"It is impossible, Senor Victor, believe me."

"I tell you I saw her," said Victor, excitedly. "_Borrachon!_ She was there! By the pillar. As she went out she partook of _agua bendita_. I saw her; large eyes, an oval face, a black dress and mantle."

Vincente, who, happily for Victor, had not heard the epithet of his friend, shook his head and laughed a conceited drunken laugh.

"Tell me not this, friend Victor. It was not her thou didst see. Believe me, I am wise. It was the Donna Dolores who partook of _agua bendita_, and alone. For there is none, thou knowest, that has a right to offer it to her. Look you, foolish Victor, she has large eyes, a small mouth, an oval face. And dark--ah, she is dark!"

"'In the dark all are as the devil,'" quoted Victor, impatiently, "how should I know? Who then _is_ she?" he demanded almost fiercely, as if struggling with a rising fear. "Who is this Donna Dolores?"

"Thou art a stranger, friend Victor. Hark ye. It is the half-breed daughter of the old commander of San Ysabel. Yet, such is the foolishness of old men, she is his heiress! She is rich, and lately she has come into possession of a great grant, very valuable. Thou dost understand, friend Victor? Well, why dost thou stare? She is a recluse.

Marriage is not for her; love, love! the tender, the subduing, the delicious, is not for her. She is of the Church, my Victor. And to think that thou didst mistake this ascetic, this nun, this little brown novice, this Donna Dolores Salvatierra for the little American coquette.

Ha! Ha! It is worth the fee of another bottle? Eh? Victor, my friend!

Thou dost not listen. Eh? Thou wouldst fly, traitor. Eh? what's that thou sayst? Bobo! Dupe thyself!"

For Victor stood before him, dumb, but for that single epithet. Was he not a dupe? Had he not been cheated again, and this time by a blunder in his own malice? If he had really, as he believed, identified Grace Conroy in this dark-faced devotee whose name he now learned for the first time, by what diabolical mischance had he deliberately put her in possession of the forged grant, and so blindly restored her the missing property? Could Don Pedro have been treacherous? Could he have known, could they all--Arthur Poinsett, Dumphy, and Julie Devarges--have known this fact of which he alone was ignorant? Were they not laughing at him now? The thought was madness.

With a vague impression of being shaken rudely off by a pa.s.sionate hand, and a drunken vision of a ghastly and pa.s.sionate face before him uttering words of impotent rage and baffled despair, Vincente, the wise and valiant, came slowly and amazedly to himself, lying over the table.

But his late companion was gone.

CHAPTER VI.

AN EXPERT.

A cold, grey fog had that night stolen noiselessly in from the sea, and, after possessing the town, had apparently intruded itself in the long, low plain before the _hacienda_ of the Rancho of the Holy Trinity, where it sullenly lingered even after the morning sun had driven in its eastern outposts. Viewed from the Mission towers, it broke a cold grey sea against the corral of the _hacienda_, and half hid the white walls of the _hacienda_ itself. It was characteristic of the Rancho that, under such conditions, at certain times it seemed to vanish entirely from the sight, or rather to lose and melt itself into the outlines of the low foot-hills, and Mr. Perkins, the English translator, driving a buggy that morning in that direction, was forced once or twice to stop and take his bearings anew, until the grey sea fell, and the _hacienda_ again heaved slowly into view.

Although Mr. Perkins' transformations were well known to his intimate a.s.sociates, it might have been difficult for any stranger to have recognised the slovenly drudge of Pacific Street, in the antique dandy who drove the buggy. Mr. Perkins' hair was brushed, curled, and darkened by dye. A high stock of a remote fashion encompa.s.sed his neck, above which his face, whitened by cosmetics to conceal his high complexion, rested stiffly and expressionless as a mask. A light blue coat b.u.t.toned tightly over his breast, and a pair of close-fitting trousers strapped over his j.a.panned leather boots, completed his remarkable _ensemble_. It was a figure well known on Montgomery Street after three o'clock--seldom connected with the frousy visitor of the Pacific Street den, and totally unrecognisable on the plains of San Antonio.

It was evident, however, that this figure, eccentric as it was, was expected at the _hacienda_, and recognised as having an importance beyond its antique social distinction. For, when Mr. Perkins drew up in the courtyard, the grave _major domo_ at once ushered him into the formal, low-studded drawing-room already described in these pages, and in another instant the Donna Dolores Salvatierra stood before him.

With a refined woman's delicacy of perception, Donna Dolores instantly detected under this bizarre exterior something that atoned for it, which she indicated by the depth of the half-formal curtsey she made it. Mr.

Perkins met the salutation with a bow equally formal and respectful. He was evidently agreeably surprised at his reception, and impressed with her manner. But like most men of ill-a.s.sured social position, he was a trifle suspicious and on the defensive. With a graceful gesture of her fan, the Donna pointed to a chair, but her guest remained standing.

"_I_ am a stranger to you, Senor, but _you_ are none to me," she said, with a gracious smile. "Before I ventured upon the boldness of seeking this interview, your intelligence, your experience, your honourable report was already made known to me by your friends. Let me call myself one of these--even before I break the business for which I have summoned you."

The absurd figure bowed again, but even through the pitiable chalk and cosmetics of its complexion, an embarra.s.sed colour showed itself. Donna Dolores noticed it, but delicately turned toward an old-fashioned secretary, and opened it, to give her visitor time to recover himself.

She drew from a little drawer a folded, legal-looking doc.u.ment, and then placing two chairs beside the secretary, seated herself in one. Thus practically reminded of his duty, Mr. Perkins could no longer decline the proffered seat.

"I suppose," said Donna Dolores, "that my business, although familiar to you generally--although you are habitually consulted upon just such questions--may seem strange to you, when you frankly learn my motives.

Here is a grant purporting to have been made to my--father--the late Don Jose Salvatierra. Examine it carefully, and answer me a single question to the best of your judgment." She hesitated, and then added--"Let me say, before you answer yes or no, that to me there are no pecuniary interests involved--nothing that should make you hesitate to express an opinion which you might be called upon legally to prove. _That_ you will never be required to give. Your answer will be accepted by me in confidence; will not, as far as the world is concerned, alter the money value of this doc.u.ment--will leave you free hereafter to express a different opinion, or even to reverse your judgment publicly if the occasion requires it. You seem astounded, Senor Perkins. But I am a rich woman. I have no need to ask your judgment to increase my wealth."

"Your question is"----said Mr. Perkins, speaking for the first time without embarra.s.sment.

"Is that doc.u.ment a forgery?"

He took it out of her hand, opened it with a kind of professional carelessness, barely glanced at the signature and seals, and returned it.

"The signatures are genuine," he said, with business-like brevity; then he added, as if in explanation of that brevity, "I have seen it before."

Donna Dolores moved her chair with the least show of uneasiness. The movement attracted Mr. Perkins' attention. It was something novel. Here was a woman who appeared actually annoyed that her claim to a valuable property was valid. He fixed his eyes upon her curiously.

"Then you think it is a genuine grant?" she said, with a slight sigh.

"As genuine as any that receive a patent at Washington," he replied, promptly.

"Ah!" said Donna Dolores, simply. The feminine interjection appeared to put a construction upon Senor Perkins' reply that both annoyed and challenged him. He a.s.sumed the defensive.

"Have you any reason to doubt the genuineness of this particular doc.u.ment?"

"Yes. It was only recently discovered among Don Jose's papers, and there is another in existence."

Senor Perkins again reached out his hand, took the paper, examined it attentively, held it to the light and then laid it down. "It is all right," he said. "Where is the other?"

"I have it not," said Donna Dolores.

Senor Perkins shrugged his shoulders respectfully as to Donna Dolores, but scornfully of an unbusiness-like s.e.x. "How did you expect me to inst.i.tute a comparison?"

"There is no comparison necessary if that doc.u.ment is genuine," said the Donna, quickly.

Senor Perkins was embarra.s.sed for a moment. "I mean there might be some mistake. Under what circ.u.mstances is it held--who holds it? To whom was it given?"

"That is a part of my story. It was given five years ago to a Dr.

Devarges--I beg your pardon, did you speak?"

Senor Perkins had not spoken, but was staring with grim intensity at Donna Dolores. "You--said--Dr. Devarges," he repeated, slowly.

"Yes. Did you know him?" It was Donna Dolores' turn to be embarra.s.sed.

She bit her lip and slightly contracted her eyebrows. For a moment they both stood on the defensive.

"I have heard the name before," Mr. Perkins said at last, with a forced laugh.

"Yes, it is the name of a distinguished _savant_," said Donna Dolores, composedly. "Well--_he_ is dead. But he gave this grant to a young girl named--named"--Dolores paused as if to recall the name--"named Grace Conroy."

She stopped and raised her eyes quickly to her companion, but his face was unmoved, and his momentary excitement seemed to have pa.s.sed. He nodded his head for her to proceed.

"Named Grace Conroy," repeated Donna Dolores, more rapidly, and with freer breath. "After the lapse of five years a woman--an impostor--appears to claim the grant under the name of Grace Conroy. But perhaps finding difficulty in carrying out her infamous scheme, by some wicked, wicked art, she gains the affections of the brother of this Grace, and marries him as the next surviving heir." And Donna Dolores paused, a little out of breath, with a glow under her burnished cheek and a slight metallic quality in her voice. It was perhaps no more than the natural indignation of a quickly sympathising nature, but Mr.

Perkins did not seem to notice it. In fact, within the last few seconds his whole manner had become absent and preoccupied; the stare which he had fixed a moment before on Donna Dolores was now turned to the wall, and his old face, under its juvenile mask, looked still older.

"Certainly, certainly," he said at last, recalling himself with an effort. "But all this only goes to prove that the grant may be as fraudulent as the owner. Then, you have nothing really to make you suspicious of your own claim but the fact of its recent discovery? Well, that I don't think need trouble you. Remember your grant was given when lands were not valuable, and your late father might have overlooked it as unimportant." He rose with a slight suggestion in his manner that the interview had closed. He appeared anxious to withdraw, and not entirely free from the same painful pre-absorption that he had lately shown. With a slight shade of disappointment in her face Donna Dolores also rose.

In another moment he would have been gone, and the lives of these two people thus brought into natural yet mysterious contact have flowed on unchanged in each monotonous current. But as he reached the door he turned to ask a trivial question. On that question trembled the future of both.

"This real Grace Conroy then I suppose has disappeared. And this--Doctor--Devarges"--he hesitated at the name as something equally fict.i.tious--"you say is dead. How then did this impostor gain the knowledge necessary to set up the claim? Who is _she_?"

"Oh, she is--that is--she married Gabriel Conroy under the name of the widow of Dr. Devarges. Pardon me! I did not hear what you said. Holy Virgin! What is the matter? You are ill. Let me call Sanchez! Sit here!"