When Captain Carroll turned from the high-road into the lane, an hour
before, Maruja and Faquita had already left the house by the same
secret passage and garden-door that opened afterwards upon himself and
Pereo. The young women had evidently changed dresses: Maruja was
wearing the costume of her maid; Faquita was closely veiled and habited
like her mistress; but it was characteristic that, while Faquita
appeared awkward and over-dressed in her borrowed plumes, Maruja's
short saya and trim bodice, with the striped shawl that hid her fair
head, looked infinitely more coquettish and bewitching than on its
legitimate owner.

They passed hurriedly down the long alley, and at its further end
turned at right angles to a small gate half hidden in the shrubbery.
It opened upon a venerable vineyard, that dated back to the occupation
of the padres, but was now given over to the chance cultivation of
peons and domestics. Its long, broken rows of low vines, knotted and
overgrown with age, reached to the thicketed hillside of buckeye that
marked the beginning of the canada. Here Maruja parted from her maid,
and, muffling the shawl more closely round her head, hastily passed
between the vine rows to a ruined adobe building near the hillside. It
was originally part of the refectory of the old Mision, but had been
more recently used as a vinadero's cottage. As she neared it, her
steps grew slower, until, reaching its door, she hesitated, with her
hand timidly on the latch. The next moment she opened it gently; it
was closed quickly behind her, and, with a little stifled cry, she
found herself in the arms of Henry Guest.

It was only for an instant; the pleading of her white hands, disengaged
from his neck, where at first they had found themselves, and uplifted
before her face, touched him more than the petitioning eyes or the
sweet voiceless mouth, whose breath even was forgotten. Letting her
sink into the chair from which he had just risen, he drew back a step,
with his hands clasped before him, and his dark half-savage eyes bent
earnestly upon her. Well might he have gazed. It was no longer the
conscious beauty, proud and regnant, seated before him; but a timid,
frightened girl, struggling with her first deep passion.

All that was wise and gentle that she had intended to say, all that her
clear intellect and experience had taught her, died upon her lips with
that kiss. And all that she could do of womanly dignity and