ther effort to
repress a shudder.

She stood up, smiling graciously, and her little figure seemed to be
diminished still more by the heavy mass of her hair and the long train
of her gown.

"But always to success," she said, persuasively.

Charles Gould, enveloping her in the steely blue glance of his attentive
eyes, answered without hesitation--

"Oh, there is no alternative."

He put an immense assurance into his tone. As to the words, this was all
that his conscience would allow him to say.

Mrs. Gould's smile remained a shade too long upon her lips. She
murmured--

"I will leave you; I've a slight headache. The heat, the dust, were
indeed--I suppose you are going back to the mine before the morning?"

"At midnight," said Charles Gould. "We are bringing down the silver
to-morrow. Then I shall take three whole days off in town with you."

"Ah, you are going to meet the escort. I shall be on the balcony at five
o'clock to see you pass. Till then, good-bye."

Charles Gould walked rapidly round the table, and, seizing her hands,
bent down, pressing them both to his lips. Before he straightened
himself up again to his full height she had disengaged one to smooth his
cheek with a light touch, as if he were a little boy.

"Try to get some rest for a couple of hours," she murmured, with a
glance at a hammock stretched in a distant part of the room. Her long
train swished softly after her on the red tiles. At the door she looked
back.

Two big lamps with unpolished glass globes bathed in a soft and abundant
light the four white walls of the room, with a glass case of arms, the
brass hilt of Henry Gould's cavalry sabre on its square of velvet, and
the water-colour sketch of the San Tome gorge. And Mrs. Gould, gazing at
the last in its black wooden frame, sighed out--

"Ah, if we had left it alone, Charley!"

"No," Charles Gould said, moodily; "it was impossible to leave it
alone."

"Perhaps it was impossible," Mrs. Gould admitted, slowly. Her lips
quivered a little, but she smiled with an air of dainty bravado. "We
have disturbed a good many snakes in that Paradise, Charley, haven't
we?"

"Yes, I remember," said Charles Gould, "it was Don Pepe who called the
gorge the Paradise of snakes. No doubt we have disturbed a great many.
But remember, my dear, that it is not now as it was when you made that
sketch." He waved his hand towards the small water-colour hanging alone
upon the great bare wall. "It is no lo