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But further speculation was arrested by the movements of the stranger, who, after a moment’s parley with Pedro, came noiselessly but directly toward the door near which Planillos was lying.

Once within it, he paused to listen. Planillos expected him to make some signal, and to see him joined by a veiled figure in the corridor, but to his unbounded amazement and rage the intruder passed swiftly by the fountain, under the great trees of bitter-scented oleanders and cloying jasmine, and sprang lightly up the steps leading to the private apartments. His foot was on the corridor, when Planillos, light as a cat, leaped up the steep stair. His head had just reached the level of the floor above, when with an absolute fury of rage he caught the glimpse of a fair young face in the moonlight, and beheld the American in the embrace of a beautiful girl. Instinct, rather than recognition, revealed to his initiated mind the young heiress, Herlinda Garcia. Absolutely paralyzed by astonishment and rage, for one moment dumb, almost blinded, in the next he saw the closing of a heavy door divide from his sight the lovers whom he was too late to separate.