Sax Rohmer

“ Well—at last, Señor Menendez offered me marriage. I thought if I agreed it would give me my freedom, and I could run away and find Ah Tsong.”
She paused, and a flush coloured her delicate face and faded again, leaving it very pale.
“We were married in the house, by a Spanish priest. Oh”—she raised her hands pathetically—“do you know what a woman is like? My spirit was not broken still, but crushed. I had now nothing but kindness and gifts. I might never have known, but Senor Menendez, who thought”—she smiled sadly—“I was beautiful, took me to Cuba, where he had a great house. ”

“ Do you think so?” asked the girl, simply. “What does it matter if it can help Colin?
“This aunt of mine,” she presently continued, “was a poor woman, and it was while I was hiding in her house—because spies of Señor Menendez were searching for me—that I met—my husband. He was studying in Cuba the strange things he writes about, you see. And before I knew what had happened—I found I loved him more than all else in the world. It is so wonderful, that feeling,” she said, looking across at Val Beverley. “Do you know?”
The girl flushed deeply, and lowered her eyes, but made no reply. ”

“ My father was manager of one of Señor Don Juan’s estates, in a small island near the coast of Cuba. My mother”—she raised her little hands eloquently—“was half-caste. Do you know? And she and my father——”
She looked pleadingly at Val Beverley.
“I understand,” whispered the latter with deep sympathy; “but you don’t think it makes any difference, do you?”
“No?” said Mrs. Camber with a quaint little gesture. “To you, perhaps not, but there, where I was born, oh! so much. Well, then, my mother died when I was very little. Ah Tsong was her servant. ”