That night a boy brought to Jane's door a queer little collapsible trunk of sun-cured hide, thonged fast with leather loops. The Navajo blanket was outside. Jane surmised that Mr. Keene had sent it because he dreaded its saddening associations. A message from him conveyed the information that he expected to leave town early the next morning, and that Lola would be sent over from the Vigils.
All during the afternoon Jane waited with breathless expectancy. The afternoon waned, but Lola did not come. Finally, possessed of fear and foreboding, Jane set forth to inquire into the matter.
Upon opening the Vigil gate, she saw Lola herself sitting on the doorstep, looking over toward the little wood crosses of the Mexican burying-ground. The girl hardly noted Jane's approach, but behind her, Señora Vigil came forward, shaking her head at Jane and touching her lip significantly.
"She does not know," whispered the señora. "Her papa did not say good-by. He said it was better for him to 'slip away.' And me—I could not tell her! I am only a woman."
"You think—she will not want—to live with me?"
The other's face grew very bland. "She said to-day 'how ugly' was your house," confessed Señora Vigil. "And when you was feeding your chickens she cried out, 'Hola, what a queer woman is yonder!' Children have funny things in their heads. But it is for you to tell her you come to fetch her away!" And the señora called out, "Lolita, ven aca!"
The girl looked up startled. "Que hay?" she asked, coming toward them apprehensively.
"Lola," began Jane, "your papa wants you should stay with me for a while. He—he saw how lonesome I was," she continued, unwisely, "and—and so he decided to leave you here. Lola, I hope—I—" She could not go on for the strangeness in Lola's gaze.
"Is he gone—my father? But no! he would not leave me behind! No! no! Dejeme! dejeme! you do not say the truth! You shall not touch me! I will not—will not go with you!" She turned wildly, dizzily, as if about to run she knew not where; and then flung herself down before Señora Vigil, clasping the Mexican woman's knees in a frantic, fainting grasp.