, death!
Nevertheless, an hour later, when the jingle of spurs and bridle were
again heard in the road, she started to her feet with bent brows and a
kindling eye, and confronted Captain Poindexter in the corridor.

"I would not have intruded upon you so soon again," he said gravely,
"but I thought I might perhaps spare you a repetition of the scene of
this morning. Hear me out, please," he added, with a gentle, half
deprecating gesture, as she lifted the beautiful scorn of her eyes to
his. "I have just heard that your neighbor, Don Jose Santierra, of Los
Gatos, is on his way to this house. He once claimed this land, and
hated your husband, who bought of the rival claimant, whose grant was
confirmed. I tell you this," he added, slightly flushing as Mrs. Tucker
turned impatiently away, "only to show you that legally he has no
rights, and you need not see him unless you choose. I could not stop
his coming without perhaps doing you more harm than good; but when he
does come, my presence under this roof as your legal counsel will
enable you to refer him to me." He stopped. She was pacing the corridor
with short, impatient steps, her arms dropped, and her hands clasped
rigidly before her. "Have I your permission to stay?"

She suddenly stopped in her walk, approached him rapidly, and fixing
her eyes on his, said:

"Do I know _all_, now--everything?"

He could only reply that she had not yet told him what she had heard.

"Well," she said scornfully, "that my husband has been cruelly imposed
upon--imposed upon by some wretched woman, who has made him sacrifice
his property, his friends, his honor--everything but me!"

"Everything but whom?" gasped Poindexter.

"But ME!"

Poindexter gazed at the sky, the air, the deserted corridor, the stones
of the _patio_ itself, and then at the inexplicable woman before him.
Then he said gravely, "I think you know everything."

"Then if my husband has left me all he could--this property," she went
on rapidly, twisting her handkerchief between her fingers, "I can do
with it what I like, can't I?"

"You certainly can."

"Then sell it," she said, with passionate vehemence. "Sell it--all!
everything! And sell these." She darted into her bedroom, and returned
with the diamond rings she had torn from her fingers and ears when she
entered the house. "Sell them for anything they'll bring, only sell
them at once."

"But for what?" asked Poindexter, with demure lips but twinkling eyes.