When the night was old, and others slept, Raquel Arteaga crept in silence to the bedside of the old Indian woman of the hill tribe who had been her nurse, who was still her maid, and who was the one link she kept near her of the old life.
"Tia Polonia, awake!" she said, briefly; and as the woman did so, frightened and full of questions, her mistress held up her hand and rested herself on the side of the pallet, regarding the dark old face with doubt.
"Thy husband, beloved,—he has—"
"It is not my husband this time, Polonia. He is quite safe at the gaming-table, and will come in at sunrise with empty pockets. It is not my husband. It is—" She paused a long time, scrutinizing every feature of the old woman, who grew gray of visage under those smouldering eyes, and her hands shook.
"Darling, little one, thou art so like thy mother; more than ever when angry, and it is night; and I—Holy God! It is like a ghost comes to my bed to—to—ah, Doña Espiritu—mia!—what is the anger in thine eyes?"
"Can a dead woman be angry?" demanded her mistress drearily, the beautiful curved mouth quivering for an instant. "And it is a dead woman they have made of me—all of you! You lied to me, Polonia, when you brought word to me he had died there in Mexico!"
The old woman covered her face with her hands, and sank back whimpering on the pallet.
"I trusted you, and you lied to me, all of you!" the girl repeated in a hopeless tone of finality. "All these months he has been alive, and I have not known. You liars—liars—liars accursed!"
The old woman uttered a smothered shriek, and buried her face in the blankets.