“Fight!” the crazy old voice rang out with a sound that made the two great beasts behind him bristle up and lash their tails. “We will kill! My cats will kill. We would have fought for you last time, but we were too late. Now you have come back he shall never get you again.” He began to leer and jabber at her until, brave as she was, she feared him. Would a thing so crazy ever distinguish between Heriot and another? “If you save me you shall never leave me again,” she said very slowly, and with that same touch with which she made the jaguars obey her, she laid her hand on his wrinkled, repulsive forehead. “_Querida mia!_” he stammered, and for the first time he met her eyes. “See,” he said painfully, “I understand. This is your lover in the woods, but you will not leave the old man for him. And the black-eyed one shall not steal you as he did before. We, your lover and I, will hide near the house with the cats. When we are there you will hear my cats laughing, laughing loud, till the black-eyed one’s blood turns to water. And when you call us we will come. We will not let him get you.” “Not me, nor the woman with red hair.” “I bit her. I will never bite her again,” he shuffled with shame. “I will go now.” “Wait!” she cried. “Can you speak English?” “English?” he clenched his hands. “No, no English! It was English took you away.” “Then take this,” she pulled the beryl ring off her finger, “and tell him to come back. He must know Spanish enough for that.” “At noon we will be back. My cats will sleep there in the shade,” he pointed to an oleander thicket. “But first they shall laugh till you hear them.” He turned and ran, bent so low that he might have been a beast like the sinuous, spotted things that followed him. Almost before she could draw breath they had all disappeared in the scrub. Oh, it was an ill-omened messenger to send! And yet Beryl was certain that to let Heriot go would mean his coming back to an empty house--or worse. “Did you find Heriot?” said Andria, when the girl returned, pale and soaked with dew. “I didn’t try.” She turned her face away as she told what she had done. “Andria,” she whispered, wan in the first sun rays, “I wish I knew who I was! For I can’t help thinking I--I remember that crazy man’s face. I can’t be anything to him. Oh, tell me I can’t!” Andria could not answer. For pity could not tell this girl who played with jaguars that her mother, the madman’s daughter, had done the same. “You dreamed it,” she faltered, “you could never have seen him. You were too little when you came to the convent to remember anything,” but as she lied she turned away, sick at heart. Erle would marry the girl for his own ends. He would not care one straw for the madness in her blood. But if she found out, would she ever let Heriot call her wife? Child as she was, Andria knew that was beyond her. “Aren’t you going to take what I gave you?” she said, pointing to that big envelope on the floor.