“’In that moment I say most truly that the spirit of life, which hath its dwelling in the most secret chambers of the heart, began to tremble so violently that the least pulse of my body shook herewith, and in the trembling it said these words:  “Here is a deity stronger than I who, coming shall rule over me."’”

At that the Girl let the book fall and, going down on her knees and taking both his hands in hers, she raised to him a look so full of adoring worship that he felt himself awed before it.

“That ’ere Dante ain’t so far off after all.  I know jest how he feels.  Oh, I ain’t fit to read to you, to talk to you, to kiss you.”

Nevertheless, he saw to it that she did.

After this he told her about the Inferno, and she listened eagerly to his description of the unfortunate characters, though she declared, when he explained some of the crimes that they had committed, that they “Got only what was rightly comin’ to them.”

The patient could hardly suppress his amusement.  Dante was discarded and instead they told each other how much love there was in that little cabin on Cloudy Mountain.

The days that followed were all much like this one.  Food was brought up from The Polka and, by degrees, the patient’s strength came back.  And it was but natural that he became so absorbed in his newly-found happiness that he gradually was losing all sense of danger.  Late one night, however, when he was asleep, an incident happened that warned the Girl that it was necessary to get her lover away just as soon as he was able to ride a horse.

Lying on the rug in front of the fire she had been thinking of him when, suddenly, her quick ear, more than ever alert in these days, caught the sound of a stealthy footstep outside the cabin.  With no fear whatever except in relation to the discovery of her lover, the Girl went noiselessly to the window and peered out into the darkness.  A man was making signs that he wished to speak with her.  For a moment she stood watching in perplexity, but almost instantly her instinct told her that one of that race, for she believed the man to be a Mexican, would never dare to come to her cabin at that time of night unless it was on a friendly errand.  So putting her face close to the pane to reassure herself that she had not been mistaken in regard to his nationality, she then went to the door and held it wide open for the man to enter, at the same time putting her finger to her lips as a sign that he should be very still.

“What are you doin’ here?  What do you want?” she asked in a low voice, at the same time leading him to the side of the room further away from her lover.

Jose Castro’s first words were in Spanish, but immediately perceiving that he failed to make her understand, he nodded comprehendingly, and said: 

“All righta—­I espeak Engleesh—­I am Jose Castro too well known to the Maestro.  I want to see ’im.”