"Remain with the others. Make some excuse to keep them there—another hymn—anything. And be quick—quick!"
Startled though she was, Ana obeyed, and from the door of the hall he heard again the voice of Juanita; this time it was in a favorite known to all, and the volume of sound told him that Don Enrico himself was joining in the refrain, and that no one would leave the patio until the finale was reached.
No candle burned now in the hall. Polonia had blown it out, that no ray might enter the half-open door of the inner room. She would have gone with the padre, but the sudden vigorous grasp of his hand on her shoulder stopped her where she stood, and without a word being spoken, she knew better than to follow.
Quickly as a cat of the hills, the padre crossed the hall and stood where he could see the open window and the kneeling man, and the hand of Raquel on his bent head.
"Every night when the dusk comes it will be our time of the day," she was saying. "They told me you were dead, else—but you know. I think the mad hours have gone by for me; I can go on living if—if you do not forget."
The listening priest could not hear what the man said, but she heard, and smiled, and sighed.
"There is one thing," she said, hesitatingly: "the ring, you have worn it a year—and—"
"I know," and he lifted his head. "We need no visible emblem, you and I. I put it back on your finger, my lady of the spirit,—Doña Espiritu;—a pledge of renunciation, and a reminder of the rosary of the dusk."
She took from her right hand the little gold band and gave it to him, and in its place he slipped the onyx ring of the Aztec eagle and serpent.
"I did not tell you what that ring means to my people," she said, as he kissed it in its new resting-place. "Maybe I never can tell you. I—I thought I could be stronger if I wore it on my own hand, for—for the reason that my heart went out of my bosom to follow it, and—and I rode my horse as fast and as far as I could from you, because I—was afraid."