"But last Winter Don Keith went along; yes--he went along to look up some mining property in the Indian hills, and when he came back--Have any of you noticed the peculiar ring Mr. Bryton wears?" "Angela!" said Keith, sharply; but she looked at him with smiling insolence. "Oh, I know your little romance of Dona Espiritu; Teddy told me." "Damn Teddy!" he remarked, while the rest shouted with laughter at the color flaming in his face. "Dona Espiritu!" repeated Don Ricardo. "The lady of the Spirit--let us hope it was a good spirit, Don Keith--and that she was kind!" "To her health!" cried Rafael. "Pour brandy, Fernando; we drink our last toast of this meeting to the love of Don Keith--to the Dona Espiritu!" "I would rather see the ring than drink the toast," said Dolores. "May I, senor?" "There is nothing remarkable about it, except that it is very, very old," and he held out his hand for her inspection. "An onyx engraved with the Aztec eagle--now the Mexican eagle." "But given him by--" "By a lady who was of service to my brother, to an old priest, and to me." "See how he drags in the others," laughed Mrs. Bryton. "Teddy and the priest got no ring; Ted had a knife-thrust, and the priest a black eye. Keith had some hurt on the head, from which he had a long and interesting case of fever." "Let us hope Dona Espiritu nursed him through it, and the priest did not watch them too closely," remarked Rafael, with a meaning glance at Bryton. The last drink of brandy had been the one too many, and his smile was not nice. "Did she nurse him through the illness?" whispered Madalena in Angela's ear. "Oh, I could tell," said the latter, demurely; "but Keith evidently resents his romances being made public." "Senorita, there is no more to tell," remarked Keith, coldly; "not even so much as Angela would suggest. My brother and an old priest and I lost our way in the hills; and seeing a light, we chanced on some religious meeting of a strange hill tribe of Indians. They thought we were spies of the Church or the government, and there was trouble. A lady, whom the Indians and the priest called by the name you heard, saved us all that night. She was the one person of the Catholic Church they would allow to know them well, and she was a nun or a novice." "Santa Maria! and she gave you rings?" "The ring was some talisman respected by the tribe. She put it on my finger after I had been struck down and--well--used up. It stopped them when words were of no use. We made a litter for the old priest, and tied Teddy on a burro,--he had a leg wound,--and we walked beside them over the wilderness trail until dawn came, and we met help. I fainted from loss of blood about that time, and Teddy and I recuperated in the house of the old priest. We never saw the lady again." "You never saw her again after an adventure like that!" cried Fernando in amaze. "That is cold blood for you!" "It may be that she was ugly--or old," suggested Rafael.