a white dress, crowned with a circlet of gold, and hung with necklaces
that made brightness in the shadow. I heard the Spanish Woman's voice
speaking excitedly close beside my cheek.

"There is not their like in this state, in this country. Some of those
have come out of the greatest houses in Spain. They will make you
rich, they will make you beautiful! They are nothing to me; I will
give them to you, every one, to keep for ever! Take them--take them
all! And go away! Just for three little days; until the trial is
over!"

I shrank from her in mere amazement. In the first moment I did not
take in what she meant.

"No, but listen," she cried, catching at me, "I can make it easy for
you to go. I have influence--I will help you--I will hide you! We
will arrange the story."

I raised my hands to my head. Now I was choking with anger, with
tears. "Do you think I would do for these, what I would not do for
him?" I lifted the circlet off my head, but my hands shook so that it
fell, and rolled on the floor between us, and I believe we both forgot
it. "Do you suppose I don't care as much as you do? I would do
anything in the world to clear him of this charge. But you don't
understand--to clear him! I can't hush it and hide it. It wouldn't
make it come right, and I don't believe he wants me to. I don't
believe that is what he meant. I know he would hate me if I saved him
with such a lie!"

She grew white. A small sharp shadow came on each side of her mouth.
Her lips parted with a sort of gasp. "What do you know about saving or
dying; what do you know about hating or loving? You would not lie--oh,
no! You would save him--if he were innocent! Why, you child, I would
save him the same if he had killed fifty! You are so precious of your
little self, and your little virtue! Virtue? Pah! I love him--and
that is my virtue!"

Something in the triumphant ring of her voice, in the very strength of
her passion itself, for the moment made her noble. Beside her I felt
myself small, mean and wretched.

It seemed to me I was in a