"Pardon me interrupting you, Mrs. Camber," I said, "but can you tell me
in what way these two are related?"
She looked up with her naive smile.
"I can tell you, yes. A cousin of Senor Menendez married a sister of
Madame de Staemer."
"Good heavens!" I exclaimed, "a very remote kinship."
"It was in this way they met, in Paris, I think, and"--she raised her
hands expressively--"she came with him to the West Indies, although it
was during the great war. I think she loved him more than her soul, and
me--me she hated. As Senor Menendez dismounted from his horse in front
of the house he saw me."
She sighed and ceased speaking again. Then:
"That very night," she continued, "he began. Do you know? I was trying
to escape from him when Madame de Staemer found us. She called me a
shameful name, and my father, who heard it, ordered her out of the
house. Senor Menendez spoke sharply, and my father struck him."
She paused once more, biting her lip agitatedly, but presently
proceeded:
"Do you know what they are like, the Spanish, when their blood is hot?
Senor Menendez had a revolver, but my father knocked it from his grasp.
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