“Oh, Theodore, why do you torture me by hiding things from me? Something has happened, I know.”
“You will know all in a few days, Juanita. Thank God, a great fear that has haunted me for some time past is now at an end. I can look at you and your child without seeing the shadow of an enemy across your path.”
She looked at him searchingly.
“All this amounts to nothing,” she said. “I have never feared for myself or thought of myself. Will my husband’s death be avenged, and soon, soon, soon? That is the question.”
“That is a question which you yourself may be called upon to answer—and very soon,” he said.
He would say no more, in spite of her feverish eagerness, her impatient questionings.
“I have changed my mind, Juanita,” he said presently. “I will not bore you with my company till I am free to answer your questions. The motive for my presence in this house is at an end.”
“Is it? What has become of the suspicious characters my father talked about?”
“The danger has not come this way—as he feared it might.”
“Stay,” she said. “Whether there is danger or not you are going to stay. I will not be played fast and loose with by any visitor. Mother likes to have you here, and baby likes you.”