And his voice rose.
“There is the peril that the new master will abandon the blunderer for the insult, and there is the peril that the old one will destroy him for the sacrilege!”
At this moment the door behind Zindorf opened, and the young girl entered. She was excited and her eyes danced.
“Oh!” she said, “people are coming on every road!”
She looked, my father said, like a painted picture, her dark Castilian beauty illumined by the pleasure in her interpretation of events. She thought the countryside assembled after the manner of my father to express its felicitations.
Zindorf crossed in great strides to the window: Mr. Lucian Morrow, sober and overwhelmed by the mystery of events about him, got unsteadily on his feet, holding with both hands to the oak back of a chair.
My father said that the tragedy of the thing was on him, and he acted under the pressure of it.
“My child,” he said, “you are to go to the house of your grandfather in Havana. If Mr. Lucian Morrow wishes to renew his suit for your hand in marriage, he will do it there. Go now and make your preparations for the journey.”
The girl cried out in pleasure at the words.
“My grandfather is a great person in New Spain. I have always longed to see him... father promised... and now I am to go ... when do we set out, Meester Pendleton?”