ief actor in this fragment of
human drama she could picture lying inert, uncaring that it was for him
that a bell had tolled and would toll again, that men congregated
curiously.

In a little while Ignacio would return, shuffling, smoking a dangling
cigarette, his hat cocked against the sun; he would give her full
particulars and then return to his bell. . . . She had come to San
Juan to make a home here, to become a part of it, to make it a portion
of her. To arrive upon a day like this was no pleasant omen; it was
too dreadfully like taking a room in a house only to hear the life
rattling out of a man beyond a partition. She was suddenly averse to
hearing Ignacio's details; there came a quick desire to set her back to
the town whose silence on the heels of uproar crushed her. Rising
hastily, she hurried down the weed-bordered walk, out at the broken
gate, and turned toward the mountains. One glance down the street as
she crossed it showed her what she had expected: a knot of men at the
door of the Casa Blanca, another small group at a window, evidently
taking stock of a broken window-pane.

The sun, angry and red, was hanging low over a distant line of hills,
the flat lands were already drawing about them a thin, faintly colorful
haze. She had put on her hat and, like Ignacio, had set it a little to
the side of her head, feeling her cheeks burning when the direct rays
found them. The fine, loose soil was sifting into her low slippers
before she had gone a score of paces. When she came back she would
unpack her trunk and get out a sensible pair of boots. No doubt she
was dressed ridiculously, but then the heat had tempted her. . . .

A curious matter presented itself to her. In the little groups upon
the street she had not seen a single woman. Were there none in San
Juan? Was this some strange, altogether masculine, community into
which she had stumbled? Then she remembered how the bell-ringer had
mentioned Mrs. Engle, the banker's wife, and his daughter and Mrs.
Struve and others. Besides all this she had a letter to Mrs. Engle
which she was going to present this evening. . . .

She was thinking of anything in the world but of a tragedy not yet
grown cold, so near her that for a little it had seemed to embrace her.
Now it was almost as though it had not occurred. The world was all
unchanged about her, the town somnolent. She had shuddered as Ignacio
played upon his bell; but the shudder was rather