“I am Miss De Sutro. Are you Miss Ruth Arden?” she asked.
“I am.”
“Will you, knowing as I do your reasons for coming to the fort, let me offer you my sincere sympathy?”
“You are very kind, and I thank you, Miss De Sutro.”
“Remember, Miss Arden, it is more than an ordinary interest that I feel in you, as your brother saved my life when I was a schoolgirl, going to Mexico to attend the convent where I was educated. Meeting him here, in the part he was playing with such daring, and believing him to be a man of honor when I met him, I felt more than a passing regard for him, and we were, I may say, the best of friends, yet I never heard him speak of having a sister.”
“Yet you see that he has one, and I am sorry he was taken from me, when I was a mere girl, by circumstances which drove him a fugitive from our home. I have tried hard to redeem my misguided brother, Miss De Sutro, to bring him back from the path he has chosen, but all in vain, and now he sees an ignominious death staring him in the face, and I thank Heaven that our father and mother are both dead, and that I alone remain to suffer the ignominy and despair of his deeds which bring him in shame to the grave.”
Nina de Sutro listened to every word uttered by the girl, her eyes seeming to pierce to her heart, and she saw only purity, truth, and honor upon every feature, and, after again expressing her sympathy, turned and left the room, while she said to herself, with decided emphasis:
“There is no deception there, for that girl is his sister, and is more unfortunate than even I am, for she loves him.”
Hastening home she found that Mrs. De Sutro and her two visitors had gone to join the “Petticoat Convention,” as the officers called the gathering of the ladies, and, seeking Clarice, she said in a whisper:
“I have just seen that beautiful girl.”