Part 83 (1/2)
Dolores said nothing, but looked at Ashby with mournful inquiry, as though appealing to him to know what she ought to do.
”How did he get here?” asked Ashby, calmly.
”He has been seeking for me all these years, and traced me here, and was captured.”
”H'm! that's devotion,” said Ashby. ”And who's his friend--the girl that was disguised as priest?”
”I don't know.”
”So she's a girl,” said Ashby; ”and so that's the reason she wouldn't marry Lopez and Katie. A most infernally pretty girl. Who is she, did you say?”
”I don't know.”
”Didn't your--your friend tell you?”
”No.”
It may be supposed that Ashby should have known Brooke's feelings toward this ”priest” by his devotion to her in saving her life. But it was not so. Brooke's desperate act in flinging himself before Lopez seemed to Ashby merely an accident consequent upon his struggle with his captors.
Besides, the attack of Dolores and her six Carlists had followed so closely upon this, that all had become confused together.
While Ashby had been asking these few questions, Dolores remained looking at him with that same mournful inquiry. Ashby noticed it, for he looked at her several times, though each time he looked away elsewhere. He was turning over all this in his mind.
At length he looked at her once more, and took her hands in his.
”Dolores,” said be, ”I have made up my mind.”
”What?” said she, in a faint voice, looking up at him in awful suspense.
”I will not give you up! That's decided. You must dismiss the idea from your mind.”
In an instant the shadow of anxiety fled from the face of Dolores, followed by a flash of joy like a sunbeam. She said not a word, but Ashby saw that rush of happiness, and all his own nature responded.
”You must come with me,” said he. ”That fellow may look out for himself.”
”But--but--” said Dolores. She paused.
”What?”
”We--we--are--engaged.”
”Pooh!” said Ashby. ”That's an old story.”
”But--but--”
”Well?” said Ashby, impatiently, as she paused.
”He--he--saved my life once.”
”He be hanged!” said Ashby. ”I'll save your life fifty times. You mustn't think of that man again. Do you hear, Dolores?”