Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/100

 Don Roberto's betrothed prayed softly for deliverance among the leaves.

"You haven't killed him, Don Gabriel?" she asked.

She clambered down from her higher perch as she spoke, leaning to lay her hand on his shoulder. He felt the tremor of her body, the dread anxiety of her low-spoken word.

"He'll be ready for the wedding tomorrow, Miss Sprague, if you need him so soon," Gabriel assured her.

"I pray that day will never come!" she said, with such feeling that caution was forgotten. "But I would not have him dead, of all things dead at your hands, Don Gabriel," she added softly, her hand still on his shoulder, her breath on his cheek.

Henderson had found her unshod foot; he was replacing the slipper with such haste that impeded his work, anxious for her to come down and hurry back to her duenna's side. For his own road was calling to him; the moon marked its way over the hill among the greasewood and the sage.

"Now go," he said, having fastened the buckle on its silken strap across her vaulted instep; "run for it, Miss Sprague!"

She came down lightly, her hand in his, her weight thrown on his shoulder, and stood so a moment, as if she had climbed to give him some sweet confidence unseen among the boughs.

"Avaid the man called Fernando—the one who found your shoe," he whispered, his breath short