Christina stood without changing her attitude, except that perhaps she pushed her head a little forward that she might the better hear the last of her lover’s receding steps.  When they ceased to sound she ran quickly to the window, opened it, and leaned out that she might the better hear his horse’s hoofs on the flagged courtyard.  She heard besides Esteban’s voice speaking amiably and Shere’s making amiable replies.  The sharp hard clatter upon the stones softened into the duller thud upon the road; the voices became fainter and lost their character.  Then one clear “good-night” rang out loudly, and was followed by the quick beats of a horse trotting.  Christina slowly closed the window and turned her eyes upon the room.  She saw the lamp upon the table and the gloves in parallel lines beneath it.

Now Shere was so far right in that the gloves were intended as a signal for Esteban; only owing to that complete revulsion of which the padre had seen the possibility, Shere had mistaken the signal.  The passionate believer had again become the passionate cynic.  He saw the trick, and setting no trust in the girl who played it, heeding neither her looks nor words nor the sincerity of her voice, had no doubt that it was aimed against him; whereas it was aimed to protect him.  Shere had no doubt that the gloves crossed meant that he still had the sealed letter in his keeping, and therefore he disarranged them.  But in truth the gloves crossed meant that Christina had it, and that the messenger might go unhindered upon his way.

Christina uttered no cry.  She simply did not believe what her eyes saw.  She needed to touch the gloves before she was convinced, and when she had done that she was at once not sure but that she herself in touching them had ranged them in these lines.  In the end, however, she understood, not the how or why, but the mere fact.  She ran to the door, along the gallery, down the steps into the courtyard.  She met no one.  The house might have been a deserted ruin from its silence.  She crossed the courtyard to the glimmering white walls, and passed through the gates on to the road.  The night was clear; and ahead of her far away in the middle of the road a lantern shone very red.  Christina ran towards it, and as she approached she saw faces like miniatures grouped above it.  They did not heed her until she was close upon them, until she had noticed one man holding a riderless horse apart from the group and another coiling up a stout rope.  Then Esteban, who was holding the lantern, raised his hand to keep her back.

“There has been an accident,” said he.  “He fell, and fell awkwardly, the horse with him.”