For the second time they looked at each other for a motionless, deep-breathing moment. There was nothing in their faces or attitudes that suggested lovers. They looked like a pair of antagonists at pause in their struggle--on the alert for a continuance of battle. “Yes, I understand you now,” she said in a low voice; “you’ve made me understand you.” “I only want to make you understand one thing--how much I love you.” She drew back with a movement of violent repugnance. He suddenly stretched out his arms and came toward her. She ran toward the door, for the moment forgetting it was locked. Then, as it resisted, memory awoke. He was beside her and tried to take her in his arms, but she turned and struck him, with all her force, a blow on the face. She saw the skin redden under it. “Open the door!” she gasped; “open the door!” For the moment the blow so stunned and enraged him that he drew back from her, his hand instinctively rising to the smarting skin. An oath burst from his compressed mouth. “I’d like to kill you for that,” he said. “Open the door,” she almost shrieked, rattling the handle. “I’ll pay you for this. You seem to forget that I know all the disreputable secrets of your beginnings. I can tell all the world how your mother was sold to Dan Moreau, and how--” Mariposa heard the click of the gate and a step on the outside stairs. She drowned the sound of Essex’s voice in a sudden furious pounding on the door, while she cried with the full force of her lungs: “Benito! Miguel! Mrs. Garcia!--Come and open this door! Come and let me out! I’m locked in! Come!” Essex was at the door in an instant, the key in the lock. As he turned it he gave her a murderous look. “You fool!” he said under his breath. As the portal swung open and he passed into the hall, the front door was violently pushed inward, and Barron almost fell against him in the hurry of his entrance. The new-comer drew back from the departing stranger with an apologetic start. “Beg your pardon,” he said bruskly, “but I thought I heard some one scream in here.” “Scream?” said Essex, languidly selecting his hat from the disreputable collection on the rack; “I didn’t notice it, and I’ve been sitting in there for nearly an hour with Miss Moreau. I fancy you’ve made a mistake.” “I guess I must have. It’s odd.” The hall door slammed behind Essex, and the other man turned into the parlor, where the light was now very dim. In his exit from the room Essex had flung the door open with violence, and Mariposa, who had backed against the wall, was still standing behind it. As Barron pushed it to he saw her, a vague black figure with white hands and face, in the dark. “What on earth are you doing there?” he said; “standing behind the door like a child in the corner.” She thanked heaven for the friendly dark and answered hurriedly: “I--I--I--didn’t want you to catch me. I’m so--so--untidy.”