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 the outside, but her lips must remain unkissed behind the bars.

Doña Carlota occupied the adjoining room, a connecting door between, the key to which she was careful to keep close, fearful of Don Abrahan's wrath if Helena should chance to lock her out and pass an hour free from her espionage. Helena had spared her the fire and anger of her scorn for the betrayal of Henderson, which had resulted in the visitation of Don Abrahan and the attendant tragedies. Yet Helena's cold, white silence was more terrible to Doña Carlota's fleshy bosom than any torrent of words. In words one had it over, soon to forget; in silence such as this girl's there was a constant threat.

Almost immediately after the military execution of John Toberman, which Helena's pleadings had been unavailing to stay for an hour, Don Abrahan had given orders for Helena's removal to his own house. The journey had been made by carriage, under guard of soldiers, pushed rapidly, without regard for Doña Carlota's bulk, or her protestations that her bones would be broken before the descent of the pass was so much as begun.

They had arrived at Don Abrahan's house in the middle of the afternoon. Now the sun was gone from the patio, the canyons were filling with the blue haze of evening. Since her arrival Helena had not moved from the place where she sat before the window, gazing at the stern, gray hills.

She seemed a prisoner without hope, Doña Car-