JUANITA
The fifth day marked the crisis of Gordon's illness. After that he began slowly to mend.
One morning he awoke to a realization that he had been very ill. His body was still weak, but his mind was coherent again. A slender young woman moved about the room setting things in order.
"Aren't you Juanita?" he asked.
Her heart gave a leap. This was the first time he had recognized her. Sometimes in his delirium he had caught at her hand ind tried to kiss it, but always under the impression that she was Miss Valdés.
"Si, señor," she answered quietly.
"I thought so." He added after a moment, with the childlike innocence a sick person has upon first coming back to sanity: "There couldn't be two girls as pretty as you in this end of the valley, could there?"
Under her soft brown skin the color flooded Juanita's face. "I—I don't know." She spoke in a flame of embarrassment, so abrupt had been his compliment and so sincere.
"I've been very sick, haven't I?"
She nodded. "Oh, señor, we have been—what you call—worried."