patiently sewing and all unconscious of his presence. On the next,
he had scarce appeared when the window opened, and the Senorita
tripped forth into the sunlight, in a morning disorder, delicately
neat, and yet somehow foreign, tropical, and strange. In one hand
she held a packet.

'Will you try,' she said, 'some of my father's tobacco--from dear
Cuba? There, as I suppose you know, all smoke, ladies as well as
gentlemen. So you need not fear to annoy me. The fragrance will
remind me of home. My home, Senor, was by the sea.' And as she
uttered these few words, Desborough, for the first time in his
life, realised the poetry of the great deep. 'Awake or asleep, I
dream of it: dear home, dear Cuba!'

'But some day,' said Desborough, with an inward pang, 'some day you
will return?'

' Never!' she cried; 'ah, never, in Heaven's name!'

'Are you then resident for life in England?' he inquired, with a
strange lightening of spirit.

'You ask too much, for you ask more than I know,' she answered
sadly; and then, resuming her gaiety of manner: 'But you have not
tried my Cuban tobacco,' she said.

'Senorita,' said he, shyly abashed by some shadow of coquetry in
her manner, 'whatever comes to me--you--I mean,' he concluded,
deeply flushing, 'that I have no doubt the tobacco is delightful.'