came and stood opposite to him. "Well,
that strip of brass stops us both. It stops my ears, it must stop your
lips too. Where did we meet first?"

"In Paris."

"Go on!"

"At a Carlist--" and Shere broke off and took a step towards her.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, "I never thought of it. I imagined you went there
to laugh as I did."

"Does one laugh at one's creed?" she cried violently; and Shere with a
helpless gesture of the hands sat down in a chair. Esteban had fooled
him, and why, the padre had shown Shere that afternoon, Esteban had
fooled him irreparably; it did not need a glance at Christina, as she
stood facing him, to convince him of that. There was no anger against
him, he noticed, in her face, but on the contrary a great friendliness
and pity. But he knew her at that moment. Her looks might soften, but
not her resolve. She was heart-whole a Carlist. Carlism was her creed,
and her creed would be more than a creed, it would be a passion too.
So it was not to persuade her but rather in acknowledgment that he
said:

"And one does not change one's creed?"

"No," she answered, and suggested, but in a doubtful voice, "but one
can put off one's uniform."

Shere stood up. "Neither can one do that," he said simply. "It is
quite true that I sought my commission upon your account. I would just
as readily have become a Carlist had I known. I had no inclination one
way or the other, only a great hope and longing for you. But I have
made the mistake, and I cannot retrieve it. The strip of brass obliges
me to good faith. Already you will understand the uniform has had its
inconvenience. It sent me to Cuba, and set me armed against men almost
of my own blood. There was no escape then; there is no escape now."

Christina moved closer to him. The reticence with which Shere spoke,
and the fact that he made no claim upon her made her voice very
gentle.

"No," she agreed. "I thought that you would make that answer. And in
my heart I do not think that I should like to have heard from you any
other."

"Thank you," said Shere. He drew out his watch. "I have still some
way to go. I have to reach Olvera by eleven;" and he was aware that
Christina at his side became at once very still, so that even her
breathing was arrested. For her sigh of emotion at the abrupt mention
of parting he was thankful, but it made him keep his eyes turned from
her lest a sight of any distress of hers might lead him to falter from
his purpose.

"You