mounted with Toby and the driver, and the coach rolled slowly
away to the hospital, leaving behind the two girls staring at the richly
uniformed officer, and the officer staring tenfold harder at them. He
was a large man, with big hands and feet, and for a Mexican he had a
mongrel floridness of skin. His cap was in his hand, and his hair was
red and thin. Amazement and a startled prying anxiety choked his
utterance.

"Now then, Colonel Lopez," Jacqueline addressed him calmly, "may I ask
you the way? I have come to speak with Maximilian."

"La Senorita d-d'Aumerle!" he stuttered.

"Faith, no other, who is awaiting your pleasure, senor."

"You come from, from--Mexico?"

"But hardly to chat with you all the afternoon, caballero."

"From Mexico! From the capital!" he kept repeating. The man's finger
nails cracked disagreeably, and his features worked in an extreme of
agitation. He tried to fix his shifting blue eyes upon first one and
then the other of the two girls, as though to ferret out what they must
know. "You do bring news from there?" he said huskily. "What of Marquez?
Is he coming? Shall we have the aid he went for? When----"

"Ah, the medal for military valor!" observed Jacqueline. "Indeed, mi
coronel, all must acclaim your bravery, as well as--your loyalty. But
take me to your beloved Prince Max, for I do assure you, senor, my news
goes not without myself."

"He visits the hospital every day," Lopez advised reluctantly. "Perhaps
if I should take Your Mercy there first----"

Passing on through the ravaged Alameda, they entered the streets of
Queretaro.

"Hear!" Jacqueline exclaimed. "Such a quantity of vivas and clarins and
national hymns and triumphant dianas, one would imagine, for example,
that there had been a great victory?"

"Eh? Oh yes, or a hearty breakfast, senorita."

Which was more essential. And why not? Hope's bright hue blotted out
emaciation. They had broken through to food that day. Bueno, could they
not do it again? Old croons had returned to their stalls and accustomed
corners in the market place, and as in days of peace were already
squatted before corn or beans heaped on the stone pavement in portions
for a quartilla, a media, or a real, as though the pyramids were not so
pitifully little, as though the wholesale purchase were not made just
that morning in heavy terms of blood.

Behind the ponderous Assyrian-like church of Santa Rosa, in the old,
half ruined monastery and garden