“Ah, only my dogs to welcome me!” Kay heard Don Mike murmur.  And then the stubborn tears came and blinded him, so he did not see her white figure step out into the avenue and come swiftly toward him.  The first he knew of her presence was when her hand touched his glistening black head bent on his arms over the top rail of the gate.

“No, no, Don Mike,” he heard a sweet voice protesting; “somebody else cares, too.  We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t.  Please—­please try not to feel so badly about it.”

He raised his haggard face.

“Ah, yes—­you!” he cried.  “You—­you’ve been waiting here—­for me?”

“Yes.  I wanted to tell you—­to explain before you got to the house.  We didn’t know, you see—­and the notice was so terribly short; but we’ll go in the morning.  I’ve saved dinner for you, Don Mike—­and your old room is ready for you.  Oh, you don’t know how sorry I am for you, you poor man!”

He hid his face again.

“Don’t—­please!” he cried, in a choked voice.  “I can’t stand sympathy—­to-night—­from you!”

She laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Come, come; you must buck up, old soldier,” she assured him.  “You’ll have to meet Pablo and Carolina very soon.”

“I’m so alone and desperate,” he muttered, through clenched teeth.  “You can’t—­realize what this means—­to me.  My father was an old man—­he had—­accomplished his years—­and I weep for him, because I loved—­him.  But oh, my home—­this—­dear land—­”

He choked, and, in that moment, she forgot that this man was a stranger to her.  She only knew that he had been stricken, that he was helpless, that he lacked the greatest boon of the desolate—­a breast upon which he might weep.  Gently she lifted the black head and drew it down on her shoulder; her arm went round his neck and patted his cheek, and his full heart was emptied.

There was so much of the little boy about him!

VIII

The fierce gust of emotion which swept Don Mike Farrel was of brief duration.  He was too sane, too courageous to permit his grief to overwhelm him completely; he had the usual masculine horror of an exhibition of weakness, and although the girl’s sweet sympathy and genuine womanly tenderness had caught him unawares, he was, nevertheless, not insensible of the incongruity of a grown man weeping like a child on the shoulder of a young woman—­and a strange young woman at that.  With a supreme effort of will, he regained control of himself as swiftly as he had lost it, and began fumbling for a handkerchief.

“Here,” she murmured; “use mine.”  She reached up and, with her dainty wisp of handkerchief, wiped his wet cheeks exactly as if he had been a child.

He caught the hand that wielded the handkerchief and kissed it gratefully, reverently.