"And the fog conceals the channel."
"He can go where THEY have gone, or meet their fate. You do not know my countrymen, Senor Comandante," she said proudly.
"Ah, yes—pardon! They are at San Antonio—the baker, the buffoon, the two young men who dig. They are already baking and digging and joking. We have it from my officer, who has just returned."
Miss Keene bit her pretty lips.
"They think it is a mistake; they cannot believe that any intentional indignity is offered them," she said quietly. "Perhaps it is well they do not."
"They desired me to express their condolences to the Senora," said the Padre, with exasperating gentleness, "and were relieved to be assured by me of your perfect security in the hands of these gentlemen."
Miss Keene raised her clear eyes to the ecclesiastic. That accomplished diplomat of Todos Santos absolutely felt confused under the cool scrutiny of this girl's unbiased and unsophisticated intelligence.
"Then you HAVE seen them," she said, "and you know their innocence, and the utter absurdity of this surveillance?"
"I have not seen them ALL," said the priest softly. "There is still another—a Senor Hurlstone—who is missing? Is he not?"
It was not in the possibility of Eleanor Keene's truthful blood to do other than respond with a slight color to this question. She had already concealed from every one the fact of having seen the missing man in the Mission garden the evening before. It did not, however, prevent her the next moment from calmly meeting the glance of the priest as she answered gravely,—