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So Tomaso withdrew to the outer side of the road and the shade of the fig-tree, while Felipe talked gaily with Rosa's mother, and Rosa looked on from the doorway with deep, dark eyes that said nothing at all. For Felipe was wooing the daughter through the mother, as men have often done before him; and the widow smiled on Felipe's suit.
He was unaware of the extent of his influence over her. He doubted whether he could move her very far. The threat of shutting Ramona up in the convent terrified him more than he liked to admit to himself. Had she power to do that? Felipe did not know. She must believe that she had, or she would not have made the threat. Felipe's whole soul revolted at the cruel injustice of the idea.
Not Felipe's child, as she proudly had pictured, but the child of Ramona: the friendless, banished Ramona returned now into full honor and peace as the daughter of the house, Ramona, widow of Alessandro. If the child had been Felipe's own, he could not have felt for it a greater love. From the first, the little thing had clung to him as only second to her mother.
He bowed over Alaire's cold fingers, then stood erect until she and Dolores had gone. That was a night of terror for the women. Although Longorio's discipline was in some ways strict, in others it was extremely lax. From some quarter his men had secured a supply of mescal, and, forgetful of Felipe's unhappy fate, they rendered the hours hideous.
"There's something in it," nodded Jerome. "Here is the document," said Hagan, displaying Felipe's paper. "Can you read Spanish?" "No." "Well, even Merriwell, who can read Spanish, confessed that it seemed genuine. You see the opportunity, man; come in with us and make a good thing for yourself." Jerome considered. "There is no reason why we should attempt to build that road, Hagan," he said.
He had sworn that he would kill Captain Forest lay him dead at her feet; but that, thanks to circumstances, would not now be necessary. The thought of killing a man in cold blood was not pleasant even to one of Don Felipe's temperament in his present state of mind.
"It is so, Señor!" sobbed the old woman, thoroughly frightened by Don Felipe's threat, yet not daring to raise her eyes to those of Chiquita. "You now know why the Señorita Chiquita danced in public during the Fiesta. It was to provide for the wants of her child," he added with a sneer. "I can't believe it!" exclaimed Captain Forest contemptuously, breaking the long silence he had preserved.
"There were plenty of sheep on the place to begin with," he said one morning, "at least a thousand;" and by the time they were done, Luigo would surely be back with the rest; and as for Senor Felipe's being in bed, had not he, Juan Canito, stood at the packing-bag, and handled the wool, when Senor Felipe was a boy? Why could he not do it again?
In silence they gazed at one another across Don Felipe's body. The Captain was about to speak when they were startled by a low moan just behind them, and, turning, they saw Blanch sink slowly to the bench in a sitting posture, her head resting on her arm across the back of the bench. In an instant they were at her side.
"Oh, no." cried Alessandro; "if the Senora will excuse me, I could not lie on a bed. A raw-hide like Senor Felipe's, and my blanket, are all I want. I could not lie on any bed." "To be sure," thought the Senora; "what was I thinking of! How the boy makes one forget he is an Indian! But the floor is harder than the ground, Alessandro," she said kindly.
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