“Thou shalt not go to the ball to-night,” she cried shrilly.  “Thou shalt be locked in the dark room.  Thou shalt be sent to the rancho.  Open! open! thou wicked one.  Madre de Dios!  I will beat thee with my own hands.”

But she was a prisoner, and Ysabel paid no attention to her threats.  The girl was in the sala, and the doors were open.  As De la Vega crossed the corridor and entered the room she sank upon a chair, covering her face with her hands.

He strode over to her, and flinging his serape from his shoulder opened the mouth of a sack and poured its contents into her lap.  Pearls of all sizes and shapes—­pearls black and pearls white, pearls pink and pearls faintly blue, pearls like globes and pearls like pears, pearls as big as the lobe of Pio Pico’s ear, pearls as dainty as bubbles of frost—­a lapful of gleaming luminous pearls, the like of which caballero had never brought to dona before.

For a moment Ysabel forgot her love and her lover.  The dream of a lifetime was reality.  She was the child who had cried for the moon and seen it tossed into her lap.

She ran her slim white fingers through the jewels.  She took up handfuls and let them run slowly back to her lap.  She pressed them to her face; she kissed them with little rapturous cries.  She laid them against her breast and watched them chase each other down her black gown.  Then at last she raised her head and met the fierce sneering eyes of De la Vega.

“So it is as I might have known.  It was only the pearls you wanted.  It might have been an Indian slave who brought them to you.”

She took the sack from his hand and poured back the pearls.  Then she laid the sack on the floor and stood up.  She was no longer pale, and her eyes shone brilliantly in the darkening room.

“Yes,” she said; “I forgot for a moment.  But during many terrible weeks, senor, my tears have not been for the pearls.”

The sudden light that was De la Vega’s chiefest charm sprang to his eyes.  He took her hands and kissed them passionately.

“That sack of pearls would be a poor reward for one tear.  But thou hast shed them for me?  Say that again.  Mi alma! mi alma!”

“I never thought of the pearls—­at least not often.  At last, not at all.  I have been very unhappy, senor.  Ay!”

The maiden reserve which had been knit like steel about her plastic years burst wide.  “Thou art ill!  What has happened to thee?  Ay, Dios! what it is to be a woman and to suffer!  Thou wilt die!  Oh, Mother of God!”

“I shall not die.  Kiss me, Ysabel.  Surely it is time now.”

But she drew back and shook her head.

He exclaimed impatiently, but would not release her hand.  “Thou meanest that, Ysabel?”

“We shall be married soon—­wait.”

“I had hoped you would grant me that.  For when I tell you where I got those pearls you may drive me from you in spite of your promise—­drive me from you with the curse of the devout woman on your lips.  I might invent some excuse to persuade you to fly with me from California to-night, and you would never know.  But I am a man—­a Spaniard—­and a De la Vega.  I shall not lie to you.”