blic bodies--the Cabildo, the Consulado--would be
coming, too, presently, seeking the support of the most stable, the most
effective force they had ever known to exist in their province.

The doctor, arriving with his sharp, jerky walk, found that the master
had retired into his own room with orders not to be disturbed on any
account. But Dr. Monygham was not anxious to see Charles Gould at once.
He spent some time in a rapid examination of his wounded. He gazed down
upon each in turn, rubbing his chin between his thumb and forefinger;
his steady stare met without expression their silently inquisitive look.
All these cases were doing well; but when he came to the dead Cargador
he stopped a little longer, surveying not the man who had ceased to
suffer, but the woman kneeling in silent contemplation of the rigid
face, with its pinched nostrils and a white gleam in the imperfectly
closed eyes. She lifted her head slowly, and said in a dull voice--

"It is not long since he had become a Cargador--only a few weeks. His
worship the Capataz had accepted him after many entreaties."

"I am not responsible for the great Capataz," muttered the doctor,
moving off.

Directing his course upstairs towards the door of Charles Gould's room,
the doctor at the last moment hesitated; then, turning away from the
handle with a shrug of his uneven shoulders, slunk off hastily along the
corredor in search of Mrs. Gould's camerista.

Leonardo told him that the senora had not risen yet. The senora had
given into her charge the girls belonging to that Italian posadero. She,
Leonarda, had put them to bed in her own room. The fair girl had cried
herself to sleep, but the dark one--the bigger--had not closed her eyes
yet. She sat up in bed clutching the sheets right up under her chin and
staring before her like a little witch. Leonarda did not approve of the
Viola children being admitted to the house. She made this feeling clear
by the indifferent tone in which she inquired whether their mother was
dead yet. As to the senora, she must be asleep. Ever since she had gone
into her room after seeing the departure of Dona Antonia with her dying
father, there had been no sound behind her door.

The doctor, rousing himself out of profound reflection, told her
abruptly to call her mistress at once. He hobbled off to wait for Mrs.
Gould in the sala. He was very tired, but too excited to sit down. In
this great drawing-room, now empty, in which his withe