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“‘In the night all cats are gray,’” she answered, with one of those proverbs as natural to the lips of a Mexican as the breath they draw. “No one would distinguish me in this light from any of the servants; but still my words must be brief, for my absence from my room may be discovered. Pedro, I have a work to do; it has been in my mind all this time. You, you can help me!”

She clasped her hands; he thought she looked at the door, and the idea darted into his mind that she contemplated escape, or that she had a mad desire to throw herself upon her lover’s grave and die there.

“Niña! Niña, of my life!” he said imploringly, using the form of address one might employ to a child, or some dearly loved elder, still dependent. “Go back to your chamber, I beg and implore! How can I do anything for you? How can Pedro, so worthless, so vile, do anything?”

The adjectives he applied to himself were sincere enough, for Pedro had never ceased to reproach himself for his share in the tragedy which, in spite of Doña Isabel’s words, he had never really ceased to believe concerned Herlinda, though he had striven for his own peace of mind, as well as in loyalty to the Garcias, to affect a contrary opinion, until this moment, when his young mistress’s appearance and appeal rendered self-deception no longer possible. Again and again he reiterated, “What can the miserable Pedro do for you?”