_Loved!_ The past tense of it startled her. Likewise it startled Torres, fanning his hopes to fairer flames. Almost was she his. She had said _loved_. She no longer bore love for Henry. She _had_ loved him, but no longer. And she, a maid and woman of delicacy and sensibility, could not, of course, give name to her love for him while the other man still lived. It was subtle of her. He prided himself on his own subtlety, and he flattered himself that he had interpreted her veiled thought aright. And ... well, he resolved, he would see to it that the man who was to die at ten next morning should have neither reprieve nor rescue. The one thing clear, if he were to win Leoncia quickly, was that Henry Morgan should die quickly. “We will speak of it no more ... now,” he said with chivalric gentleness, as he gently pressed her hand, rose to his feet, and gazed down on her. She returned a soft pressure of thanks with her own hand ere she released it and stood up. “Come,” she said. “We will join the others. They are planning now, or trying to find some plan, to save Henry Morgan.” The conversation of the group ebbed away as they joined it, as if out of half-suspicion of Torres. “Have you hit upon anything yet?” Leoncia asked. Old Enrico, straight and slender and graceful as any of his sons despite his age, shook his head. “I have a plan, if you will pardon me,” Torres began, but ceased at a warning glance from Alesandro, the eldest son. On the walk, below the piazza, had appeared two scarecrows of beggar boys. Not more than ten years of age, by their size, they seemed much older when judged by the shrewdness of their eyes and faces. Each wore a single marvelous garment, so that between them it could be said they shared a shirt and pants. But such a shirt! And such pants! The latter, man-size, of ancient duck, were buttoned around the lad’s neck, the waistband reefed with knotted twine so as not to slip down over his shoulders. His arms were thrust through the holes where the side-pockets had been. The legs of the pants had been hacked off with a knife to suit his own diminutive length of limb. The tails of the man’s shirt on the other boy dragged on the ground. “Vamos!” Alesandro shouted fiercely at them to be gone. But the boy in the pants gravely removed a stone which he had been carrying on top of his bare head, exposing a letter which had been thus carried. Alesandro leaned over, took the letter, and with a glance at the inscription passed it to Leoncia, while the boys began whining for money. Francis, smiling despite himself at the spectacle of them, tossed them a few pieces of small silver, whereupon the shirt and the pants toddled away down the path.