that gave me this ring comes and asks me for it, he can have it.
_You_ can't!"

His legs seemed to give way beneath him, at that, and Yaqui Juan half
led, half dragged him out of the room.

Mrs. King wept again but Honor's eyes were dry. Carter started to speak
to her but she stopped him. "Please, Carter ... I can't ... talk. I
think I'd like to be alone."

"Oh, my dear, please come up with me," Mrs. King begged, "it's so cold
here, and----"

"I have to be alone," said Honor in her worn voice.

"Then you must have this," said the older woman, finding comfort in
wrapping her in her own _serape_. It was a gay thing, striped in red and
white and green, the Mexican colors; it looked as if it had been made
to wear in happy days.

They went away and left her alone in the _sala_. She didn't know how
long she had sat there when she saw a muffled figure crawling across the
veranda. She opened the door and stepped out, nodding to the _peon_ on
guard there, leaning on his gun. "Juan?" she called softly.

The crouching, cringing figure hesitated. "Si," came the soft whisper.
He kept his head shrouded. She knew that he was sick with shame for the
lad he had worshiped; he did not want to meet her gaze. She could
understand that. It did not seem to her that she could ever meet any
one's eyes again--kind Mrs. King's, Carter's--her dear Stepper's.
Suddenly it came to her with a positive sense of relief and escape that
perhaps there would be no need for facing any one after to-night....
Perhaps this was to be the last night of all nights. It might well be,
when Jimsy King slept in a drunken stupor and a Yaqui Indian slave went
out with his life in his hands to help them. She crossed the veranda and
leaned down and laid her hand on the covered head. Her throat was so
swollen now that she could hardly make herself heard. "_Tu es amigo
leal, Juan_," she said. "Good friend; good friend!" Then in her careful
Spanish--"Go with God!"

He had been always an impassive creature, Yaqui Juan, his own personal
sufferings added to the native stoicism of his race, but he made an odd,
smothered sound now, and caught up the trailing end of her bright
_serape_ and pressed his face against it for an instant. Then he crept
away into the soft blackness of the tropic night and Honor went back
into the empty _sala_. She wished that she had seen his face; she was
mournfully sure she would never see it again. It did not seem humanly
possible for any o