at least I might have the
pleasure of hearing him talk. There is no harm in that, even if he is
an Estenega, a renegade, and the enemy of my brother. I can hate him
with my heart and like him with my mind. And he must have cared little
to see us again, that he could linger for another day."

"I am mad to see Don Diego Estenega," said Valencia, her red lips
pouting. "Why did he, of all others, tarry?"

"He is fickle and perverse," I said,--"the most uncertain man I know."

"Perhaps he thought to make us wish to see him the more," suggested
Valencia.

"No," I said: "he has no ridiculous vanities."

Chonita wandered back and forth behind the arches, waiting for
Prudencia's long confession of sinless errors to conclude.

"What has a baby like that to confess?" she thought, impatiently. "She
could not sin if she tried. She knows nothing of the dark storms
of rage and hatred and revenge which can gather in the breasts of
stronger and weaker beings. I never knew, either, until lately; but
the storm is so black I dare not face it and carry it to the priest. I
am a sort of human chaos, and I wish I were dead. I thought to forget
him, and I see him as plainly as on that morning when he told me that
it was he who would send my brother to prison----"

She stopped short with a little cry. Diego Estenega stood before the
Mission in the broad swath of moonlight. She had heard a horse gallop
up the valley, but had paid no attention to the familiar sound.
Estenega had appeared as suddenly as if he had arisen from the earth.

"It is I, senorita." He ascended the Mission steps. "Do not fear. May
I kiss your hand?"

She gave him her hand, but withdrew it hurriedly. Of the tremendous
mystery of sex she knew almost nothing. Girls were brought up in such
ignorance in those days that many a bride ran home to her mother on
her wedding night; and books teach Innocence little. But she was fully
conscious that there was something in the touch of Estenega's lips and
hand that startled while it thrilled and enthralled.

"I thought you stayed with the Ortegas to-night," she said. Oh,
blessed conventions!

"I did,--for a few hours. Then I wanted to see you, and I left them
and came on. At Casa Grande I found no one but Eustaquia; every one
else had gone to the gardens; and she told me that you were here."

Chonita's heart was beating as fast as it had beaten that morning;
even her hands shook a little. A glad wave of warmth rushed over h