"That's money; money for you, sweet-heart. It will buy you food
and medicine, it will make you well and strong again. Rosa, dear,
I have looked for you so long, so long--" His voice broke
wretchedly and he bowed his head. "I--I was afraid--"
"I waited as long as I had strength to wait," she told him. "It is
too bad you came so late."
Once again she lapsed into the lethargy of utter weakness,
whereupon he fell to stroking her hands, calling upon her to come
back to him. He was beside himself now; a terrible feeling of
impotence and despair overcame him.
Hearing some one speak, he raised his eyes and discovered at his
side that figure of want which he had seen digging on the slope
below. It was Evangelina. The negress was little more than skin
and bones, her eyes were bleared and yellow and sunken, her face
had grown ape-like, but he recognized her and she him.
"You are the American," she declared. "You are Rosa's man."
"Yes. But what is wrong with her? Look! She is ill--"
"She is often like that. It is the hunger. We have nothing to eat,
senor. I, too, am ill--dying; and Asensio--Oh, you don't know how
they have made us suffer."
"We must get Rosa home. Where do you live?"
Evangelina turned her death's head toward the city. "Down yonder.
But what's the use? There is no food in our house and Rosa is
afraid of those wagons.
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