And it was then that his strength suddenly flagged. His senses began to reel. His breath, which had kept pace with the quick beating of his heart, intermitted, hesitated, was lost! Above the advancing thunder of hoofs behind him, he thought he heard a woman's voice. He knew now he was going crazy; he shouted and fell; he rose again and staggered forward a few steps and fell again. It was over now! A sudden sense of some strange, subtle perfume, beating up through the acrid, smarting dust of the plain, that choked his mouth and blinded his eyes, came swooning over him. And then the blessed interposition of unconsciousness and peace. He struggled back to life again with the word "Philip" in his ears, a throbbing brow, and the sensation of an effort to do something that was required of him. Of all his experience of the last few moments only the perfume remained. He was lying alone in the dry bed of the _arroyo_; on the bank a horse was standing, and above him bent the dark face and darker eyes of Donna Dolores. "Try to recover sufficient strength to mount that horse," she said, after a pause. It was a woman before him. With that innate dread which all masculine nature has of exhibiting physical weakness before a weaker sex, Arthur struggled to rise without the assistance offered by the small hand of his friend. That, however, even at that crucial moment, he so far availed himself of it, as to press it, I fear was the fact. "You came to my assistance alone?" asked Arthur, as he struggled to his feet. "Why not? We are equal now, Don Arturo," said Donna Dolores, with a dazzling smile. "I saw you from my window. You were rash--pardon me--foolish! The oldest vaquero never ventures a foot upon these plains. But come; you shall ride with me. There was no time to saddle another horse, and I thought you would not care to let others know of your adventure. Am I right?" There was a slight dimple of mischief in her cheek, and a quaint sparkle in her dark eye, as she turned her questioning gaze on Arthur. He caught her hand and raised it respectfully to his lips. "You are wise as you are brave, Donna Dolores." "We shall see. But at present you must believe that I am right, and do as I say. Mount that horse--I will help you if you are too weak--and--leave a space for me behind you!" Thus adjured, Arthur leaped into the saddle. If his bones had been broken instead of being bruised, he would still have found strength for that effort. In another instant Donna Dolores' little foot rested on his, and she lightly mounted behind him. "Home now. Hasten; we will be there before any one will know it," she said, as she threw one arm around his waist, with superb unconsciousness. Arthur lifted the rein and dropped his heels into the flanks of the horse. In five minutes--the briefest, as it seemed to him, he had ever passed--they were once more within the walls of the Blessed Trinity. BOOK IV. _DRIFTING._ CHAPTER I. MR. AND MRS. CONROY AT HOME.