"This must not be," he stormed. "Such a journey! Twenty-five hundred miles! And for a man who has not deigned to write to you! It is degrading. I will not have it. I forbid it."
"Coronado, stop!" ordered Clara; and it is to be feared that she stamped her little foot at him; at all events she quelled him instantly.
He sat down, glared like a mad dog, sprang up and rushed to the door, halted there to stare at her imploringly, and finally muttered in a hoarse voice, "Well—let it be so—since you are crazed. But I shall go with you."
"You can go," replied Clara haughtily, after meditating for some seconds, during which he looked the picture of despair. "You can go, if you wish it."
An hour later she said, in her usually gentle tone, "Coronado, pardon me for having spoken to you angrily. You are kinder than I deserve."
The reader can infer from this speech how humble, helpful, and courteous the man had been in the mean time. Coronado was no half-way character; if he did not like you, he was the fellow to murder you; if he decided to be sweet, he was all honey. Perhaps we ought to ask excuse for Clara's tartness by explaining that she was in a state of extreme anxiety, remembering that Robinson had hesitated when he said Thurstane was not so very ill, and fearing lest he knew worse things than he had told.
Meanwhile, let no one suppose that the Mexican meant to let his lady love go to Fort Yuma. He had his plan for stopping her, and we may put confidence enough in him to believe that it was a good one; only at the last moment circumstances turned up which decided him to drop it. Yes, at the last moment, just as he was about to pull his leading strings, he saw good reason for wishing her far away from San Francisco.
A face appeared to him; at the first glimpse of it Coronado slipped into the nearest doorway, and from that moment his chief anxiety was to cause the girl to vanish. Yes, he must get her started on her voyage, even at the risk of her continuing it.
"What the devil is he here for?" he muttered. "Has he found out that she is living?"