At the end of the half hour I returned to the parlour.  Old Man Hooper was there waiting.  A hanging lamp had been lighted.  Out of the shadows cast from it a slender figure rose and came forward.

“My daughter, Mr.——­” he paused.

“Sanborn,” I supplied.

“My dear, Mr. Sanborn has most kindly dropped in to relieve the tedium of our evening with his company—­his distinguished company.”  He pronounced the words suavely, without a trace of sarcastic emphasis, yet somehow I felt my face flush.  And all the time he was staring at me blankly with his wide, unblinking, wildcat eyes.

The girl was very pale, with black hair and wide eyes under a fair, wide brow.  She was simply dressed in some sort of white stuff.  I thought she drooped a little.  She did not look at me, nor speak to me; only bowed slightly.

We went at once into a dining room at the end of the little dark hall.  It was lighted by a suspended lamp that threw the illumination straight down on a table perfect in its appointments of napery, silver, and glass.  I felt very awkward and dusty in my cowboy rig; and rather too large.  The same Mexican served us, deftly.  We had delightful food, well cooked.  I do not remember what it was.  My attention was divided between the old man and his daughter.  He talked, urbanely, of a wide range of topics, displaying a cosmopolitan taste, employing a choice of words and phrases that was astonishing.  The girl, who turned out to be very pretty in a dark, pale, sad way, never raised her eyes from her plate.

It was the cool of the evening, and a light breeze from the open window swung the curtains.  From the blackness outside a single frog began to chirp.  My host’s flow of words eddied, ceased.  He raised his head uneasily; then, without apology, slipped from his chair and glided from the room.  The Mexican remained, standing bolt upright in the dimness.

For the first time the girl spoke.  Her voice was low and sweet, but either I or my aroused imagination detected a strained under quality.

“Ramon,” she said in Spanish, “I am chilly.  Close the window.”

The servant turned his back to obey.  With a movement rapid as a snake’s dart the girl’s hand came from beneath the table, reached across, and thrust into mine a small, folded paper.  The next instant she was back in her place, staring down as before in apparent apathy.  So amazed was I that I recovered barely soon enough to conceal the paper before Ramon turned back from his errand.

The next five minutes were to me hours of strained and bewildered waiting.  I addressed one or two remarks to my companion, but received always monosyllabic answers.  Twice I caught the flash of lanterns beyond the darkened window; and a subdued, confused murmur as though several people were walking about stealthily.  Except for this the night had again fallen deathly still.  Even the cheerful frog had hushed.