Someone approached.
"Is that you, Manoel ?" asked Luisa Gomez in a hushed voice.
There was no answer.

The woman drew back.

She would have closed the door, but a slim, active figure sprang across the threshold.

She shrieked in terror.

The new-comer was a Brazilian officer, one of those glittering beings whom she had seen lounging outside the Prindio[1] during her rare visits to the town.