understood perfectly.... I hope you
understand, too, that I------"

"Senor, my cousin," she flashed out suddenly, "do you think that I would
have consented only from my affection for him?"

"Senorita," I cried, "I am poor, homeless, in a foreign land. How can I
believe? How can I dare to dream?--unless your own voice------"

"Then you are permitted to ask. Ask, Don Juan."

I dropped on one knee, and, suddenly extending her arm, she pressed her
hand to my lips. Lighted up from below, the picturesque aspect of her
figure took on something of a transcendental grace; the unusual upward
shadows invested her beauty with a new mystery of fascination. A minute
passed. I could hear her rapid breathing above, and I stood up before
her, holding both her hands.

"How very few days have we been together," she whispered. "Juan, I am
ashamed."

"I did not count the days. I have known you always. I have dreamed of
you since I can remember--for days, for months, a year, all my life."

The crash of a heavy door flung to, exploded, filling the galleries all
round the _patio_ with the sonorous reminder of our peril.

"Ah! We had forgotten."

I heard her voice, and felt her form in my arms. Her lips at my ear
pronounced:

"Remember, Juan. Two lives, but one death only."

And she was gone so quickly that it was as though she had passed through
the wood of the massive panels.

La Chica crouched on her knees. The lights on the floor burned before
her empty stare, and with her bare shoulders the tone of old ivory
emerging from the white linen, with wisps of raven hair hanging down her
cheeks, the abandonment of her whole person embodied every outward mark
and line of desolation.

"What do you fear from him?" I asked.

She looked up; moved nearer to me on her knees. "I have a lover
outside."

She seized her hair wildly, drew it across her face, tried to stuff
handfuls of it into her mouth, as if to stop herself from shrieking.

"He shook his finger at me," she moaned.

Her terror, as incomprehensible as the emotion of an animal, was gaining
upon me. I said sternly:

"What can he do, then?"

"I don't know."

She did not know. She was like me. She feared for her love. Like myself!
Was there anything in the way of our undoing which it was not in his
power to achieve?

"Try to be faithful to your mistress," I said, "and all may be well
yet."

She made no answer, but staggered to her feet, and went away blindly
through