Part 40 (1/2)

”In four weeks he will be able to kneel at the altar with you,” said Maggie, making a clatter with the stove lids in her excitement, ”and in youth that is only a day. And I have a drawn piece of fine linen, as white as your bosom, that you must wear over your heart on that day. It will bring you peace, far it was made by a holy sister and it has been blessed by the bishop at Guadalupe.”

”Thank you, Maggie. If that day ever comes for me, I will wear it.”

Maggie came nearer the window, concern in her homely face, and stood off a little respectful distance.

”You want to be with him, you should be there at his side, and I will open the door for you,” she said.

”You will?” Frances started hopefully.

”Once inside, no man would lift a hand to put you out.”

”But how am I going to get inside, Maggie, with that sentry at the door?”

”I have been thinking how it could be done, miss. Soon it will be dark, and with night comes fear. Miss is with him now; she is there alone.”

Frances turned to her, such pain in her face as if she had been stabbed.

”Why should you go over that again? I know it!” she said, crossly.

”That has nothing to do with my going into the room.”

”It has much,” Maggie declared, whispering now, treasuring her plot.

”The old one is upstairs, sleeping, and she will not wake until I shake her. Outside the soldiers make their fires and cook, and Alvino in the barn sings 'La Golondrina'--you hear him?--for that is sad music, like his soul. Very well. You go to your room, but leave the door open to let a finger in. When it is just creeping dark, and the soldiers are eating, I will run in where the one sits beside the door.

My hair will be flying like the mane of a wild mare, my eyes bi-i-i-g--so. In the English way I will shout 'The rustlers, the rustlers! He ees comin'--help, help!' When you hear this, fly to me, quick, like a soul set free. The soldier at the door will go to see; miss will come out; I will stand in the door, I will draw the key in my hand. Then you will fly to him, and lock the door!”

”Why, Maggie! what a general you are!”

”Under the couch where he lies,” Maggie hurried on, her dark eyes glowing with the pleasure of this manufactured romance, ”are the revolvers which he wore, just where we placed them last night. I pushed them back a little, quite out of sight, and n.o.body knows. Strap the belt around your waist, and defy any power but death to move you from the man you love!”

”Maggie, you are magnificent!”

”No,” Maggie shook her head, sadly, ”I am the daughter of a peon, a servant to bear loads. But”--a flash of her subsiding grandeur--”I would do that--ah, I would have done that in youth--for the man of my heart. For even a servant in the back of a house has a heart, dear miss.”

Frances took her work-rough hands in her own; she pressed back the heavy black hair--mark of a va.s.sal race--from the brown forehead and looked tenderly into her eyes.

”You are my sister,” she said.

Poor Maggie, quite overcome by this act of tenderness, sank to her knees, her head bowed as if the bell had sounded the elevation of the host.

”What benediction!” she murmured.

”I will go now, and do as you have said.”

”When it is a little more dark,” said Maggie, softly, looking after her tenderly as she went away.

Frances left her door ajar as Maggie had directed, and stood before the gla.s.s to see if anything could be done to make herself more attractive in his eyes. It did not seem so, considering the lack of embellishments. She turned from the mirror sighing, doubtful of the success of Maggie's scheme, but determined to do her part in it, let the result be what it might. Her place was there at his side, indeed; none had the right to bar her his presence.

The joy of seeing him when consciousness flashed back into his shocked brain had been stolen from her by a trick. Nola had stood in her place then. She wondered if that slow smile had kindled in his eyes at the sight of her, or whether they had been shadowed with bewilderment and disappointment. It was a thing that she should never know.

She heard Mrs. Chadron leave her room and pa.s.s heavily downstairs.

Hope sank lower as she descended; it seemed that their simple plot must fail. Well, she sighed, at the worst it could only fail. As she sat there waiting while twilight blended into the darker waters of night, she reflected the many things which had overtaken her in the two days past. Two incidents stood out above all the haste, confusion, and pain which gave her sharp regret. One was that her father had parted from her to meet his life's heaviest disappointment with anger and unforgiving heart; the other that the shot which she had aimed at Saul Chadron had been cheated of its mark.