With difficulty Esteban restrained an oath. "You mistake my meaning," he said, stiffly. "Sebastian has served me faithfully, and Evangelina plays with my children. She is good to them; she is more of a mother to them than you have ever been." "Is that why you dress her like a lady? Bah! A likely story!" Isabel tossed her fine, dark head. "I'm not blind; I see what goes on about me. This will make a pretty scandal among your friends--she as black as the pit, and you--" "WOMAN!" shouted the planter, "you have a sting like a scorpion." "I won't have that wench in my house," Isabel flared out at him. Goaded to fury by his wife's senseless accusation, Esteban cried: "YOUR house? By what license do you call it yours?" "Am I not married to you?" "Damnation! Yes--as a leech is married to its victim. You suck my blood." "Your blood!" The woman laughed shrilly. "You have no blood; your veins run vinegar. You are a miser." "Miser! Miser! I grow sick of the word. It is all you find to taunt me with. Confess that you married me for my money," he roared. "Of course I did! Do you think a woman of my beauty would marry you for anything else? But a fine bargain I made!" "Vampire!" "Wife or vampire, I intend to rule this house, and I refuse to be shamed by a thick-lipped African. Her airs tell her story. She is insolent to me, but--I sha'n't endure it. She laughs at me. Well, your friends shall laugh at you." "Silence!" commanded Esteban. "Sell her." "No." "Sell her, or--" Without waiting to hear her threat Esteban tossed his arms above his head and fled from the room. Flinging himself into the saddle, he spurred down the hill and through the town to the Casino de Espanol, where he spent the night at cards with the Spanish officials. But he did not sell Evangelina. In the days that followed many similar scenes occurred, and as Esteban's home life grew more unhappy his dissipations increased. He drank and gambled heavily; he brought his friends to the quinta with him, and strove to forget domestic unpleasantness in boisterous revelry. His wife, however, found opportunities enough to weary and exasperate him with reproaches regarding the slave girl. II SPANISH GOLD The twins were seven years old when Dona Isabel's schemes bore their first bitter fruit, and the occasion was a particularly uproarious night when Don Esteban entertained a crowd of his Castilian friends. Little Rosa was awakened at a late hour by the laughter and shouts of her father's guests. She was afraid, for there was something strange about the voices, some quality to them which was foreign to the child's experience. Creeping into her brother's room, she awoke him, and together they listened.