Inez shuddered at the mention of the weapon, a shudder that was not lost on the Senora.

“I have already told Professor Kennedy that both the tradition and the dagger were handed down in my own family, coming at last to my brother.  As I said, I don’t know how it happened, but somehow he seemed to be getting crazy, until he talked, and the dagger was stolen from him.  It came finally into Professor Norton’s hands, from whom it was in turn stolen.”

She looked at Inez searchingly, as if to discover just what she knew.  I wondered whether the Senora suspected the presence of Lockwood’s footprints in the sarcophagus in the Museum—­what she would do if she did.

“After he lost it,” she continued reminiscently, “my brother threw himself one day into Lake Titicaca.  Everywhere the trail of that dagger, of the secret of the Gold of the Gods has been stained by blood.  To-day the world scoffs at curses.  But surely that gold must be cursed.  It has been cursed for us and ours.”

She spoke bitterly; yet might she not mean that the loss of the dagger, the secret, was a curse, too?

“There is one other thing I wish to say, and then I will be through.  Far back, when your ancestors came into the country of mine, an ancestor of your father lost his life over the treasure.  It seems as if there were a strange fatality over it, as if the events of to-day were but living over the events of yesterday.  It is something that we cannot escape—­fate.”

She paused a moment, then added, “Yet it might be possible that the curse could be removed if somehow we, who were against each other then, might forget and be for each other now.”

“But Senorita Mendoza has not the dagger,” put in Kennedy, watching her face keenly, to read the effect of his remark.  “She has no idea where it may be.”

“Then it is pure tradition on which Mr. Lockwood and Mr. Whitney depend in their search for the treasure?” flashed back the Senora quickly.

Kennedy did not know, but he did not confess it.  “Until we know differently, we must take their word for it,” he evaded.

“It was not that that I meant, however,” replied Senora de Moche.  “I meant that we might stop the curse by ceasing to hunt for the treasure.  It has never done any one good; it never will.  Why tempt fate, then?  Why not pause before it is too late?”

I could not quite catch the secondary implication of her plan.  Did it mean that the treasure would then be left for her family?  Or was she hinting at Inez accepting Alfonso’s suit?  Somehow I could not take the Senora at her face value.  I constantly felt that there was an ulterior motive back of her actions and words.

I saw Craig watching the young man’s face, and followed his eyes.  There was no doubt of how he took the remark.  He was gazing ardently at Inez.  If there had ever been any doubt of his feelings, which, of course, there had not, this would have settled it.