"I will. For _your_ sake, my dear child, I promise it. Well, now we must part. I must rouse no suspicions." "Yes. We must be prudent." He was about to leave her when a new and terrible thought struck him, and made him look at her as though they were about to part forever. "If Muñoz leaves you his fortune," he said firmly, "you shall be free." She stared; after a moment she burst into a little laugh; then she shook her finger in his face and said, blushing, "Yes, free to be--your wife." He caught the finger, bent his head over it and kissed it, ready to cry upon it. It was the only kiss that he had given her; and what a world-wide event it was to both! Ah, these lovers! They find a universe where others see only trifles; they are gifted with the second-sight and live amid miracles. "Do be careful, oh my dear friend!" was the last whisper of Clara as Thurstane quitted the tower. Then she passed the day in ascending and descending between heights of happiness and abysses of anxiety. Her existence henceforward was a Jacob's ladder, which had its foot on a world of crime and sorrow, and its top in heavens passing description. As for Thurstane, he had to think and act, for something must be done with Texas Smith. He queried whether the fellow might not have seen Clara when she pushed him out of the crevice, and would not seize the first opportunity to kill her. Angered by this supposition, he at first resolved to seize him, charge him with his crime, and turn him loose in the desert to take his chance among the Apaches. Then it occurred to him that it might be possible to change this enemy into a partisan. While he was pondering these matters his eye fell upon the man. His army habit of authority and of butting straight at the face of danger immediately got the better of his wish to manage the matter delicately, and made him forget his promises to be prudent. Beckoning Texas to follow him, he marched out of the plaza through the nearest gap, faced about upon his foe with an imperious stare, and said abruptly, "My man, do you want to be shot?" Texas Smith had his revolver and long hunting-knife in his waist-belt. He thought of drawing both at once and going at Thurstane, who was certainly in no better state for battle, having only revolver and sabre. But the chance of combat was even; the certainty of being slaughtered after it by the soldiers was depressing; and, what was more immediately to the point, he was cowed by that stare of habitual authority. "Capm--I don't," he said, watching the officer with the eye of a lynx, for, however unwilling to fight as things were, he meant to defend himself. "Because I could have you set up by my sergeant and executed by my privates," continued Thurstane. "Capm, I reckon you're sound there," admitted Texas, with a slight flinch in his manner. "Now, then, do you want to fight a duel?" broke out the angry youngster, his pugnacity thoroughly getting the better of his wisdom. "We both have pistols."