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THE PIGEONS
129

"Certainly! . . . Haven't you just said that she was a sorceress?"

"I have never seen it, Tiburcio. . . . That's what people say."

"But you?"

"I? No. And I am afraid that it is too late. You have seen your self how far gone he is! He is no longer interested in anything. I move about, I speak, I go here and there, I come back again into the room,—but it is all nothing to him. Ah! God in heaven!"

Her voice died out Suddenly she melted into tears. Tiburcio withdrew and commenced to pace slowly up and down the terrace. The white moon was rising. The fields became less obscure and, in the light, the shadows of the trees, very black, stretched across the ground.

"Patience, dear woman, patience!"

The strident crickets were chirping. The caboclo murmured, "Yes, I know . . ."

Of a sudden Joanna shuddered. Quivering she turned towards the cabin, from whose wide door shone a ray of livid light; for a moment her astonished gaze lingered and then, with a bound she was gone.

Tiburcio, motionless, without understanding what his wife had just done, quietly