children at her heels, a woman's work was well begun; with her bed made in holy ground, Aqui Descansa on the cross at her head, it was well done.
In spite of the fact that Helena had gone beyond her day and a woman's prerogatives in the business that had brought her to this perilous stand, she was surprised by being called, as an equal, into the council of their fate.
"I will follow the way that you lead, Gabriel," she said in simple trust.
"That is well spoken," said Felipe hastily, quick to cover his friend's weakness in appealing to the opinion of a woman.
Helena, cruelly wrenched by the experiences so lately passed, when "death breathed in her face" as Felipe had said, was white as orange blossoms in the candlelight. She sat on a heap of hay, en, veloped in a loose dark cloak, a dark scarf over her head, the ends of it streaming down her bosom, a background for the two men who bent over the paper spread between them. It seemed that the bold spirit, the independent will, was broken in her. Anxiety strained out of her eyes; she seemed like one who sits in patient, dull suffering, counting the night hours, from whose eyes sleep has fled away.
Henderson sat on a keg that once had contained cognac, its burned brand plain to be read, the crippled wing of his hat still held gallantly up by a thorn. His face was rough and hairy, untouched
