tion, without resolve, almost without consciousness of what
she was doing, she flung herself on Alessandro's breast, and cried: "Oh,
Alessandro, take me with you! take me with you! I would rather die than
have you leave me again!"

XV

ALESSANDRO'S first answer to this cry of Ramona's was a tightening of
his arms around her; closer and closer he held her, till it was almost
pain; she could hear the throbs of his heart, but he did not speak.
Then, letting his arms fall, taking her hand in his, he laid it on
his forehead reverently, and said, in a voice which was so husky and
trembling she could barely understand his words: "My Senorita knows that
my life is hers. She can ask me to go into the fire or into the sea, and
neither the fire nor the sea would frighten me; they would but make
me glad for her sake. But I cannot take my Senorita's life to throw it
away. She is tender; she would die; she cannot lie on the earth for a
bed, and have no food to eat. My Senorita does not know what she says."

His solemn tone; this third-person designation, as if he were speaking
of her, not with her, almost as if he were thinking aloud to God rather
than speaking to her, merely calmed and strengthened, did not deter
Ramona. "I am strong; I can work too, Alessandro. You do not know. We
can both work. I am not afraid to lie on the earth; and God will give us
food," she said.

"That was what I thought, my Senorita, until now. When I rode away
that morning, I had it in my thoughts, as you say, that if you were not
afraid, I would not be; and that there would at least always be food,
and I could make it that you should never suffer; but, Senorita, the
saints are displeased. They do not pray for us any more. It is as my
father said, they have forsaken us. These Americans will destroy us all.
I do not know but they will presently begin to shoot us and poison
us, to get us all out of the country, as they do the rabbits and the
gophers; it would not be any worse than what they have done. Would not
you rather be dead, Senorita, than be as I am to-day?"

Each word he spoke but intensified Ramona's determination to share
his lot. "Alessandro," she interrupted, "there are many men among your
people who have wives, are there not?"

"Yes, Senorita!" replied Alessandro, wonderingly.

"Have their wives left them and gone away, now that this trouble has
come?"

"No, Senorita." still more wonderingly; "how could they?"

"They are going t