Chapter 27 - Page 2

receipt to show that he took those cattle."

"Oh, you must not offend him," Dolores agreed, hastily, "or we'd never leave Mexico alive." With which cheering announcement the housekeeper heaved a deep sigh and went about her duties with a gloomy face.

Longorio arrived that afternoon, and Alaire received him in the great naked living room of the hacienda, with her best attempt at formality. But her coolness served not in the least to chill his fervor.

"Senora," he cried, eagerly, "I have a thousand things to tell you, things of the greatest importance. They have been upon my tongue for hours, but now that I behold you I grow drunk with delight and my lips frame nothing but words of admiration for your beauty. So! I feast my eyes." He retained his warm clasp of her fingers, seeming to envelop her uncomfortably with his ardor.

"What is it you have to tell me?" she asked him, withdrawing her hand.

"Well, I hardly know where to begin--events have moved so swiftly, and such incredible things have happened. Even now I am in a daze, for history is being made every hour--history for Mexico, for you, and for me. I bring you good news and bad news; something to startle you and set your brain in a whirl. I planned to send a messenger ahead of me, and then I said: 'No, this is a crisis; therefore no tongue but mine shall apprise her, no hand but mine shall comfort her. Only a coward shrinks from the unpleasant; I shall lighten her distress and awaken in her breast new hope, new happiness'--"

"What do you mean?" Alaire inquired, sharply. "You say you bring bad news?"

The general nodded. "In a way, terrible, shocking! And yet I look beyond the immediate and see in it a blessing. So must you. To me it spells the promise of my unspoken longings, my whispered prayers." Noting his hearer's growing bewilderment, he laid a hand familiarly upon her arm. "No matter how I tell you, it will be a blow, for death is always sudden; it always finds us unprepared."

"Death? Who--is dead?"

"Restrain yourself. Allow for my clumsiness."

"Who? Please tell me?"

"Some one very close to you and very dear to you at one time. My knowledge of your long unhappiness alone gives me courage to speak."

Alaire raised her fluttering fingers to her throat; her eyes were wide as she said: "You don't mean--Mr. Austin?"

"Yes." Longorio scrutinized her closely, as if to measure the effect of his disclosure. "Senora, you are free!"

Alaire uttered a breathless exclamation; then, feeling his gaze burning into her, turned away, but not before he had noted her sudden pallor, the blanching of her lips.

This unexpected announcement dazed her; it scattered her thoughts and