e," he said. "You have been here a week only. Your brain is
a little turned, and no wonder. You've put a lifetime of suffering
into that week. But I'm going to take care of you hereafter, and that
she-devil will have no more to say about it. I'll either take you to
your father, or to my mother in Boston--whichever you like."

Benito brought in the coffee and some fresh bread and dried meat. Pilar
ate and drank ravenously. She had found only stale bread and water in
the cave. When she had finished, she looked at Sturges with a more
intelligent light in her eyes, then thrust her straggling locks behind
her ears. She also resumed something of her old dignified composure.

"You are very kind, senor," she said graciously. "It is true that I
should have been mad in a few more days. At first I did nothing but run,
run, run--the cave is miles in the mountain; but since when I cannot
remember I have huddled against that stone, listening--listening; and at
last you came."

Sturges thought her more beautiful than ever. The light was streaming
upon her now, and although she was white and haggard she looked far less
cold and unapproachable than when he had endeavoured in vain to win a
glance from her in the church. He put his hand on her tangled hair. "You
shall suffer no more," he repeated; "and this will grow again. And that
beautiful mane--it is mine. I begged it from the Alcalde, and it is safe
in my trunk."

"Ah, you love me!" she said softly.

"Yes, I love you!" And then, as her eyes grew softer and she caught his
hand in hers with an exclamation of passionate gratitude for his gallant
rescue, he took her in his arms without more ado and kissed her.

"Yes, I could love you," she said in a moment. "For, though you are not
handsome, like the men of my race, you are true and good and brave: all
I dreamed that a man should be until that creature made all men seem
loathsome. But I will not marry you till you bring me his head--"

"Oh! come. So lovely a woman should not be so blood-thirsty. He has been
punished enough. Besides what I gave him, he's been sent off to spend
the rest of his life in some hole where he'll have neither books nor
society--"

"It is not enough! When a man betrays a woman, and causes her to be
beaten and publicly disgraced--it will be written in the books of the
Alcalde, senor!--and shut up in a cave to suffer the tortures of the
damned in hell, he should die."

"Well, I think he should myself, but