“May I see Dona Valencia—­alone—­for just a minute?”

Miss Valdes turned.  A girl was standing shyly in the doorway.  Her soft brown eyes begged pardon for the intrusion.

“You are Juanita, are you not?” the young woman asked.

“Si, Dona.”

Pesquiera eliminated himself by going in to get his mail.

“What is it that I can do for you?” asked Valencia.

The Mexican girl broke into an emotional storm.  She caught one of her hands in the brown palm of the other with a little gesture of despair.

“They have gone to kill him.  Dona.  I know it.  Something tells me.  He will never come back alive.”  The feeling she had repressed was finding vent in long, irregular sobs.

Valencia felt as if she were being drowned in icy water.  The color washed from her cheeks.  She had no need to ask who it was that would never come back alive, but she did.

“Who, child?  Whom is it that they have gone to kill?”

“The American—­Senor Gordon.”

“Who has gone?  And when did they go?  Tell me quick.”

“Sebastian and Pablo—­maybe others—­I do not know.”

Miss Valdes thought quickly.  It might be true.  Both the men mentioned had asked for a holiday to go to Santa Fe.  What business had they there at this time of the year?  Could it be Pablo who had shot at Gordon from ambush?  If so, why was he so bitter against the common enemy?

“Juanita, tell me everything.  What is it that you know?”

The sobs of the girl increased.  She leaned against the door jamb and buried her face in the crook of her arm.

The older girl put an arm around the quivering shoulders and spoke gently.  “But listen, child.  Tell me all.  It may be we can save him yet.”

A name came from the muffled lips.  It was “Pablo.”

Valencia’s brain was lit by a flash of understanding.  “Pablo is your lover.  Is it not so, nina?”

The dark crown of soft hair moved up and down in assent.  “Oh, Dona, he was, but—­”

“You have quarreled with him?”

Miss Valdes burned with impatience, but some instinct told her she could not hurry the girl.

“Si, Senorita.  He quarreled.  He said—­”

“Yes?”

“——­that ... that Senor Gordon ...”

Again, groping for the truth, Valencia found it swiftly.

“You mean that Pablo was jealous?”

“Because I had nursed Senor Gordon, because he was kind to me, because——­” Juanita had lifted her face to answer.  As she spoke the color poured into her cheeks even to her throat, convicting evidence of the cruel embarrassment she felt.

Valencia’s hand dropped to her side.  When she spoke again the warmth had been banished from her voice.  “I see.  You nursed Mr. Gordon, did you?”

Juanita’s eyes fell before the cold accusation in those of Miss Valdes. “Si, Senorita.”