Beth Norvell

Mercedes stood in the shade of the towering hillside, the single beam

of light shining from an uncurtained window alone faintly revealing her

slenderness of figure in its red drapery. No other gleam anywhere

cleft the prevailing darkness of the night, and the only perceptible

sound was that of horses' hoofs dying away in the distance. The girl

was not crying, although one of her hands was held across her eyes, and

her bosom rose and fell tumultuously to labored breathing. She stood

silent, motionless, the strange radiance causing her to appear unreal,

some divinely moulded statue, an artist's dream carven in colored

stone. Suddenly she sprang backward from out that revealing tongue of

light and crouched low at the angle of the house, not unlike some

affrighted wild animal, her head bent forward intently listening.

There was a plainly perceptible movement in the gloom, the sound of an

approaching footstep and of rapid breathing, and finally a shadow

became visible. The watcher leaped to her feet half angrily.

"Ah! so eet vas you, señorita!" she exclaimed, her voice betraying her

emotion,--"you, who come so dis night. Sapristi! vy you follow me

dis vay? By all de saints, I make you tell me dat! You vant him, too?

You vant rob me of all thing?"

The visitor, startled by this sudden challenge, stood before her

trembling from head to foot with the nervous excitement of her journey,

yet her eyes remained darkly resolute.

"You recognize me," she responded quickly, reaching out and touching

the other with one hand, as if to make certain of her actual presence.

"Then for God's sake do not waste time now in quarrelling. I did not

make this trip without a purpose. 'He,' you say? Who is he? Who was

it that rode away from here just now? Not Farnham?"

Mercedes laughed a trifle uneasily, her eyes suddenly lowered before

the other's anxious scrutiny.

"Ah, no, señorita," she answered softly. "Eet surprises me mooch you

not know; eet vas Señor Brown."

Miss Norvell grasped her firmly by the shoulder.

"Brown?" she exclaimed eagerly. "Stutter Brown? Oh, call him back;

cannot you call him back?"

The young Mexican shook her head, her white teeth gleaming, as she drew

her shoulder free from the fingers clasping it.

"You vas too late, señorita," she replied, sweetly confident. "He vas

already gone to de 'Little Yankee.' But he speak mooch to me first."

"Much about what?"

"Vel, he say he lofe me--he say eet straight, like eet vas vat he

meant."

"Oh!"

"Si, señorita; he not even talk funny, maybe he so excited he forgot

how, hey? An' vat you tink dat he say den to Mercedes--vat?"

The other shook her head, undecided, hesitating as to her own purpose.