THREE TRAVELERS COME HOME
Esteban Varona made slow progress toward recovery. In the weeks following O'Reilly's departure from Cubitas his gain was steady, but beyond a certain point he seemed unable to go. Then he began to lose strength. Norine was the first to realize the truth, but it was some time before she would acknowledge it, even to herself. At last, however, she had to face the fact that Esteban's months of prison fare, the abuse, the neglect he had suffered in Spanish hands, had left him little more than a living corpse. It seemed as if fever had burned him out, or else some dregs of disease still lingered in his system and had all but quenched that elusive spark which for want of a better name we call vitality.
Esteban, too, awoke to the fact that he was losing ground, and his
