“If you will remember,” he contended, “I did it at the pistol point. How was I to know but what I would get shot if I didn’t.”
“Oh, hush, hush,” she begged. “You must go with me now to the house. And you can tell me about Henry on the way.”
Her eyes chanced upon the handkerchief she had flung so contemptuously aside. She ran to it and picked it up.
“Poor, ill-treated kerchief,” she crooned to it. “To you also must I make amends. I shall myself launder you, and....” Her eyes lifted to Francis as she addressed him. “And return it to you, sir, fresh and sweet and all wrapped around my heart of gratitude....”
“And the mark of the beast?” he queried.
“I am so sorry,” she confessed penitently.
“And may I be permitted to rest my shadow upon you?”
“Do! Do!” she cried gaily. “There! I am in your shadow now. And we must start.”
Francis tossed a peso to the grinning Indian boy, and, in high elation, turned and followed her into the tropic growth on the path that led up to the white hacienda.