wealthy. They used a very broad "a" and served tea at four
o'clock in the afternoon. Gordon Roth was a Harvard graduate and did not
conceal the fact. Neither did he conceal his hatred for this sandy little
western town, where ill-health had doomed him to spend many of his days
and perhaps to end them.

The girl was strangely different from her mother and brother. Whereas
their expressions were stiff and solemn, her eyes showed an irrepressible
gleam of humour, and her fascinating little mouth was mobile with mirth.
She fidgeted around in her chair a good deal, as a child does when bored.

Mrs. Roth decorously turned the conversation toward the safe and reliable
subjects of literature and art.

"What do you think of Maeterlinck, Mr. Delcasar?" she enquired in an
innocent manner that must have concealed malice.

"I don't know him," Ramon admitted, "Who is he?"

Mrs. Roth permitted herself to smile. Gordon Roth came graciously to the
rescue.

"Maeterlinck is a great Belgian writer," he explained. "We are all very
much interested in him.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"

Julia gave a little flounce in her chair, and crossed her legs with a
defiant look at her mother.

"I'm not interested in him," she announced with decision. "I think he's a
bore. Listen, Mr. Delcasar. You know Conny Masters? Well, he was telling
me the most thrilling tale the other day. He said that the country
Mexicans have a sort of secret religious fraternity that most of the men
belong to, and that they meet every Good Friday and beat themselves with
whips and sit down on cactus and crucify a man on a cross and all sorts of
horrible things {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} for penance you know, just like the monks and things in
the Middle Ages.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} He claims he saw them once and that they had blood
running down to their heels. Is that all true? I've forgotten what he
called them.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"

Ramon nodded.

"Sure. The _penitentes_. I've seen them lots of times."

"O, do tell us about them. I love to hear about horrible things."

"Well, I've seen lots of _penitente_ processions, but the best one I ever
saw was a long time ago, when I was a little kid. There are not so many of
them now, and they don't do as much as they used to. The church is down on
them, you know, and they're afraid. Ten years ago if you tried to look at
them, they would shoot at you, but now tourists take pictures of them."

Gordon Roth's curiosity had been a