"I marvel at your sagacity, my child; but think what it has cost you!"
"Ah! that is the marvelous part of it!" she replied. "Whoever would have imagined that, unconscious of the true facts, he would have succeeded in turning my own weapons against me? It's fate, Padre mio."
He paced back and forth for some time in silence, then suddenly pausing before her, said: "This cloud must not rest upon you, Chiquita mia. We must find that blackleg, Carlton, if we have to raise heaven and earth to do it."
"That is easier said than done, Padre mio," she answered quietly.
"God never wholly abandons his children to the evil of the world," he returned firmly. "Don Felipe has deceived the Church once, but he shall not do so a second time. God has allowed him to triumph thus far in order that his punishment may be all the greater in the end when it comes upon him. Carlton must be somewhere just across the border—in Texas or Arizona or New Mexico. Within twenty-four hours after the word has been flashed over the wires, runners will have passed through all our remote Missions along the border, and if he is no longer in Mexico, then the word shall be passed across the frontier into the United States. If he still be alive, he can not escape us. We will find him and bring him back again. No, the Church is not so powerless as many, strong in worldly possessions, imagine. The Church of Rome has never yet failed to find the man or woman she has set out to find. Don Felipe will be stripped of his possessions and his child restored to its rightful position.
"Again I say, God's ways are past all understanding. You have been His unconscious instrument. Think of what you were and how you came to me, and what your life has been since then! Have you endured all for naught? Are God's plans to be frustrated by a man, a dastardly craven like Don Felipe? No, my child, I see things clearer now than I ever have seen them before. You and Captain Forest have not been brought together from the ends of the earth only to be mocked by the world of evil. God demands that we all shall pass through the fire in order that we may be fitted to bear the burden He lays upon us. You both have endured the trial; proved yourselves worthy of the mission He has entrusted to you."
He paused. Then, suddenly recollecting the all-important question, he exclaimed: "I forget, we are wasting time; we must find Carlton! This very night word shall go forth!" and hastily snatching up his hat and stick, he hurried out into the night.
XXXIII
Captain Forest's feelings are better imagined than described. His brain was in a whirl, on fire. For the second time a woman had treated his confidence lightly. The whole world seemed to spin round him in chaotic confusion as he sought to lay hold of a single, tangible thought that might temper his judgment, steady his nerves and check the fierce outbursts of passion which were fast sweeping him beyond self-control. He had reached a state of recklessness that renders a man of his temperament most dangerous, and unless his judgment soon got the better of his passions, he would, as likely as not, either kill Chiquita or Don Felipe, or both of them.
The company had broken up shortly after the departure of Chiquita and Padre Antonio, leaving the patio silent and deserted, save for the presence of the Captain, who paced silently back and forth; the moon flooding the patio with broad sheets of white light, causing objects to appear almost as sharp and distinct as before the lights of the lanterns were extinguished.