The
Comandante of Todos Santos, in grave, earnest accents, was actually
offering to Mrs. Markham the same proposal that he, Don Ramon, had made
to Mrs. Brimmer but a moment ago!
"No one," said the Comandante sententiously, "will know it but myself.
You will leave the ship at Acapulco; you will rejoin your husband in
good time; you will be happy, my child; you will forget the old man
who drags out the few years of loneliness still left to him in Todos
Santos."
Forgetting himself, Don Ramon leaned breathlessly forward to hear Mrs.
Markham's reply. Would she answer the Comandante as Dona Barbara had
answered HIM? Her words rose distinctly in the evening air.
"You're a gentleman, Don Miguel Briones; and the least respect I can
show a man of your kind is not to pretend that I don't understand the
sacrifice you're making. I shall always remember it as about the biggest
compliment I ever received, and the biggest risk that any man--except
one--ever ran for me. But as the man who ran that bigger risk isn't here
to speak for himself, and generally trusts his wife, Susan Markham, to
speak for him--it's all the same as if HE thanked you. There's my hand,
Don Miguel: shake it.
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