She smiled, and turned back to seek her carriage. But before she had gone many yards she found that she had completely lost it in the intervening billows of grain. She stopped, with an impatient little Spanish ejaculation. The next moment the stalks of wheat parted before her and a figure emerged. It was the stranger. She fell back a step in utter helplessness. He, on his side, retreated again into the wheat, holding it back with extended arms to let her pass. As she moved forward mechanically, without a word he moved backward, making a path for her until she was able to discern the coachman's whip above the bending heads of the grain just beyond her. He stopped here and drew to one side, his arms still extended, to give her free passage. She tried to speak, but could only bow her head, and slipped by him with a strange feeling--suggested by his attitude--that she was evading his embrace. But the next moment his arms were lowered, the grain closed around him, and he was lost to her view. She reached the carriage almost unperceived by the inmates, and pounced upon her sister with a laugh. "Blessed Virgin!" said Amita, "where did you come from?" "From there!" said Maruja, with a slight nervous shiver, pointing to the clustering grain. "We were afraid you were lost." "So was I," said Maruja, raising her pretty lashes heavenwards, as she drew a shawl tightly round her shoulders. "Has anything happened. You look strange," said Carroll, drawing closer to her. Here eyes were sparkling, but she was very pale. "Nothing, nothing!" she said, hastily, glancing at the grain again. "If it were not that the haste would have been absolutely indecent, I should say that the late Doctor had made you a ghostly visit," said Raymond, looking at her curiously. "He would have been polite enough not to have commented on my looks," said Maruja. "Am I really such a fright?" Carroll thought he had never seen her so beautiful. Her eyelids were quivering over their fires as if they had been brushed by the passing wing of a strong passion. "What are you thinking of?" said Carroll, as they drove on. She was thinking that the stranger had looked at her admiringly, and that his eyes were blue. But she looked quietly into her lover's face, and said, sweetly, "Nothing, I fear, that would interest you!" CHAPTER IX