"And I imagine this is your man coming to look for you." He pointed to Concho, who was slowly making his way among the sand dunes towards the Point. "Let me assist you on your horse again. He need not know--nobody need know--the extent of your disaster." Donna Maria, still bewildered, permitted herself to be assisted to her saddle again, despite the consequent terrible revelation of her shoeless feet. Then she became conscious that she had not thanked her deliverer, and proceeded to do so with such embarrassment that the stranger's laughing interruption was a positive relief. "You would thank me better if you were to set off in a swinging gallop over those sun-baked, oven-like sand-hills, and so stave off a chill! For the rest, I am Mr. Poinsett, one of your late husband's legal advisers, here on business that will most likely bring us together--I trust much more pleasantly to you than this. Good morning!" He had already mounted his horse, and was lifting his hat. Donna Maria was not a very clever woman, but she was bright enough to see that his business _brusquerie_ was either the concealment of a man shy of women, or the impertinence of one too familiar with them. In either case it was to be resented. How did she do it? Ah me! She took the most favourable hypothesis. She pouted, I regret to say. Then she said-- "It was all your fault!" "How?" "Why, if you hadn't stood there, looking at me and criticising, I shouldn't have tried to go round." With this Parthian arrow she dashed off, leaving her rescuer halting between a bow and a smile. CHAPTER IV. FATHER FELIPE.