"Here is my aunt," she said. "Aunt Refugia, this is a padre journeying south to Mexico. He—he came at the right moment to help Señor Bryton, and I have asked him to stay—and—"
"Of course," said Doña Refugia, promptly. "Thanks to God you are here this night! Show him to the padre's room, Ana, while I see to supper. Is she sleeping?" she asked, nodding toward the couch.
They did not know; she lay with closed eyes most of the time, and they received no replies to queries, but Ana felt that she only slept fitfully, and then her own muttered words were certain to arouse her to a sort of half wakefulness in which she was simply conscious of the presence of some one without caring in the least who it was. The entrance of the mob had not impressed her mind more clearly than the visionary pictures of the night before.
Old Polonia had again crouched outside the door, in the hall, wordless as before, and, except for some slight disarrangement of her clothing, showing less sign than might have been expected of the horrid scene she had been a part of. She had gone in to look at her mistress, had swallowed some wine offered her by Juanita, and with a short guttural laugh had settled herself outside the door as a sentinel—or near enough to hear the slightest call from Raquel.
The priest regarded her sharply and turned to Ana.
"You are certain it was not Estevan's daughter she meant to harm?" he asked, quietly, but not so low but that the sharp ears of the Indian caught the name. She pulled a corner of the mantilla from across her eyes and looked at him.
"Sure," said Ana, "why, she was her nurse, and the nurse of her mother before her. She would make a carpet of herself for Raquel's feet."
"The nurse of her mother before her," said the priest, slowly. "Then she is of that strange hill tribe of the temple mountain, and she herself is not a common Indian. To have been nurse to that family of the priests, means that her own family was entitled to notice. Yet she has followed, in her old age, to a strange land. Yes, it must mean devotion. But why does she dislike the American?"
"God knows! She could not have ever seen him before. I thought she lied."
"The hate in her eyes was no lie," observed the padre. "His presence here was lucky, but it is not explained, any more than is my own. To me it looks—well, as I said, he is in with the officers."