Then she stopped short, as she saw the look of terror and horror on Merle’s pale face.
“Tonight?” queried the young girl tremulously. “They meet tonight? Then that is where Mr. Robles is going—that is why he bade us all that sad good-bye? My father, oh, my dear father!” And dropping down again on the sofa, she burst into a passion of weeping.
Tia Teresa sought to soothe her. But Merle was not to be comforted. Yet while she sobbed she was thinking, for suddenly she rose again and dashed away her tears.
“At what hour tonight?” she asked.
“I do not know,” answered the duenna.
“Then he is in danger—perhaps at this very moment he is in danger. Don Manuel’s life—my father’s life is worth a hundred lives of such a man as Ben Thurston. Quick, quick, Teresa. Get your mantilla and cloak. My runabout is in readiness. There, let me help you.”
Merle was speaking with swift insistence.
“Where are you going?” whispered Tia Teresa, as the girl’s fingers were buttoning her cloak.
“To Comanche Point. We may not be too late to save him.”
A minute later the two women had stolen down the narrow stairway of the tower and were speeding through the gathering darkness of the night.