thoughts are dark'--too dark to tell me--her husband."

"Perhaps she fears you a little. A woman is always helpless before a
man who keeps his own secrets hidden."

"Helpless? Far from it. She is a self-controlled, efficient,
hard-headed woman. Her loveliness is a curtain. You have not yet got
behind that. You loved her, but she did not love you. She loved me
and married me. And it is I who know her character, not you. She is
very clever and pretends a great deal more than she feels. If she
makes you think she is unhappy and helpless, she does it on purpose.
She may be unhappy, because to keep secrets is often to court
unhappiness; but she is not helpless at all. Her eyes look helpless;
her mouth never. There is power and will between her teeth."

"Why do you speak of secrets?"

"Because you did. I have no secrets. It is Jenny, my wife, who has
secrets. I tell you this. _She knows all about the red man!_ She is
as deep as hell."

"You mean that she understands what is happening and will not tell
her uncle or you?"

"That is precisely what I mean. She does not care a curse for
Alberto. What is born of hen will scrape--remember that. Her father
had a temper like a fiend and a cousin of her mother was hanged for
murder. These are facts she will not deny. I had them from her
uncle. I am frightened of her and I have disappointed her, because I
am not what she thought and have ceased to covet my ancestral