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A Branded Soul
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sent the blood leaping into her cheeks on their first meeting.
"You need not beg, Conchita ! Juan has not yet been delivered to the soldiers. Pedro will watch him until I give the word and that word depends on you. The life of your amigo is in your hands."
"In mine, Senor? I will do anything, anything — "
"Will you come to my house tonight?"' Rannie's tones were thick with sudden passion. "I love you, Conchita! I have wanted you from the moment you defied me, there before the church, and I made up my mind that you should come to me! An hour against the life of Juan Mendoza! You alone can save him, Conchita, if you will!"
The girl put out her hands instinctively as if warding off a blow and backed slowly from him, her eyes dark and wide with horror.
"Senor!" She whispered hoarsely. "You mean that you — you will have Juan shot unless—? You cannot! The bueno Dios would not permit that you could be so cruel, so merciless!"
"All's fair in love!" he reminded her. "That is what Mendoza himself was saying when I came. Will you send him to face the firing squad at dawn or will you come to me? It is for you to choose!"
Conchita bowed her head and he waited, his quickened breath the only sound within the silent room. At last she looked up and in her eyes shone the exaltation of a supreme sacrifice.
"I will come, Senor."
An hour later, through the fragrant darkness. Conchita crept to the casa of John Rannie, to keep her promise. He
welcomed her with a return of his well-poised self-control, but she scarcely seemed aware of his presence. Sinking submissively into the chair he proffered, the girl gazed about her with the air of a trapped animal, helpless, mute before the black fear which assailed her.
"A toast, Conchita!" Rannie bent over her a wine glass in his hand. "To love!"
"Love?" She shrank uncontrollably from him. "What have I to do with love, Senor? I have come to buy the life of Juan Mendoza. I have kept my word; I trust you to keep yours. But love one cannot sell.''
She .aised her eyes timidly to his, the prayer for mercy which she would not utter shining from their soft depths.
John Rannie put down his glass.
"You love him so much, then, this spy?" he asked, averting his own eyes from hers.
"But yes. Senor." Conchita replied simply, ignoring the contempt in his tone. "It is a great wrong that Juan has done, but he did it for my sake, and then it may be that he did not understand. He is a man and I think men do not always comprehend the wrong they do."
"Perhaps not." Rannie's tone was low and constrained. "Do you think that he will understand vour having saved him?"
"He shall never know. Senor. I will never see him again." She closed her eyes in a swift spasm of pain. "But he will live, and be a good man. Nothing else matters now."
For a time silence fell between them as Rannie paced the floor moodily. Had she glanced at him. Conchita might have divined the struggle that was taking place be
"What have I to do with love, Senor? I have come to buy the life of Juan Mendoza. I have kept my word; I trust you to keep yours."