"Tia Polonia, awake!" she said, briefly; and as the woman did so, frightened and full of questions, her mistress held up her hand and rested herself on the side of the pallet, regarding the dark old face with doubt. "Thy husband, beloved,--he has--" "It is not my husband this time, Polonia. He is quite safe at the gaming-table, and will come in at sunrise with empty pockets. It is not my husband. It is--" She paused a long time, scrutinizing every feature of the old woman, who grew gray of visage under those smouldering eyes, and her hands shook. "Darling, little one, thou art so like thy mother; more than ever when angry, and it is night; and I--Holy God! It is like a ghost comes to my bed to--to--ah, Dona Espiritu--mia!--what is the anger in thine eyes?" "Can a dead woman be angry?" demanded her mistress drearily, the beautiful curved mouth quivering for an instant. "And it is a dead woman they have made of me--all of you! You lied to me, Polonia, when you brought word to me he had died there in Mexico!" The old woman covered her face with her hands, and sank back whimpering on the pallet. "I trusted you, and you lied to me, all of you!" the girl repeated in a hopeless tone of finality. "All these months he has been alive, and I have not known. You liars--liars--liars accursed!" The old woman uttered a smothered shriek, and buried her face in the blankets. "Not the curse, beloved, not the curse!" she begged, tremulously, "the curse of your people. It means--it means--Ai! not the curse, little one! Thou hast only meant to frighten me to tell you how it was, and I will--I will! Only, child of the spirits, Dona Espiritu, bring not the curse!" [Illustration: "YOU LIED TO ME--ALL OF YOU!"] She cowered and mumbled in a sort of palsied fear, but the girl sat there untouched by her misery, looking at her drearily. Perhaps she had some slight hope of denial, but Polonia's gray face put that out of her reach. "Sit up," she commanded, and the old woman hastily scrambled into a sitting posture, but with her hands over her eyes, her body still rocking with fear. "Why did you do it?" Never before had Tia Polonia heard those hard cold tones from her "querida"--her little one--her nursling of other days. This girl sitting there erect in the glimmering light of the candle was really Dona Espiritu of the tribe of the kings.