“I am sorry to say that I can tell you no more,” continued the major in response to her eager gaze.

“I am so obliged to you!” gasped Clara.  “If you hear anything more, will you please let me know?  Will you please come and see me?”

The major promised and took down her address, but added that he was just starting on an inspecting tour, and that for a fortnight to come he should be able to give her no further information.

They had scarcely parted ere Clara had resolved to go at once to Fort Yuma.  The moment was favorable, for she had with her an intelligent and trustworthy servant, and Coronado had been summoned to a distance by business, so that he could make no opposition.  She hastened to her lawyer’s, finished her affairs there, drew what money she needed for her journey, learned that a brig was about to start for the Gulf, and sent her man to secure a passage.  When he returned with news that the Lolotte would sail next day at noon, she decided not to go back to the hacienda, and took rooms at a hotel.

What would people say?  She did not care; she was going.  She had been womanish and timorous too long; this was the great crisis which would decide her future; she must be worthy of it and of him.  But remembering Aunt Maria, she sent a letter by messenger to the hacienda, explaining that pressing business called her to be absent for some weeks, and confessing in a postscript that her business referred to Lieutenant Thurstane.  This letter brought Coronado down upon her next morning.  Returning home unexpectedly, he learned the news from his friend Mrs. Stanley, and was hammering at Clara’s door not more than an hour later, all in a tremble with anxiety and rage.

“This must not be,” he stormed.  “Such a journey!  Twenty-five hundred miles!  And for a man who has not deigned to write to you!  It is degrading.  I will not have it.  I forbid it.”

“Coronado, stop!” ordered Clara; and it is to be feared that she stamped her little foot at him; at all events she quelled him instantly.

He sat down, glared like a mad dog, sprang up and rushed to the door, halted there to stare at her imploringly, and finally muttered in a hoarse voice, “Well—­let it be so—­since you are crazed.  But I shall go with you.”

“You can go,” replied Clara haughtily, after meditating for some seconds, during which he looked the picture of despair.  “You can go, if you wish it.”

An hour later she said, in her usually gentle tone, “Coronado, pardon me for having spoken to you angrily.  You are kinder than I deserve.”

The reader can infer from this speech how humble, helpful, and courteous the man had been in the mean time.  Coronado was no half-way character; if he did not like you, he was the fellow to murder you; if he decided to be sweet, he was all honey.  Perhaps we ought to ask excuse for Clara’s tartness by explaining that she was in a state of extreme anxiety, remembering that Robinson had hesitated when he said Thurstane was not so very ill, and fearing lest he knew worse things than he had told.