She had turned from this and was standing by the fire when Essex entered. He had seen her once since her mother’s death, but she had then been so preoccupied with grief that, with a selfish man’s hatred of all unpleasant things, he had left her as soon as possible. To-night he saw that she was recovering, that, physically at least, she was herself again. But he was struck, almost as soon as his eye fell on her, by a change in her. Some influence had been at work to effect a subtile and curious development in her. The simplicity, the something childish and winning that had always seemed so inconsistent with her stately appearance, was gone. Mariposa was coming to herself. His heart quickened its beats as he realized she was handsomer, richer by some inward growth, more a woman than she had been a month ago. He took a seat at the other side of the fire, and the tentative conversation of commonplaces occupied them for a few moments. The silence that had held her in a spell of dead dejection on his former visit was broken. She seemed more than usually talkative. In fact, Mariposa was beginning to feel the reaction from the life of grief and seclusion of the last month. She was violently ashamed of the sense of elation that had surged up in her at the sound of Essex’s voice. She struggled to hide it, but it lit a light in her eyes, called a color to her cheeks that she could not conceal. The presence of her lover affected her with a sort of embarrassed exultation that she had never experienced before. To hide it she talked rapidly, looking into the fire, to which she still held out her hands. Essex, from the other side of the hearth, watched her. He saw his arrival had made her nervous, and it only augmented the sentiment that had been growing in him for months. She began to tell him of her move. “I’m going to-morrow, in the afternoon. It’s a queer place, an old house on Hyde Street, with a big pepper-tree, the biggest in the city, they say, growing in the front garden. It was once quite a fine house, long ago in the early days, and was built by these people, the Garcias, when they still had money. Then they lost it all, and now the old lady and her son’s wife take a few people, as the house is too big for them and they are so poor. Young Mrs. Garcia is a widow. Her husband was killed in the mines by a blast.” “It sounds picturesque. Do they speak English?” “The señora, that’s the old lady, doesn’t. She has lived here since before the Gringo came, but she can’t speak any English at all. The daughter-in-law is an American, a Southerner. She looked very untidy the day I went there. I’m afraid I’ll be homesick. You’ll come to see me sometimes, won’t you?” There was no coquetry in the remark. Her dread of loneliness was all that spoke. Essex met her eyes, dark and wistful, and nodded without speaking. She looked back at the fire and again spread her hands to it, palms out.