“I must see you at once. Something very alarming has happened. I am going out riding this afternoon, as usual. Will you meet me at the same place? If you can’t be there tell bearer.”
Hawley sent word by the bearer, one of the men-servants of Minister Throgmorton’s household, that he would surely be there. The steamship Panama was due to arrive and leave that afternoon, and if he kept this appointment he would be unable to sail on her; but he had already fully decided that he was not going back to the United States just yet. He hated to disappoint Señora Felix, but the latest developments had removed from his mind all doubts as to what course he should follow.
Virginia Throgmorton’s pretty face wore a very grave and perturbed expression when Hawley galloped up to the old trysting place on the steed he had hired for the occasion. “I don’t think I was followed,” she began, “but if I was it can’t be helped. I have some news so important and serious that I had to run the risk of meeting you once more.”
“Is it about our friend Gale?” the Camera Chap inquired, having a shrewd suspicion of the cause of the girl’s anxiety.
“Yes; how did you guess—or do you know about that dinner last night?”
“I know a little about it, I think,” Hawley answered. “I met Gale last evening on Avenida Juarez, as he was returning from the palace, and he told me that he had been President Portiforo’s guest at dinner.”
A shade flitted across the girl’s face. “Did he tell you what took place at that dinner?”
The Camera Chap nodded grimly.
“What is to be done?” exclaimed Virginia, in a tone of deep concern. “Poor Señora Felix! I fear that all her brave efforts to save her husband have been in vain. Now that Portiforo knows that the press of the United States is aware of his secret, he will take no chances. In order to avert discovery he will resort to desperate measures.”
“The situation is pretty bad,” Hawley admitted. “Still, it might be worse, I think. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since I met Gale last night, and I believe I’ve hit upon a way of lulling Portiforo into a sense of false security.”