Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/92

 "I would like to see your face," he pleaded, downcast and reproved.

"If you'll not go and look at the hill, I must stay in the tree," she said. "You'd only be disappointed if you saw the face I'd have to show in the bright moonlight, Mr. Henderson. I am the red-haired beauty with freckles, hovered over by a large lady in green. You couldn't have missed seeing me; I was as prominent as a worm on a leaf. The lady is my aunt; she is Don Abrahan's cousin, and I—I am to marry his devoted son. So there, you know it all. Go away and look at the hill."

"Somebody is coming," he warned her, his words quick, cautious.

"God help me! I am lost!"

Henderson saw her standing on the great branch, unsteady as if she might fall in the tremor of her fright.

"Climb higher; hide among the leaves," he directed her.

He began walking back and forth, his head bent, in the manner of a sorrowful man who unburdens himself to his own heart.

Don Roberto and a companion, laughing in the merriment of their confidences, strolled in the moonlight not a rod beyond the fringe of the great tree's shadow. In the leaves overhead Henderson heard the rustling of the girl's movement to conceal herself, and a little gasp when something came falling among the close-knit small branches,