then cried out, "Barbara! You cannot mean this!"

"You see, señor," said the old man, "there is nothing more to say."

"Is there nothing more to say, Barbara?" Wemple appealed to her in a
broken voice.

She did not look at him, but shook her head and went back into the house.

Lieutenant Wemple turned his horse and with head hanging on his breast
rode slowly, very slowly, back toward the long declivity leading to the
plain below. If he had not ridden so slowly this tale might have had a
different ending.

Ambrosio went into the house and began telling his wife what had
happened. Barbara took an empty _tinaja_ and said she would go for more
water. When she stepped outside she could still see the forlorn figure
of her lover riding slowly down the trail. Her heart yearned after him
as she bitterly thought:

"He will believe it! I made him believe it! And I can never tell him
that it is not true!"

Then something set her heart on fire and put into it the thought of
rebellion. She looked around her at the village and thought of the life
it meant for her, as long as she should live; of the heartbreak she would
have to conceal from sneering eyes, of the obscene dances in which she
would soon be forced to take part, of the persecutions she would have to
suffer because she could no longer think as her people thought; and
hatred of it all filled her to the teeth. Rebellion burned high in her