Christina slowly
closed the window and turned her eyes upon the room. She saw the lamp
upon the table and the gloves in parallel lines beneath it.

Now Shere was so far right in that the gloves were intended as a
signal for Esteban; only owing to that complete revulsion of which the
padre had seen the possibility, Shere had mistaken the signal. The
passionate believer had again become the passionate cynic. He saw the
trick, and setting no trust in the girl who played it, heeding neither
her looks nor words nor the sincerity of her voice, had no doubt that
it was aimed against him; whereas it was aimed to protect him. Shere
had no doubt that the gloves crossed meant that he still had the
sealed letter in his keeping, and therefore he disarranged them. But
in truth the gloves crossed meant that Christina had it, and that the
messenger might go unhindered upon his way.

Christina uttered no cry. She simply did not believe what her eyes
saw. She needed to touch the gloves before she was convinced, and when
she had done that she was at once not sure but that she herself in
touching them had ranged them in these lines. In the end, however,
she understood, not the how or why, but the mere fact. She ran to the
door, along the gallery, down the steps into the courtyard. She met no
one. The house might have been a deserted ruin from its silence.
She crossed the courtyard to the glimmering white walls, and passed
through the gates on to the road. The night was clear; and ahead of
her far away in the middle of the road a lantern shone very red.
Christina ran towards it, and as she approached she saw faces like
miniatures grouped above it. They did not heed her until she was close
upon them, until she had noticed one man holding a riderless horse
apart from the group and another coiling up a stout rope. Then
Esteban, who was holding the lantern, raised his hand to keep her
back.

"There has been an accident," said he. "He fell, and fell awkwardly,
the horse with him."

"An accident," said Christina, and she pointed to the coil of rope. It
was no use for her now to say that she had forbidden violence. Indeed,
at no time, as she told Shere, would it have been of any use. She
pushed through the group to where Dennis Shere lay on the ground, his
face white and shiny and tortured with pain. She knelt down on the
ground and took his head in her hands as though she would raise it on
to her lap, but one man stopped her, saying, "It is