finally his lithe body was
launched upward, and he snapped both the cake and the hand that teased
him.

'Twas the merest scratch, and truly the dog meant it not in anger; but
on the instant Dona Orosia flushed crimson to her very brow, and,
drawing up her silken skirt, she snatched a jewelled dagger from her
garter and plunged it to the hilt in the poor beast's throat. The red
blood spouted, and the huge body dropped in a tawny heap.

I rushed forward and lifted the great head; but the eyes were glazed.

"Senora!" I cried, "senora! the poor brute loved you!"

She spurned the limp body with a careless foot, saying,--

"So did--once--the man who gave it me."

Then she clapped her hands, and the negro servant came and at her
command dragged away the carcass, wiped the bloody floor, and brought a
basin of clear water and a linen cloth to bathe the scratch on her hand.
When he had gone she made me bind it up with her broidered kerchief and
stamped her foot because I drew the knot over-tight.

"Dona Orosia," I said, when I had done it to her liking. "If all you
care for, in this other matter, is to get rid of my white face, I pray
you kill me with your dagger and ask your lord to let my love go free."

She looked up curiously. "Would you die for him?" she asked.

"Most willingly, an it please you to make my death his ransom."

Still she gazed at me and seemed strangely stirred. "Once I loved like
that," she said in musing tones. "I will tell thee a tale, child, for I
like not the reproach in those blue eyes. Five years ago, when I was as
young as thou art now, I lived with my parents in Valencia, where the
flowers are even sweeter and the skies bluer than here in sunny Florida.
I had a lover in those days, who followed me like my shadow, and, in
spite of my old duenna, found many a moment to pour his passion in my
ears. He was a brave man and a handsome, and he won my heart from me.
Though he had no great fortune I would have wed him willingly and
followed him over land and sea. I never doubted him for a day; and when
he came to my father's house with an old nobleman, his uncle and the
head of his family, I was well content; for my mother told me they had
asked for my hand and it had been promised. But when my father called me
in at last to see my future husband, it was the old man who met me with
a simper on his wrinkled face. I turned to the nephew; but he was gazing
out of the window----"

She broke off with a