in a richly furnished bedroom. He woke as if from sleep, with his
senses fully alert, and began at once to take an interest in a
conversation of which he had been conscious in the form of a faint
murmur for some time.

"A broken arm, my child, and nothing more, so far as I can tell at
present," were the first comprehensible words. Whittaker tried to
move his left arm, and winced.

"And the other man?" inquired a woman's voice in Spanish, but with
an accent which the listener recognised at once. This was an
Englishwoman speaking Spanish.

"Ah! the other man is dead. Poor Mogul! He was always civil and
God-fearing. He has driven the diligencia up to us for nearly
twenty years."

Whittaker turned his head, and winced again. The speaker was a
monk--fat and good-natured--one of the few now left in the great
house on Montserrat. His interlocutor was a woman not more than
thirty, with brown hair that gleamed in the sunlight, and a fresh,
thoughtful face. Her attitude was somewhat independent, her manner
indicated a self-reliant spirit. This was a woman who would
probably make mistakes in life, but these would not be the errors of
omission. She was a prototype of a sex and an age which err in
advancing too quickly, and in holding that everything which is old-
fashioned must necessarily be foolish.

Whittaker lay quite still and watched these two, while the deep-
drawn lines around his lips indicated a decided sense of amusement.