“Vat vas he to you?  Answer me!  Answer me quick!”

The blood came back into her blanched cheeks with a sudden rush of anger.  Instantly indignation swept back the mists of fear.  With unnatural strength she wrenched free her captured hand, and sternly fronted the other, a barely recognized shadow in the gloom.

“Permit me to pass,” she exclaimed, clearly.  “How dare you hide here to halt me?”

The other exhibited her teeth, gleaming white and savage behind parted lips, yet she never stirred.

“Dare?  Pah! you vaste time to talk so,” she cried brokenly, her voice trembling from passion.  “You no such fine lady now, senorita.  You see dis knife; I know how use eet quick.  Bah! you go to him like all de rest, but I vill know de truth first, if I have to cut eet out you.  So vat ees de Senor Farnham to you?  Say quick!”

The American remained silent, motionless, her breath quickening under the threat, her eyes striving to see clearly the face of the one confronting her.

“Do you expect to frighten me?” she asked, coldly, her earlier anger strangely changing to indifference.  “It is you who wastes time, senorita, for I care little for your knife.  Only it would be an extremely foolish thing for you to do, as I have not come between you and your lover.”

The impulsive Mexican dancer laughed, but with no tone of joy perceptible.

“My lofer!  Mother of God! sometime I think I hate, not lofe.  He vas like all you Americanos, cold as de ice.  He play vis Mercedes, and hurt—­gracious, how he hurt!  But I must be told.  Vat vas he to you?  Answer me dat.”

Beth Norvell’s eyes softened in sudden pity.  The unconscious appeal within that broken voice, which had lost all semblance of threat, seemed to reveal instantly the whole sad story, and her heart gave immediate response.  She reached out, touching gently the hand in which she saw the gleam of the knife-blade.  There was no fear in her now, nothing but an infinite womanly sympathy.

“He is nothing to me,” she said, earnestly, “absolutely nothing.  I despise him—­that is all.  He is unworthy the thought of any woman.”

The slender figure of the Mexican swayed as though stricken by a blow, the fierce, tigerish passion dying out of her face, her free hand seeking her throat as though choking.

“Nothing?” she gasped, incredulously. “Sapristi, I think you lie, senorita.  Nothing?  Vy you go to him in secret?  Vy you stay and talk so long?  I not understand.”

“He sent for me; he wished me to aid him in a business matter.”

The other stared incredulous, her form growing rigid with gathering suspicion that this fair American was only endeavoring to make her a fool through the use of soft speech.  The white teeth gleamed again maliciously.

“You speak false to Mercedes,” she cried hotly, her voice trembling.  “Vy he send for you, senorita?  You know him?”