Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/250

 as a panther, came anxiously from the kitchen to survey the setting, a troubled look in her dark face, and went dolefully back to her carefully cooked dishes again.

Alma went to her room, which looked out on the patio opposite the one in which Barrett had been imprisoned by his wound but a little while past. There was no ray of moonlight among the foliage of the little court, where the fountain tinkled in its basin, overflowing among the ferns. And in the girl's heart there was a gathering of darkness as deep and oppressive, in which there was not even the cheer of one sweet sound of hope.

She heard somebody cross the patio softly, the sound retreating from her window, as she entered the room. She went to the open window, leaned out and called, softly:

"Manuel!"

There was no reply, but the smoke of a cigarette came blowing on the wind, as if the trespasser insolently challenged her to discover him if she could.

Alma felt that she was being drawn into this heart-crushing trouble that hung over her uncle's house. By what means of involution she was being hurried on to participation in the sombre tragedy that was coming rapidly to its climax, she did not know; but she could feel it with every nerve of her body. That step in the patio, that whiff of defiant, insolent smoke, had some part in the shaping event, the shadow of which fell cold upon her heart.

She sat on the low stool beside her harp, drew the instrument down to her shoulder, ran her fingers over