"I know where to find him!" he said. "This country could not hide a man four days without a strong friend to cover him. Give me permission to go and demand him at her door." "Without absolute knowledge that he is there, it would be an affront that Helena never would forgive," Don Abrahan returned in politic softness. "Forgive! Helena forgive! I swear to you, Don Abrahan my father, that I will not have her, polluted by his kiss." "This is folly," Don Abrahan reproved him coldly. "What is a kiss more or less, if he kissed her? The sailor never met her alone, never spoke a word to her. But I give him to you. Do with him what your desire leads you to do--when you find him." "If we find that she is hiding him, will that be proof enough for you of her guilt?" "It is preposterous. She could not hide him, nobody could hide him!" Don Abrahan declared, but contrary to his own deep conviction that somebody, indeed, must be concealing the fugitive. "He has crawled into a cave in the hills; hunger will drive him out tomorrow." "It is a thing that touches a man's honor." Roberto judged Helena as Helena judged him and his kind, as revealed in her significant speech to Henderson, explaining why she had hidden herself in the tree. Men were not trusted alone with women in the Spanish-Mexican society of that time; they are not trusted in any greater degree in the same society today. "Proof would be necessary," Don Abrahan insisted, with such firmness that Roberto knew could not be shaken. "You did not see her, the touch of a shoe which seemed of the same material you brought from the capital." "Sixteen dollars, gold, they cost me!" "Such evidence is weaker than the testimony of a blind man. It does not convict Helena in my judgment, I will not consent to your throwing away her lands, her herds, her gold won by that magician Sprague as if he clutched it out of the air. It is too much for a trifle of suspicion to wreck. When you cool, when you are reasonable, you will see it as I do." "In my own heart she stands convicted. There is not another pair of shoes like that this side of the capital." "Who comes?" Don Abrahan asked, leaning to listen as the sound of someone riding into the courtyard in haste passed the window like a gust of wind. Roberto turned to the window to see. The rider had passed; only the dust of his swift arrival could be seen. He opened the window and leaned out. "Felipe is coming with the intelligence," he announced. [Illustration] "It is time for the fish to show himself in the net," Don Abrahan said, going to the door which opened into the courtyard. "I knew we must have news of him soon." Roberto stood by the table, lips compressed, hands clenched, as if he struggled against vengeful emotions. Don Abrahan turned from the door, and closed it. He stood a moment reading the written message his _mayordomo_ had put into his hand.