"She notices nothing, and says nothing, but she does not scream for some one who was dead and is now alive, as she did last night, when she laughed and wept; so I think that means the herb teas have checked the fever. Do not you?"
Just then the bell rang in the patio for the rosary, and Juanita, with a word of apology, slipped away, saying diffidently, "Though you are welcome to come and pray with us,"—divided between her wish to have him, and her reluctance to make it obligatory on a heretical guest to attend their services.
"I shall pray with you," he said, simply, "but I shall remain here. My presence might not have a soothing effect on your servants. I shall smoke a cigar here on the terrace until you return."
Juanita blushed. She would rather have lingered there herself than joined the others. The dusk was coming on; a few last bars of red lay along the sky line to the west where the sea was, and at that hour there was no corner so delightfully appealing as the great veranda where the gold-of-Ophir roses made a lattice of green and yellow against the warm sky.
Ana entered and lit a candle in the hall and another in the room of Raquel, and went out again with a quiet nod to the American guest pacing the veranda aimlessly, and smoking one of Don Enrico's prime cigarros.
When she had disappeared, he sauntered as aimlessly through the hall to the patio where the dark people were gathered with bent heads, murmuring responses sullenly, scarcely daring to lift their eyes to the group on the veranda.
A few candles had been lit along the wall where the shadows were deepening, and in their soft light Bryton could see Don Enrico and all the men of the ranch—vaqueros and ploughmen alike—kneeling back of the women, and the red light yet showing through the gray of the ashes where the flames had leaped so lately.
