Some years later came the still more
surprising news that he had married a squaw,--a squaw with several
Indian children,--had been legally married by the priest in the San
Gabriel Mission Church. And that was the last that the faithless Ramona
Gonzaga ever heard of her lover, until twenty-five years after her
marriage, when one day he suddenly appeared in her presence. How he
had gained admittance to the house was never known; but there he stood
before her, bearing in his arms a beautiful babe, asleep. Drawing
himself up to the utmost of his six feet of height, and looking at her
sternly, with eyes blue like steel, he said: "Senora Ortegna, you once
did me a great wrong. You sinned, and the Lord has punished you. He has
denied you children. I also have done a wrong; I have sinned, and the
Lord has punished me. He has given me a child. I ask once more at your
hands a boon. Will you take this child of mine, and bring it up as a
child of yours, or of mine, ought to be brought up?"

The tears were rolling down the Senora Ortegna's cheeks. The Lord
had indeed punished her in more ways than Angus Phail knew. Her
childlessness, bitter as that had been, was the least of them.
Speechless, she rose, and stretched out her arms for the child. He
placed it in them. Still the child slept on, undisturbed.

"I do not know if I will be permitted," she said falteringly; "my
husband--"

"Father Salvierderra will command it. I have seen him," replied Angus.

The Senora's face brightened. "If that be so, I hope it can be as you
wish," she said. Then a strange embarrassment came upon her, and looking
down upon the infant, she said inquiringly, "But the child's mother?"

Angus's face turned swarthy red. Perhaps, face to face with this gentle
and still lovely woman he had once so loved, he first realized to the
full how wickedly he had thrown away his life. With a quick wave of
his hand, which spoke volumes, he said: "That is nothing. She has other
children, of her own blood. This is mine, my only one, my daughter. I
wish her to be yours; otherwise, she will be taken by the Church."

With each second that she felt the little warm body's tender weight in
her arms, Ramona Ortegna's heart had more and more yearned towards the
infant. At these words she bent her face down and kissed its cheek. "Oh,
no! not to the Church! I will love it as my own," she said.

Angus Phail's face quivered. Feelings long dead within him stirred in
their graves