''No, no! I thought it might be as well to take down the new curtains—the blood might spoil them.'
'Need I say I terminated my interview with my hostess, more impressed with admiration of her business qualities than of her sympathetic virtues? But let me do the poor woman justice; life is held so cheap, and the knife acts so large a part in Mexico, that violence and sudden death produce a mere transient effect.
IX.
'Instead of going to my own apartments, I went direct to Mr. Livermore's, intending thus to show him that I wished no longer to be looked upon as the man in the next room.
''We were dying with anxiety to see you,' he said, as I entered; 'walk into the other room, you will find Adéle there.'
''Well, Mr. Rideau,' said she, with intense anxiety visible on her countenance, 'what passed between those two men?'
''Little of importance. Pedro offered Pepito four hundred dollars if he would divulge the particulars of his journey; to which offer Pepito has acceded. That is about all.'
'I was far from anticipating the effect my answer would produce on my hearers. They were overwhelmed—thunderstruck. Adéle was the first to recover.
''Fool! fool that I was,' she exclaimed, 'why did I select in such an enterprise a man worn down by sickness and disease?'
'The look she cast on Arthur, rapid as it was, was so full of menace and reproach, that it startled me.