The watcher leaped to her feet half angrily.
"Ah! so eet vas you, senorita!" she exclaimed, her voice betraying her emotion,--"you, who come so dis night.

_Sapristi_! vy you follow me dis vay?
By all de saints, I make you tell me dat! You vant him, too?
You vant rob me of all thing ?" The visitor, startled by this sudden challenge, stood before her trembling from head to foot with the nervous excitement of her journey, yet her eyes remained darkly resolute.
"You recognize me," she responded quickly, reaching out and touching the other with one hand, as if to make certain of her actual presence.
"Then for God's sake do not waste time now in quarrelling.

I did not make this trip without a purpose.

'He,' you say?
Who is he?
Who was it that rode away from here just now?
Not Farnham ?" Mercedes laughed a trifle uneasily, her eyes suddenly lowered before the other's anxious scrutiny.
"Ah, no, senorita," she answered softly.

"Eet surprises me mooch you not know; eet vas Senor Brown." Miss Norvell grasped her firmly by the shoulder.
"Brown ?" she exclaimed eagerly.