Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/108

 window where a last spear of sunlight came through, filtered of its white strength by the smoky haze of the hills.

"You believe some American in the pueblo is hiding him?" Don Abrahan asked.

He was unmoved by his son's perturbation. He watched the young man furtively, head bent, fingers interlaced meditatively at the tip of his beard. It was as if he tried an experiment in psychology, and waited the result.

"No, there is no American in the pueblo who would risk it. But there is another, not in the pueblo. He is not without a friend."

Don Abrahan lifted his head, his eyes open wide. He puta hand to the table, leaning forward as if to rise.

"What is it you have learned today?" he asked.

Roberto turned from the window to stand with hands on the back of his chair, deliberating his next word, itseemed. He sat down, drew the chair close to the table, leaning confidentially toward his father, eye to the windows to see that nobody loitered near.

"There is something to be told to the shame of this house," he said, with such intense feeling that caused his father to stare. "There is a thing I have kept from you since the night of this rufianly assault. Now you must hear it, but it burns my heart with shame to speak the words."

"How? What is this thing you preface with such terrible beginning?"