“I am afraid I am a crook at heart, Murray,” she said sadly.  “I have gone too far to turn back.  The brand is on me.  But I am not altogether bad—­yet.  Think of me always with charity.  Yes,” she cried wildly, “I must return to my loneliness.  No, do not try to stop me, you have no right,” she added bitterly as the reality of her situation burned itself into her heart.

She broke away from him wildly, but with set purpose.  The world had taken away her husband; now it was a lover; the world must pay.

CHAPTER III

THE GUN RUNNERS

“We’ll land here, Mrs. Dunlap.”

Ramon Santos, terror of the Washington State Department and of a half dozen consulates in New York, stuck a pin in a map of Central America spread out on a table before Constance.

“Insurrectos will meet us,” he pursued, then added, “but we must have money, first, my dear Senora, plenty of money.”

Dark of eye and skin, with black imperial and mustache, tall, straight as an arrow, Santos had risen and was now gazing down with rapt attention, not at the map, but at Constance herself.

Every curve of her face and wave of her hair, every line of her trim figure which her filmy gown seemed to accentuate rather than conceal added fire to his ardent glances.

He touched lightly another pin sticking in a little, almost microscopic island of the Caribbean.

“Our plan, it is simple,” he continued with animation in spite of his foreign accent.  “On this island a plant to print paper money, to coin silver.  With that we shall land, pay our men as they flock to us, collect forces, seize cities, appropriate the customs.  Once we start, it is easy.”

Constance looked up quickly.  “But that is counterfeiting,” she exclaimed.

“No,” rejoined Santos, “it is a war measure.  We—­the provisional government—­merely coin our own money.  Besides, it will not be done in this country.  It will not come under your laws.”

There was a magnetism about the man that fascinated her, as he stood watching the effect of his words.  Instinctively she knew that it was not alone enthusiasm over his scheme that inspired his confidences.

“Though we are not counterfeiters,” he went on, “we do not know what moment our opponents may set your Secret Service to destroy all our hopes.  Besides, we must have money—­now—­to buy machinery, arms, ammunition.  We must find some one,” he lowered his voice, “who can persuade American bankers and merchants to take risks to gain valuable concessions in the new state.”

Santos was talking rapidly and earnestly, urging his case on her.

“We are prepared,” he hurried on confidentially, “to give you, Senora, half the money that you can raise for these purposes.”

He paused and stood before her.  He was certainly a handsome figure, this soldier of fortune, and he was at his best now.