iling at her presumption of authority over him,
"and you, too, Ted." The men emptied their pockets, and Hope poured
the mass of silver into the hands of the women, who gazed at it
uncomprehendingly.

"Thank you for your trouble and your good supper," Hope said in
Spanish, "and may no evil come to your house."

The woman and her daughters followed her to the carriage, bowing and
uttering good wishes in the extravagant metaphor of their country; and
as they drove away, Hope waved her hand to them as she sank closer
against Clay's shoulder.

"The world is full of such kind and gentle souls," she said.

In an hour they had regained the main road, and a little later the
stars grew dim and the moonlight faded, and trees and bushes and rocks
began to take substance and to grow into form and outline. They saw by
the cool, gray light of the morning the familiar hills around the
capital, and at a cry from the boys on the box-seat, they looked ahead
and beheld the harbor of Valencia at their feet, lying as placid and
undisturbed as the water in a bath-tub. As they turned up the hill
into the road that led to the Palms, they saw the sleeping capital like
a city of the dead below them, its white buildings reddened with the
light of the rising sun. From three places in different parts of the
city, thick columns of smoke rose lazily to the sky.

"I had forgotten!" said Clay; "they have been having a revolution here.
It seems so long ago."

By five o'clock they had reached the gate of the Palms, and their
appearance startled the sentry on post into a state of undisciplined
joy. A riderless pony, the one upon which Jose' had made his escape
when the firing began, had crept into the stable an hour previous,
stiff and bruised and weary, and had led the people at the Palms to
fear the worst.

Mr. Langham and his daughter were standing on the veranda as the horses
came galloping up the avenue. They had been awake all the night, and
the face of each was white and drawn with anxiety and loss of sleep.
Mr. Langham caught Hope in his arms and held her face close to his in
silence.

"Where have you been?" he said at last. "Why did you treat me like
this? You knew how I would suffer."

"I could not help it," Hope cried. "I had to go with Madame Alvarez."

Her sister had suffered as acutely as had Mr. Langham himself, as long
as she was in ignorance of Hope's whereabouts. But now that she saw
Hope in the flesh again, she fel