She looked up with her naïve smile.
“I can tell you, yes. A cousin of Señor Menendez married a sister of Madame de Stämer.”
“Good heavens!” I exclaimed, “a very remote kinship.”
“It was in this way they met, in Paris, I think, and”—she raised her hands expressively—“she came with him to the West Indies, although it was during the great war. I think she loved him more than her soul, and me—me she hated. As Señor Menendez dismounted from his horse in front of the house he saw me.”
She sighed and ceased speaking again. Then:
“That very night,” she continued, “he began. Do you know? I was trying to escape from him when Madame de Stämer found us. She called me a shameful name, and my father, who heard it, ordered her out of the house. Señor Menendez spoke sharply, and my father struck him.”
She paused once more, biting her lip agitatedly, but presently proceeded:
“Do you know what they are like, the Spanish, when their blood is hot? Senor Menendez had a revolver, but my father knocked it from his grasp. Then they fought with their bare hands. I was too frightened even to cry out. It was all a horrible dream. What Madame de Stämer did, I do not know. I could see nothing but two figures twined together on the floor. At last one of them arose. I saw it was my father, and I remember no more.”
She was almost overcome by her tragic recollections, but presently, with a wonderful courage, which, together with her daintiness of form, spoke eloquently of good blood on one side at any rate, continued to speak:
“My father found he must go to Cuba to make arrangements for the future. Of course, our life there was finished. Ah Tsong stayed with me. You have heard how it used to be in those islands in the old days, but now you think it is so different? I used to think it was different, too. On the first night my father was away, Ah Tsong, who had gone out, was so long returning I became afraid. Then a strange negro came with news that he had been taken ill with cholera, and was lying at a place not far from the house. I forgot my fears and hurried off with this man. Ah!”