isappeared out of the passageways and
doors, every turn and unexpected opening and winding of which I
remembered through sheer terror.

At the door of the private _sala_ there was no pause; the maid did not
knock. No need, was there, at the door of an empty room? She led me
straight across the anteroom and there in front of the curtain stood
the impassive major-domo, the man who had led me there the first time.
He was as still as a bronze. He did not even seem to see me, but
stretching out his hand gathered up the velvet folds and drew the
curtain a little to one side.

There breathed upon me across the threshold, wonderfully fresh and
living, like a human presence, that strong perfume of the Spanish
Woman's flower. I stood fixed in astonishment. There at the far end
of the room she was, the Spanish Woman herself.

She was seated, yet not as she had been the first time I had seen her,
in her low combing chair; but full facing me on a great high-backed
seat like a throne, her feet on a footstool, a table at her right on
which her hand rested over some white thing, like a folded paper. Her
gown, too dull for gold, too shining for anything else, streamed down
on each side to the floor. Her whole look was as if she had dressed
and seated herself and made ready for some great thing. Her head was
flung back, resting against the cushion and she was looking straight at
me. She did not speak. I felt she was waiting, and that I must begin.

I walked slowly across the room, not knowing what to say to her, but
when I had covered half the distance some shaft of sunrise slanting
into the room lighted her face with its pale reflection and I saw her
eyes. They were half closed, and behind her thick, long lashes they
gleamed mistily like silver. My knees doubled up under me and I went
down on them in sheer weakness, for I knew that she was dead.

For a moment I could think of nothing and the room like a wheel went
around me; but I kept saying, "No, no! I will not, I must not faint!"
and after a few moments I moved forward, still, I think, on my knees,
and looked at the paper under her hand. I was too weak to get to my
feet. I reached up and took it. I looked at the Spanish Woman. I
looked at the fine, firm, foreign handwriting.

"On the day of May the seventh, 1865, in the presence of John
Montgomery and my peon, Victor Perez, I, Carlotta Valencia, shot and
killed Martin Rood in his gambling-house on Dupont and