e place without you?"

"No," she answered. "Neither can it take place without Evasio Mon. One of
the novices is his niece, and, where possible, the near relations are
necessarily present."

"Yes--I know," said Marcos. He had apparently studied the subject
somewhat carefully. "And Evasio Mon is delayed on the road, which gives
us a little more time to mature our plans."

Sor Teresa said nothing, but glanced towards Marcos who was watching the
road.

"You need not be anxious, Dolores," said Sarrion, cheerfully. "Between
politicians these matters settle themselves quietly enough in Spain."

"I ceased to be anxious," replied Sor Teresa, "from the moment that I saw
Marcos in the inn yard."

It was Marcos who spoke next, after a short silence.

"Your horses are ready, if you are rested," he said. "We shall return to
Saragossa by a shorter route."

"And I again assure you," added Sor Teresa's brother, "that there is no
need for anxiety. We shall arrange this matter quite quietly with Evasio
Mon. We shall take Juanita away from your school to-day. Our cousin
Peligros is already at the Casa Sarrion waiting her arrival. Marcos has
arranged these matters."

He made a gesture of the hand, presumably symbolic of Marcos' plans, for
it was short and sharp.

"There will be nothing for you to do," said Marcos from the window.
"Waste no time. I see a carriage some miles away."

So Sor Teresa went on her journey. Her dealings with men had been
confined to members of that sex who went about their purpose in an
indirect and roundabout way, speaking in generalities, attentive to
insignificant detail, possessing that smaller sense of proportion which
is a feminine failing and which must always make a tangled jumble of
those public affairs in which women and priests may play a part. She had
come into actual touch in this little room of an obscure inn with a force
which seemed to walk calmly on its way over the petty tyranny that ruled
her daily life, which seemed to fear no man, neither God as represented
by man, but shaped for itself a Deity, large-minded and manly; Who
considered the broad inner purpose rather than petty detail of outward
observance.

The Sarrions returned to their gloomy house on the Paseo del Ebro and
there awaited the information which Sor Teresa alone could give them.
They had not waited long before the driver of her carriage, who had
seemed to recognise Marcos on the road from Alagon, brought a note:

"