however, at once on the inevitable questions as to his uniform with
the statement that he must be at Olvera by eleven.

"Fifteen miles," said the padre. "Does it need four hours and a fresh
horse to journey fifteen miles?"

"But I have friends to visit on the way," and to give convincing
details to an excuse which was plainly disbelieved, Shere added, "Just
this side of Setenil I have friends."

The padre was still dissatisfied. "There is only one house just this
side of Setenil, and Esteban Silvela I saw with my own eyes to-day in
Ronda."

"He may well be home by now, and it is not Esteban whom I go to see."

"Not Esteban," exclaimed the padre. "Then it will be--"

"His sister, the Senora Christina," said Shere with a laugh at his
companion's persistency. "Since the brother and sister live alone, and
it is not the brother, why it will be the sister. You argue still very
closely, padre."

The padre stood back a little from Shere and stared. Then he said
slyly, and with the air of one who quotes:

"All women are born tricksters."

"Those were rank words," said Shere composedly.

"Yet they were often spoken when you grew vines in the Ronda Valley."

"Then a crowd of men must know me for a fool. A young man may make a
mistake, padre, and exaggerate a disappointment. Besides, I had not
then seen the senora. Esteban I knew, but she was a child, and known
to me only by name." And then, warmed by the pleasure in his old
friend's face, he said, "I will tell you about it."

They walked on slowly side by side, while Shere, who now that he had
begun to confide was quite swept away, bent over his saddle and told
how after inheriting a modest fortune, after wandering for three years
from city to city, he had at last come to Paris, and there, at a
Carlist conversazione, had heard the familiar name called from a
doorway, and had seen the unfamiliar face appear. Shere described
Christina. She walked with the grace of a deer, as though the floor
beneath her foot had the spring of turf. The blood was bright in her
face; her brown hair shone; she was sweet with youth; the suppleness
of her body showed it and the steadiness of her great clear eyes.

"She passed me," he went on, "and the arrogance of what I used to
think and say came sharp home to me like a pain. I suppose that
I stared--it was an accident, of course--perhaps my face showed
something of my trouble; but just as she was opposite me her fan
slipped through he