had refrained from making inquiries of either respecting the lady
whose hospitality he enjoyed. He had now carefully recalled all
that the dead driver of the diligencia had told him, and had
dismissed half of it as mere gossip. Beyond the fact that Miss
Cheyne's aunt, Mrs. Dorchester, acted as her companion, he knew
nothing. But he had surmised, from remarks dropped by the young
lady herself, that her mother had been a Spaniard; hence the uncle
from whom she had inherited this estate. He also had reason to
believe that Miss Cheyne's mother had brought her up in the older
faith.

He reflected on these matters, and smiled half cynically at the
magnitude of his own interest in Miss Cheyne as he sat at the open
window. He had not long to wait before the clatter of horse's feet
on the hard road became audible. The house stood back from the
high-road in the midst of terraced olive groves, and was entirely
surrounded by a grove of cypress and ilex trees. The visitor, whose
advent was doubtless awaited with as keen an impatience by another
within the red stone house, now leisurely approached beneath the
avenue of evergreen oak. Whittaker got painfully upon his feet, and
stood, half concealed by the curtain. He was conscious of a
singular lack of surprise when he recognized the face of the
horseman as one that he had already seen, though, when he came in a
flash of thought to reflect upon it, this among all he knew was the
last face that he could have expected to see in that place.

He sat down quite coolly and mechanically, thinking and acting as
men think and act, by instinct, in a crisis. He seemed to be
obeying some pre-ordained plan.