Appleby was on the roof in Santa Marta in body, and noticed that Miss Harding made a very effective picture in her long white dress as she glanced at him with the little smile, but he was at the same time dually sensible of the crimson flush on the English beech woods and the meadows streaked with wisps of mist, while once more the alluring vision he had fought against glided into the scene. It was a girl with gray eyes and ruddy hair, graver, deeper of thought and emotion, and more imperious than Nettie Harding. “Nothing that I am ever likely to get,” he said. Nettie laughed, but there was a faint ring in her voice, and long afterwards Appleby remembered her words, which then appeared prophetic. “Well,” she said, “do you know that if I could I would get it you, and there is very little an American girl can’t get when she sets her heart on it? Now that sounds bombastic, but I’m not sure that it is. Anyway, I’m going to England presently.” Appleby looked up sharply. “To England!” “Yes; you heard me. You will be sorry, but, of course, I’m coming back again.” “I know I can tell you that I certainly shall without its appearing presumption,” said Appleby. The girl nodded. “We haven’t any use for that word in our country. In fact, we have rather a liking for a presumptuous man so long as he is sensible,” she said. “Then there is nothing I can do for you there?” “No,” said Appleby. Nettie leaned a little nearer him, and though she smiled a faint flush crept into her cheek. “If there were, you would tell me? I can’t help remembering what you did for me.” “I think I would. Still, you see there is nothing.” “Well, I’m not quite sure, and one never knows who they may meet in England. It’s quite a small place, anyway.” Then there was a ringing of steel on stone, and she looked round with a little impatient gesture as she said, “Here is that odious Morales again!” The banker rose, and brought a chair as the colonel came forward, but the little pressure of the girl’s hand on his arm warned Appleby that she desired him to remain, and for an hour they discussed the campaign. Then Appleby decided to relate what had happened at the hacienda a few nights earlier, though he said very little about the papers and nothing concerning the hidden receptacle. Morales, he fancied, listened with eagerness, and once his dark eyes flashed. “You were wrong when you let him go,” he said. “If it happens again I should suggest the pistol. One gains nothing by showing those gentlemen toleration.”