Don Miguel approached them with disturbed and anxious looks.
"I have yielded to the persuasions of two ladies, Dona Leonor and the
Senora Markham, to ask you to see them for a moment," he said to Senor
Perkins. "Shall it be so? I have told them the hour is nearly spent."
"You have told them--NOTHING MORE?" asked the Senor, in a whisper
unheard by Hurlstone.
"No."
"Let them come, then."
The Commander made a gesture to the sentries at the guard-room, who drew
back to allow Mrs. Markham and Eleanor to pass. A little child, one of
Eleanor's old Presidio pupils, who, recognizing her, had followed her
into the guard-room, now emerged with her, and momentarily disconcerted
at the presence of the Commander, ran, with the unerring instinct of
childhood, to the Senor for protection. The filibuster smiled, and
lifting the child with a paternal gesture to his shoulder by one hand,
he extended the other to the ladies.
"The Commander," said Mrs. Markham briskly, "says it's against the
rules; that visiting time is up; and you've already got a friend with
you, and all that sort of thing; but I told him that I was bound to see
you, if only to say that if there's any meanness going on, Susannah and
James Markham ain't in it! No! But we're going to see you put right and
square in the matter; and if we can't do it here, we'll do it, if we
have to follow you to Mexico!--that's all!"
"And I," said Eleanor, grasping the Senor's hand, and half blushing as
she glanced at Hurlstone, "see that I have already a friend here who
will help me to put in action all the sympathy I feel.
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