"Santa Maria! You are mad over that other woman, Rafael Arteaga. Every one sees it but Raquel; and when she does see it—"
"She! she sees nothing but her saints on the altar! She has only the heart of a nun in that white breast of hers. Don't you put your devil of a tongue in this business, Ana Mendez, or—"
"You are drunk, Rafael," said Ana, untouched by the personal remark. "You are drunk. Go to bed."
No other words came to the ears of Keith Bryton. He heard the departing steps, and the rustle of Ana's silken gown on the tiling, and then someway he found himself back in the bed, with all the cobwebs cleared from his brain. He knew where he was now—in a room of the Mission, where he had not dared set a foot since the day when he heard her vow made to the dying woman. He was in her home, then, the home of her husband. And that silent padre who had shielded him from knowing it—what did his devoted guardianship mean? What did it mean that he had approved that once she had come there and stood by the bed with her hands in his? That she had listened to his words, and—— Or was that also a fancy born of the fever?
But when the silent padre came in and closed the door, and heard the direct rapid questions, the replies were just as direct. Padre Libertad observed that the shock of the truth had come, and there was no reason for further illusion. The American was weak, but alert to all the padre told him; and he told him all the truth.
"So you see, Señor Bryton, you saved my life, and there is a good price set against it. I am here in the home of my cousin, who will make a fiesta of the day I am hung or shot. You know it, and the girl I love knows it. It has been a good place to hide: they think me in Mexico. I start there to-night, unless you—"
"Wait: to-morrow I can perhaps go with you. God! To think I have been helpless here in his home!"
The other man said nothing, only watched him with the dark velvety eyes full now of the spirit of comradeship.
"It is strange it should be you I trust," he said, at last. "I remember days when I planned which way I would have you killed when my men found you. You saved the government their horses last year. I shot at you once as you rode from Santa Ana ranch."
"Was that you?" observed the other. "Yes, I remember." Then, after another silence, he asked with careful indifference: