"Well, señores, the next evening after I had awaited Alberto de Sanchez's coming a sufficient time at the 'otel, I took up my stand at the entrance of the Field Building. I rolled a cigarette and lighted it, and as I tossed the match away, I saw him coming confidently as of old. God, how I hated him then!
"I walked leisurely up the Field Building stairway, knowing that I need not hurry, and down the hall to the window overlooking the—what you call the little space?—light-well? Gracias, señor. Not too close, for there might be some one to observe me at the other windows. Looking across the light-well, I could see the whole length of the other hall—that along which he was to approach me. Ah, how beautifully it was all arranged, for I was in darkness, while he would be in the light.
"So I stood there smoking my cigarette, one arm folded across my breast—so—the hand thereof resting on the dagger in my pocket—for I had taken it from the Señor Doctor's desk; and presently I saw a woman flit swiftly across the hall from the Señor Doctor's office and vanish. I had no time to wonder at this, for at the same instant I beheld Alberto de Sanchez appear at the head of the stairs and turn toward the Señor Doctor's office—toward me!
"Was there then a thought of Paquita—of Fernando del Castillo in his mind?
"Listen, and you shall judge.
"As he approached nearer and nearer, the light before the Señor Doctor's office shone with a growing brightness upon his handsome face; and presently I noted there the look of doubt, as though the soul were asking a question of his memory which it could not answer; the look with which he had ever regarded Juan Vargas.
"'When he stands beneath the light,' I whispered—'then!'
"Ah, and then!
"When he arrived beneath the light, I threw my cigarette out of the window, seized the dagger by its silver blade—as in the old days—and raised it above my head. Whether it was one or the other of these movements that caught his eye, I do not know. He was facing me then, and suddenly he looked at me. Ah, señores, it did my heart good to behold his expression change, even as I had often pictured it. His memory, at last, had given the soul its answer, and terror shone from his eyes—he recognized Fernando del Castillo in the avenging figure that confronted him.
"'Taking a step backward, so that my hand might not strike the sash of the window, I prayed, 'Soul of Paquita, strengthen my arm to avenge thee!'