With every intervening mile they were outstripping her ruined love, were nearing the selfish goal of the mother's ambitions; nearing the desolate Gladys, who, bowed with grief, and ignorant of all, would take, at the entreaty of her dead mother's friend, the reluctant lover who could never make her happy. Poor Gladys! Poor Mariposilla! Even before I allowed myself to acknowledge the perfidy of the woman with whom I had been so intimately associated, I began to understand her, when, early in the morning, a groom from the hotel brought me a note, asking me to drive over at once, as they were to leave that day at noon for the East. "Duty compels us to go," Mrs. Sanderson wrote, shamelessly. The word "duty" aroused at once my suspicions. I felt with a creeping certainty that Gladys Carpenter was the woman's prey. I believed that some unexpected turn of fortune had revived Mrs. Sanderson's ambitions. I was sure that she had at one time relinquished all hope of obtaining the heiress for her son; but I felt on my way to the hotel a sudden presentiment that, on account of some unlooked-for occurrence, she was going to New York to revive her abandoned schemes. I felt an uncomfortable stiffness as I entered the once familiar sitting-room, now in a state of wild disorder. Mrs. Sanderson was on her knees, packing the last trunk. Upon the floor were piles of clothing and innumerable trifles, which she had torn from the wall. "Dear child! How good of you to come!" she said, extending her hand with brazen determination. "It would have broken our hearts to have left without seeing you. And dear Mariposilla! and Pet Marjorie, and the good Doña Maria--how can we ever be reconciled to leave them?" "Why is your departure compulsory?" I asked, coldly. The woman perceived instantly that I understood her, but her control was perfect. Her will was diabolical, yet for a moment a gleam of anger darkened her eyes. Then she answered naturally: "Dear Gladys has lost her father. She is perfectly crushed, and has wired us to come at once." I stood like a stone, while she told again of the intimate relations that had always existed between the families. "Gladys is just like my own child," she continued, turning away her face with the pretense of forcing a protruding Indian basket into the trunk. "We are so disappointed to miss the matinée," she said, with her face still in profile. "Sid begged to stay until to-morrow, just to see Mariposilla dance, but I persuaded him that it would be brutal to neglect Gladys one moment longer than the necessary time for our miserable journey." Before I could reply she had crossed the room to her son, who was fumbling over a finished trunk. "Don't touch the things in the tray," she cried, nervously. "I never saw such a boy. This morning he actually packed books on top of my best tea-gown." I knew that the insolence of the woman had cowed me. She was sublime in her villainy.