ad, even through public streets and
parks, even when it rained, even unattended. She had met men, not
always as prospective suitors, but as friends and companions.

And there had been a wonderful visit to her mother's country and her
mother's people, when for a summer she had rejoiced in the friendly,
inconsequent, out-of-door life of a Massachusetts' seaside colony.
Once on the North Shore, and later on Cape Cod, she had learned to
swim, to steer a knockabout, to dance the "Boston," even in
rubber-soled shoes, to "sit out" on the Casino balcony and hear young
men, with desperate anxiety, ask if there were any more in South
America like her. To this question she always replied that there were
not; and that, in consequence, if the young man had any thoughts on
the subject, she was the person to whom they should be addressed.

Then, following the calm, uneventful life of the convent, of London
and its gayeties, of the Massachusetts coast with its gray fogs and
open, drift-wood fires, came the return to her own country. There,
with her father, she rode over his plantations among the wild cattle,
or with her mother and sister sat in the _patio_ and read novels in
three languages, or sleepily watched the shadow of the tropical sun
creep across the yellow wall.

And then, suddenly, all of these different, happy lives were turned
into memories, shadows, happenings of a previous and unreal
existence. There came a night, which for months later in terrified
dreams returned to haunt her, a night when she woke to find her
bed surrounded by soldiers, to hear in the court-yard the sobs
of her mother and the shrieks of the serving-women, to see her
father--concerned only for his wife and daughters--in a circle of
the secret police, to see him, before she could speak with him,
hurried to a closed carriage and driven away.

Then had begun the two years of exile in Willemstad, the two years of
mourning, not of quiet grief for one at rest, but anxious, unending
distress for one alive, one dearly loved, one tortured in mind,
enduring petty indignities, bodily torments, degradations that killed
the soul and broke the brave spirit.

To the three women Rojas had been more than husband or father. He had
been their knight, their idol, their reason for happiness. They alone
knew how brave he was, how patient, how, beyond imagination,
considerate. That they should be free to eat and sleep, to work and
play, while he was punished like a felo