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“You remember I met YOU coming in: you seemed so queer then that I did not say anything to you, for I thought you would laugh at me, or reproach me for my boldness; and I thought, Dick, that–that–that–this person wished to speak only to ME.” She hesitated.

“Go on,” said Dick, in a voice that had also undergone a singular change.

The chestnut head was bent a little lower, as the young girl nervously twisted her fingers in her lap.

“Then I saw him again–and–again,” she went on hesitatingly. “Of course I spoke to him, to–to–find out what he wanted; but you know, Dick, I cannot speak Spanish, and of course he didn’t understand me, and didn’t reply.”

“But his manner, his appearance, gave you some idea of his meaning?” said Dick suddenly.

Cecily’s head drooped a little lower. “I thought–that is, I fancied I knew what he meant.”

“No doubt,” said Dick, in a voice which, but for the superstitious horror of the situation, might have impressed a casual listener as indicating a trace of human irony.

But Cecily did not seem to notice it. “Perhaps I was excited that night, perhaps I was bolder because I knew you were near me; but I went up to him and touched him! And then, Dick!–oh, Dick! think how awful–“

Again Dick felt the thrill of superstitious terror creep over him. “And he vanished!” he said hoarsely.

“No–not at once,” stammered Cecily, with her head almost buried in her lap; “for he–he–he took me in his arms and–“

“And kissed you?” said Dick, springing to his feet, with every trace of his superstitious agony gone from his indignant face. But Cecily, without raising her head, caught at his gesticulating hand.

“Oh, Dick, Dick! do you think he really did it? The horror of it, Dick! to be kissed by a–a–man who has been dead a hundred years!”

“A hundred fiddlesticks!” said Dick furiously. “We have been deceived! No,” he stammered, “I mean YOU have been deceived–insulted!”

“Hush! Aunty will hear you,” murmured the girl despairingly.

Dick, who had thrown away his cousin’s hand, caught it again, and dragged her along the aisle of light to the window. The moon shone upon his flushed and angry face.

“Listen!” he said; “you have been fooled, tricked–infamously tricked by these people, and some confederate, whom–whom I shall horsewhip if I catch. The whole story is a lie!”

“But you looked as if you believed it–about the girl,” said Cecily; “you acted so strangely. I even thought, Dick,–sometimes–you had seen HIM.”

Dick shuddered, trembled; but it is to be feared that the lower, more natural human element in him triumphed.

“Nonsense!” he stammered; “the girl was a foolish farrago of absurdities, improbable on the face of things, and impossible to prove. But that infernal, sneaking rascal was flesh and blood.”

It seemed to him to relieve the situation and establish his own sanity to combat one illusion with another. Cecily had already been deceived–another lie wouldn’t hurt her. But, strangely enough, he was satisfied that Cecily’s visitant was real, although he still had doubts about his own.

“Then you think, Dick, it was actually some real man?” she said piteously. “Oh, Dick, I have been so foolish!”

Foolish she no doubt had been; pretty she certainly was, sitting there in her loosened hair, and pathetic, appealing earnestness. Surely the ghostly Rosita’s glances were never so pleading as these actual honest eyes behind their curving lashes. Dick felt a strange, new-born sympathy of suffering, mingled tantalizingly with a new doubt and jealousy, that was human and stimulating.

“Oh, Dick, what are WE to do?”

The plural struck him as deliciously sweet and subtle. Had they really been singled out for this strange experience, or still stranger hallucination? His arm crept around her; she gently withdrew from it.

“I must go now,” she murmured; “but I couldn’t sleep until I told you all. You know, Dick, I have no one else to come to, and it seemed to me that YOU ought to know it first. I feel better for telling you. You will tell me to-morrow what you think we ought to do.”

They reached the door, opening it softly. She lingered for a moment on the threshold.

“Tell me, Dick” (she hesitated), “if that–that really were a spirit, and not a real man,–you don’t think that–that kiss” (she shuddered) “could do me harm!”

He shuddered too, with a strange and sympathetic consciousness that, happily, she did not even suspect. But he quickly recovered himself and said, with something of bitterness in his voice, “I should be more afraid if it really were a man.”

“Oh, thank you, Dick!”

Her lips parted in a smile of relief; the color came faintly back to her cheek.

A wild thought crossed his fancy that seemed an inspiration. They would share the risks alike. He leaned towards her: their lips met in their first kiss.

“Oh, Dick!”

“Dearest!”

“I think–we are saved.”

“Why?”

“It wasn’t at all like that.”

He smiled as she flew swiftly down the corridor. Perhaps he thought so too.

*****

No picture of the alleged Rosita was ever found. Dona Felipa, when the story was again referred to, smiled discreetly, but was apparently too preoccupied with the return of Don Jose’s absent nephew for further gossiping visits to the hacienda; and Dick and Cecily, as Mr. and Mrs. Bracy, would seem to have survived–if they never really solved–the mystery of the Hacienda de los Osos. Yet in the month of June, when the moon is high, one does not sit on the stone bench in the rose garden after the last stroke of the Angelus.