ocked--by the way, is not that a novelty here?--I
climbed the wall. But you, Miss Castro, you are trembling! Your little
hands are cold!

Jovita (glancing around). Nothing, nothing! But you are running a
terrible risk. At any moment we may be discovered.

Oakhurst. I understand you: it would be bad for the discoverer. Never
fear, I will be patient.

Jovita. But I feared that you might meet Concho.

Oakhurst. Concho--Concho--(meditatively). Let me see,--tall, dark, long
in the arm, weighs about one hundred and eighty, and active.

Jovita. Yes; tell me! You have met him?

Oakhurst. Possibly, possibly. Was he a friend of yours?

Jovita. No!

Oakhurst. That's better. Are his pursuits here sedentary, or active?

Jovita. He is my father's major-domo.

Oakhurst. I see: a sinecure. (Aside.) Well, if he has to lay up for a
week or two, the rancho won't suffer.

Jovita. Well?

Oakhurst. Well!

Jovita (passionately). There, having scaled the wall, at the risk of
being discovered--this is all you have to say! (Turning away.)

Oakhurst (quietly). Perhaps, Jovita (taking her hand with grave
earnestness), to a clandestine intimacy like ours there is but one end.
It is not merely elopement, not merely marriage, it is exposure! Sooner
or later you and I must face the eyes we now shun. What matters if
tonight or later?

Jovita (quickly). I am ready. It was you who--

Oakhurst. It was I who first demanded secrecy, but it was I who told you
when we last met that I would tell you why to-night.

Jovita. I am ready; but hear me, Juan, nothing can change my faith in
you!

Oakhurst (sadly). You know not what you say. Listen, my child. I am a
gambler. Not the man who lavishes his fortune at the gaming-table for
excitement's sake; not the fanatic who stakes his own earnings--perhaps
the confided earnings of others--on a single coup. No, he is the man who
loses,--whom the world deplores, pities, and forgives. I am the man who
wins--whom the world hates and despises.

Jovita. I do not understand you, Juan.

Oakhurst. So much the better, perhaps. But you must hear me. I make a
profession--an occupation more exacting, more wearying, more laborious,
than that of your meanest herdsman--of that which others make a
dissipation of the senses. And yet, Jovita, there is not the meanest
vaquero in this ranch, who, playing against me, winning or losing, is
not held to be my superior. I have no friends--only confederates. Even
the wo