was--a PIRATE! Yes--lived a pirate and was killed a pirate!"

The statement, however, seemed to be partly ineffective. Mary Rogers was
startled but not alarmed, and even protested feebly. "But," she said,
"if the father's dead, what's that to do with Clarence? He was always
with your papa--so you told me, dear--or other people, and couldn't
catch anything from his own father. And I'm sure, dearest, he always
seemed nice and quiet."

"Yes, SEEMED," returned Susy darkly, "but that's all you know! It was in
his BLOOD. You know it always is,--you read it in the books,--you
could see it in his eye. There were times, my dear, when he was
thwarted,--when the slightest attention from another person to me
revealed it! I have kept it to myself,--but think, dearest, of the
effects of jealousy on that passionate nature! Sometimes I tremble to
look back upon it."

Nevertheless, she raised her hands and threw back her lovely golden mane
from her childish shoulders with an easy, untroubled gesture. It was
singular that Mary Rogers, leaning back comfortably in the buggy, also
accepted these heart-rending revelations with comfortably knitted
brows and luxuriously contented concern. If she found it difficult to
recognize in the picture just drawn by Susy the quiet, gentle, and sadly
reserved youth she had known, she said nothing. After a silence, lazily
watching the distant wheeling vacquero, she said:--

"And your father always sends an outrider like that with you? How nice!
So picturesque--and like the old Spanish days."

"Hush!" said Susy, with another unutterable glance.