elp that. She would be going out to do a little
shopping, ostensibly, and she would hope to encounter him on the street,
either coming or going.

However, her earnest planning proved to be of no avail. Fectnor was
nowhere to be seen.

She walked rather leisurely through the town--moving barely fast enough to
avoid the appearance of loitering. She walked circumspectly enough,
seemingly taking little interest in events or individuals. That she was
keenly on the alert for one familiar face no one would have guessed.

She got quite to the end of the main street, and then she halted in
painful uncertainty. If she turned back now she would have to go on
steadily back to her home, save for a brief stop at one of the stores, or
else betray the fact to any who might be curiously observing her that she
was on the street on some secret mission.

She stood for a space, trying to decide what to do. Often before she had
stood on that very spot to view the picture which men and the desert had
painted on a vast canvas down toward the river. She occupied a point of
vantage at the top of a long flight of stone steps, broken and ancient,
leading down to the Rio Grande and its basin. Along the water's edge in
the distance, down in the depths below her, ancient Mexican women were
washing garments by a process which must have been old in Pharaoh's time:
by spreading them on clean rocks and kneading them or applying brushes.
The river flowed placidly; the sunlight enveloped water and rock and shore
and the patient women bending over their tasks. Nineveh or Tyre might have
presented just such a picture of burdened women, concealing no one might
say what passions and fires under an exterior which suggested docility or
the unkind pressure of tradition's hand or even hopelessness.

But Sylvia scarcely saw the picture now. She was recalling the words she
had written in that message to her father. If only she had not defied
Fectnor; if only she had made a plea for pity, or suggested a fear of her
husband--or if she hadn't sent any answer at all!

It occurred to her that the exposure which menaced her was as nothing to
the perils to which she had subjected Harboro. She knew instinctively that
Harboro was not a man to submit to deliberate injury from any source. He
would defend himself in the face of any danger; he would defend that which
belonged to him. And Fectnor was cruel and unscrupulous and cunning. He
knew how to provoke quarrels and to