it might be a different
case with any one who derived title from you. Any purchaser would know
that you could not sell, or if you did, it would be at a ridiculous
sacrifice."

She listened to him abstractedly, walked to the end of the corridor,
returned, and without looking up, said,--

"I suppose you know her?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"This woman. You have seen her?"

"Never, to my knowledge."

"And you are his friend! That's strange." She raised her eyes to his.
"Well," she continued impatiently, "who is she? and what is she? You
know that surely?"

"I know no more of her than what I have said," said Poindexter. "She is
a notorious woman."

The swift color came to Mrs. Tucker's face as if the epithet had been
applied to herself. "I suppose," she said in a dry voice, as if she
were asking a business question, but with an eye that showed her rising
anger,--"I suppose there is some law by which creatures of this kind can
be followed and brought to justice--some law that would keep innocent
people from suffering for their crimes?"

"I am afraid," said Poindexter, "that arresting her would hardly help
these people over in the tienda."

"I am not speaking of them," responded Mrs. Tucker, with a sudden
sublime contempt for the people whose cause she had espoused: "I am
talking of my husband."

Poindexter bit his lip. "You'd hardly think of bringing back the
strongest witness against him," he said bluntly.

Mrs. Tucker dropped her eyes and was silent. A sudden shame suffused
Poindexter's cheek; he felt as if he had struck that woman a blow. "I
beg your pardon," he said hastily, "I am talking like a lawyer to a
lawyer." He would have taken any other woman by the hand in the honest
fullness of his apology, but something restrained him here. He only
looked down gently on her lowered lashes, and repeated his question if
he should remain during the coming interview with Don Jose: "I must beg
you to determine quickly," he added, "for I already hear him entering
the gate."

"Stay," said Mrs. Tucker, as the ringing of spurs and clatter of hoofs
came from the corral. "One moment." She looked up suddenly, and said,
"How long had he known her?" But before he could reply there was a step
in the doorway, and the figure of Don Jose Santierra emerged from the
archway.

He was a man slightly past middle age, fair and well shaven, wearing a
black broadcloth serape, the deeply embroidered opening of which formed
a collar of