"On my soul, I believe you have had a lover!" cried Ana. "Oho! you can play Rafael at his own game, after all! Santa Maria! I thought you were too pretty to be the saint they think you. Tell me!"
"There is not anything to tell," said the younger girl, quietly, though the color crept to her cheek; and then after a little she added, "He died. I never saw him but once; the padre said I was wrong to—to—oh, they said things to me about heretics! I never knew any other, and I promised not to. But if he had lived I should not have promised; that is all."
"All! Rafael would think it enough! On my soul, I am glad you are so human—though I have no love myself for heretics!"
"Human!" mused Raquel. "Is it human to remember, when one should forget and cannot?"
She did not say it aloud, and refused to discuss the matter further.
"He is dead," she said; "Rafael cannot be jealous of a man I saw but once; it was only the dream of a girl—like a picture in a book—and the page is closed. I shall marry Rafael, and work in the world instead of in the convent. It is for Mother Church and—it is right!"
At San Onofre the surf was breaking against the cliffs. It was high tide, and the beach road was deep enough for a horse to swim. Raquel had ridden far ahead, and now stood on the brink of a torrent cutting its way down from the hills to the sea.
The girl glanced back at the swaying chariot-like carriage on a far hill, and wondered what would be expected of their broncos in this crisis.
The animal she herself rode danced and fretted with fright at the roar of the surf and the dash of the hill stream, but she sat the saddle with ease, answering to every curve or side leap as lightly as a gull that floated on the incoming wave.
Her face held something of the power suggested by her strong right hand. The eyes were so soft, yet steady, and of darkest violet. The black lashes touching her cheeks gave them tender shadows, and the hair, in two thick braids reaching to her waist, framed a face of youthful curves and charm. But what was it made every man, and many women, turn to look again at the face of Raquel Estevan?