He pets his eye-glasses,
while the three gentlemen confer. He is essentially a man of peace.
He fears he may become merely a "piece of man" in case the appeal
to revolvers, or mob law, is brought into this case. They do things
differently in New York.
While the two lovely girls are using every soothing art of womanly
sympathy to care for Natalie, it begins to dawn upon each of them
that their futures are strangely interlinked. The presence of Madame
de Santos seals their lips. They long for the hour when they can
converse in private. They know now that the redoubtable Joe Woods
has TWO fatherless girls to protect instead of ONE.
Natalie Santos, lying on her couch, watches these young beauties
flitting about her room. "Does the heiress, challenged in her
right, dream of her real parentage?" A gleam of light breaks in on
the darkness of her sufferings. Why not peace and the oblivion of
retirement for her, if her child's future is assured in any way?
Why not?
Looking forward hopefully to a conference with Colonel Joe, she
fears only the clear eyes of old Padre Francisco. "Shall she tell
him all?" In these misgivings and vain rackings of the mind, she
passes the afternoon. She yields to her better angel, and gives
the story of her life to the patient priest.
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