Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/265

 "Manuel is on his way, palomita. There! they call me. Oh, if I had poison to put in the coffee! If I had a spider, a dried spider, crushed in fine powder, to sprinkle on their cake!"

Teresa went to answer the summons of the bell in the dining-room, expressing her vain desire with hissing breath. Alma gasped at the wish as if it were her own, only that she would apply but half of it. Nearing she would spare, to repent in such contrition as he might be capable of, for the cowardly tyranny of that hour. But if some subtle force could reach that dark scoundrel by his side, she would launch it at his heart.

And there was a way! It came to her in a flash, as an inspiration descends to some hopeless tangle of human striving when all seems lost. If she must sacrifice this night, then sacrifice with heroic hand.

She closed the window, and drew the shades against prying eyes and ears in the patio. How simple, how strange that she had not thought of it before!

The thought of running away from the impending deed of violence was dismissed, her fears were calmed in a moment. Even though the stratagem of Manuel should fail to bring Barrett into the house in time, the cattle thief would not ride away from there with a bride beside him that night. She went softly through the dark to her closet, and ran her hand along the wall to the place where her revolver hung.

Strange, that she had mislaid it. Disturbed now, her heart sinking from its high leaping, she felt among the dresses hanging thick upon the walls. It must have