one, stood the vaquero. Pilar knew that she had nothing
to hope from him: her mother had beaten him into submission long since.
Dona Brigida, without a word, drove Pilar into the cave, and she and the
vaquero, exerting their great strength to the full, pushed the stone
into the entrance. There was a narrow rift at the top. The cave was as
black as a starless midnight.

Then Dona Brigida spoke for the first time:--

"Once a week I shall come with food and drink. There thou wilt stay
until thy teeth fall, the skin bags from thy bones, and thou art so
hideous that all men will run from thee. Then thou canst come forth and
go and live on the charity of the father to whom thou wouldst have taken
a polluted priest."

Pilar heard the retreating footfalls of the mustangs. She was too
stunned to think, to realize the horrible fate that had befallen her.
She crouched down against the wall of the cave nearest the light, her
ear alert for the growl of a panther or the whir of a rattler's tail.

II

The night after the close of school the Governor gave a grand ball,
which was attended by the older of the convent girls who lived in
Monterey or were guests in the capital. The dowagers sat against the
wall, a coffee-coloured dado; the girls in white, the caballeros in
black silk small-clothes, the officers in their uniforms, danced to the
music of the flute and the guitar. When Elena Estudillo was alone in the
middle of the room dancing El Son and the young men were clapping and
shouting and flinging gold and silver at her feet, Sturges and Eustaquia
slipped out into the corridor. It was a dark night, the duenas were
thinking of naught but the dance and the days of their youth, and the
violators of a stringent social law were safe for the moment. A
chance word, dropped by Sturges in the dance, and Eustaquia's eager
interrogations, had revealed the American's indignation at the barbarous
treatment of Pilar, and his deep interest in the beautiful victim.

"Senor," whispered Eustaquia, excitedly, as soon as they reached the
end of the corridor, "if you feel pity and perhaps love for my unhappy
friend, go to her rescue for the love of Mary. I have heard to-day that
her punishment is far worse than what you saw. It is so terrible that I
hardly have dared--"

"Surely, that old fiend could think of nothing else," said Sturges.
"What is she made of, anyhow?"

"Ay, yi! Her heart is black like the redwood tree that has been burnt
out