red to break the
stillness and strike terror to Amalia's heart. It had occurred once
the day before when the silence was most profound. A piercing cry rent
the air, that began in a scream of terror and ended in a long-drawn
wail of despair.

Amalia slipped from her horse and stumbled over the rough ground to
her mother's side and poured forth a stream of words in her own
tongue, and clasped her arms about the rigid form that did not bend
toward her, but only sat staring into the white night as if her eye
perceived a sight from which she could not turn away.

"Look at me, mother. Oh, try to make her look at me!" The big man
lifted her from the horse, and she relaxed into trembling. "There, it
is gone now. Walk with me, mother;" and the two walked for a while,
holding hands, and Amalia talked unceasingly in low, soothing tones.

After a little time longer the moon paled and the stars disappeared,
and soon the sky became overspread with the changing coloring and the
splendor of dawn. Then the sun rose out of the glory, but still they
kept on their way until the heat began to overcome them. Then they
halted where some pines and high rocks made a shelter, but this time
the big man did not build a fire. He gave them a little coffee which
he had saved for them from what he had steeped during the night, and
they ate and rested, and the mother fell quickly into the sleep of
exhaustion, as before.

Thus during the middle of the day they rested, Amalia and the big man
sometimes sleeping and sometimes conversing quietly.

"I don't know why mother does this. I never knew her to until
yesterday. Father never used to let her look straight ahead of her as
she does now. She has always been very brave and strong. She has done
wonderful things--but I was not there. When troubles came on my
father, I was put in a convent--I know now it was to keep me from
harm. I did not know then why I was sent away from them, for my father
was not of the religion of the good sisters at the convent,--but now
I know--it was to save me."

"Why did troubles come on your father?"

"What he did I do not know, but I am very sure it was nothing wrong.
In my country sometimes men have to break the law to do right; my
mother has told me so. He was in prison a long time when I was living
in the convent, sheltered and cared for,--and mother--mother was
working all alone to get him out--all alone suffering."

"How could they keep you there if she had to wor