ised. Oh! Why--why did you come, Giovanni?"

It was her sister's voice. It broke on a heartrending sob. And the voice
of the resourceful Capataz de Cargadores, master and slave of the
San Tome treasure, who had been caught unawares by old Giorgio while
stealing across the open towards the ravine to get some more silver,
answered careless and cool, but sounding startlingly weak from the
ground.

"It seemed as though I could not live through the night without seeing
thee once more--my star, my little flower."

* * * * *

The brilliant tertulia was just over, the last guests had departed, and
the Senor Administrador had gone to his room already, when Dr. Monygham,
who had been expected in the evening but had not turned up, arrived
driving along the wood-block pavement under the electric-lamps of the
deserted Calle de la Constitucion, and found the great gateway of the
Casa still open.

He limped in, stumped up the stairs, and found the fat and sleek Basilio
on the point of turning off the lights in the sala. The prosperous
majordomo remained open-mouthed at this late invasion.

"Don't put out the lights," commanded the doctor. "I want to see the
senora."

"The senora is in the Senor Adminstrador's cancillaria," said Basilio,
in an unctuous voice. "The Senor Administrador starts for the mountain
in an hour. There is some trouble with the workmen to be feared, it
appears. A shameless people without reason and decency. And idle, senor.
Idle."

"You are shamelessly lazy and imbecile yourself," said the doctor,
with that faculty for exasperation which made him so generally beloved.
"Don't put the lights out."

Basilio retired with dignity. Dr. Monygham, waiting in the brilliantly
lighted sala, heard presently a door close at the further end of the
house. A jingle of spurs died out. The Senor Administrador was off to
the mountain.

With a measured swish of her long train, flashing with jewels and the
shimmer of silk, her delicate head bowed as if under the weight of a
mass of fair hair, in which the silver threads were lost, the "first
lady of Sulaco," as Captain Mitchell used to describe her, moved along
the lighted corredor, wealthy beyond great dreams of wealth, considered,
loved, respected, honoured, and as solitary as any human being had ever
been, perhaps, on this earth.

The doctor's "Mrs. Gould! One minute!" stopped her with a start at the
door of the lighted and empty sala. From the similarity of mood and