"
"Treachery?" I asked. "And have you any suspicions who might have
played informer?"
She hesitated. "I may as well tell you just what I suspect. I
fear that the hold of Senora Mendez is somehow or other concerned
with it all. I even have suspected that somehow she may be
working in the pay of the government that she is a vampire,
living on the secrets of the group who so trust her. I suspect
anything, everybody--that she is poisoning his mind, perhaps even
whispering into his ear some siren proposal of amnesty and his
estate again, if he will but do what she asks. My poor father--I
must save him from himself if it is necessary. Argument has no
effect with him. He merely answers that the senora is a talented
and accomplished woman, and laughs a vacant laugh when I hint to
him to beware. I hate her."
The fiery animosity of her dark eyes boded ill, I felt, for the
senora. But it flashed over me that perhaps, after all, the
senora was not a traitress, but had simply been scheming to win
the heart and hence the hacienda of the great land-owner, when he
came into possession of his estate if the revolution proved
successful.
"And finally," she concluded, keeping back the tears by an heroic
effort, "last night he left our apartment, promising to return
early in the evening.
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