She blushed as she uttered this.
"You ran away—from the Convent?"
"Yes. It was very skilfully planned. They were not quite so strict—I was to be married in a month, there in the chapel, and they allowed me time to myself. I had a—a girl devoted to me, who did embroidery and sewing, and she carried notes. Then there was a place in the old garden where the railing was broken, but it was hidden by the shrubbery. A girl had seen a snake there, and no one would go near it. We used to meet there when his vessel came in. And it was all planned."
"He—who? Not——" and Laverne hardly knew how to put her question.
"Oh, not Pascuel Estenega. He love a girl!"
The face seemed to quiver with scornful indignation, and the eyes fairly blazed.
"He is an American. He is in the employ of your uncle, and he will be good to us both. Perhaps in his youth he knew what love was. We are going to trust him. He comes up with the trading vessel on Saturday. He put me on another, the Lulita, an old Spanish thing, and I was an old Mexican woman. No one suspected. We came in at noon, and I walked off. Gracious! how the world has changed. I had to ask the way; no one paid any attention to an old woman with a stick, and bent in the shoulders."
She gave a triumphant laugh.
"But—your marriage——"
She seemed to study Laverne from head to foot, and the girl shrank a little.