"'Loves you!' I cried. 'Have I not loved you since the day you were born?' And right there, señores, the first great lesson of this life came to me. For the first time there was no response in her bosom to the emotion in my own—to the yearning of my heart—and I became faint, my spirit sick.
"'I love him,' she gasped, faintly, her hand on her heart, and bending her head still lower.
"'O Paquita! Paquita!' was all that I could say in my sorrow. 'Love him? This is madness. Behold, you are unhappy even now, and never before this hour has a shadow of sorrow fallen between you and me.'
"'This is different,' she murmured, her head still bowed, her hand still striving to restrain the wild beating of her heart. 'We are to be wed.'
"As I was turning to leave her, she suddenly burst into tears and threw herself upon my breast. 'Oh, you are wrong! You are wrong!' she cried, looking for the first time into my eyes, but through tears, devouring my doubts in the fire of her passion. Señores, think of a joy drowned in tears! 'O my brother,' she cried, 'you are wrong, for I was never so happy in my life! I love him! I love him! Say that you are not angry; say that you love me, too; tell me that you will never leave me; for I am afraid.' And she clung to me with a wild strength that you will not believe.
"It was not long after that night that I learned the whole story.
"'When next you dance,' said De Sanchez, as he handed her the dagger, 'wear this token of my love for you.'
"'And do you love me?' she replied, seeking to read through his black eyes the blacker soul behind.
"'Here is a symbol of the True Cross,' he said, placing his hand upon the cross of the dagger's hilt, and upon her hand; 'let it be the emblem of our faith, each in the other's love.'
"'And here is the sharpness of a serpent's tooth,' she said, placing a little finger-tip upon the dagger's point; for you see—God help her!—deep in her heart she mistrusted him at that moment, and did not know it.