Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/267

 "Yes, dear, and how we wondered whether its owner was enjoying a siesta in the bushes."

"Well, it was Mr. Ashley's horse."

"I saw you flit by," supplements Ashley, "but I was back drinking at a spring and your volante was out of sight before I had recovered from my surprise at seeing you." He is looking directly at Mrs. Harding and that lady smiles, a bit ironically.

"And I presume that when you saw the principal attraction of El Valle de Bosque Cillos being borne toward Santiago, you mounted your horse and sadly followed," ventures Isabel.

"No; I knew the senorita was in good company," Jack responds, dryly, "so I continued on to Santos and spent a profitable hour with Don Quesada."

"Ah!" Mrs. Harding regards him narrowly from between her half-dropped eyelids.

"I say profitable," continues Ashley, "as I did not know, until so informed, that Don Quesada numbered the charming Mrs. Harding in his list of acquaintances."

"Of course you congratulated him."

"Most assuredly."

The half-veiled contempt expressed in Isabel's face exasperates Ashley. Hidden somewhere in that corsage, against which beats the falsest heart in Cuba, are papers that mean the ruin of the innocent girl at his side.

He must have time to think, think, think. So he excuses himself and leaves the crowded ball-room for a walk in the cool air of the garden.

In one corner of the spacious inclosure he finds a little arbor, and in this nook Ashley sits and smokes and thinks, but no plan for the confusion of the adventuress suggests itself, unless, as he growls vindictively, he abducts or chloroforms her.

His meditations are disturbed by voices close at hand. Two gentlemen have, like himself, forsaken the heated ball-room for the outer air, and they pause in their stroll within a few feet of Ashley's retreat.

Jack pays no attention to them until by their voices and conversation he realizes that one of them is Captain