“Do as you wish, señor, and with all my heart; for as you love me, so I love you.”
“Dearest Angela!” I said, kissing her hand, “you make me almost too happy. Never will I leave Quipai without you.”
“And never will I leave it without you. But let us not talk of leaving Quipai. Where can we be happier than here with the dear abbé? But what will he say?”
“He will give us his blessing. His most ardent wish is that I should be your husband and his successor.”
“How good he is? And I, wicked girl that I am, repay his goodness with base ingratitude. Ah me! How shall I tell him?”
“You repay his goodness with base ingratitude? You speak in riddles, my Angela.”
“Since the waves washed me to his feet, a little child, the abbé has cherished me with all the tenderness of a mother, all the devotion of a father. He has been everything to me; and now you are everything to me. I love you better than I love him. Don’t you think I am a wicked girl?” And she put her arm within mine, and looking at me with love-beaming eyes, caressing my cheek with her hand.
“I will grant you absolution, and award you no worse penance than an embrace, ma fille cherie,” said the abbé, who had returned to the veranda just in time to overhear Angela’s confession. “I rejoice in your happiness, mignonne. To-day you make two men happy—your lover and myself. You have lightened my mind of the cares which threatened to darken my closing days. The thought of leaving you without a protector and Quipai without a chief was a sore trouble. Your husband will be both. Like Moses, I have seen the Promised Land, and I shall be content.”
“Talk not of dying, dear father or you will make me sad,” said Angela, putting her arms round his neck.
“There are worse things than dying, my child. But you are quite right; this is no time for melancholy forebodings. Let us be happy while we may; and since I came to Quipai, sixty years ago, I have had no happier day than this.”