utiful."

"But--the child's nurse remained with her?"

"Marcelena? Yes. She was devoted to the little Maria. The woman was
old and ugly--but she loved the child."

"Did you not inquire for them when you were in Mompox a few months
ago?" pursued Jose eagerly.

"I made slight inquiry through the clerk in the office of the
Alcalde. I did not intend to--but I could not help it. _Caramba!_ He
made further inquiry, but said only that he was told they had long
since gone down to Cartagena, and nothing had been heard from them."

The gates of memory's great reservoir opened at the touch of this
man's story, and Jose again lived through that moonlit night in
Cartagena, when the little victim of Wenceslas breathed out her life
of sorrow and shame in his arms. He heard again the sobs of Marcelena
and the simple-minded Catalina. He saw again the figure of the
compassionate Christ in the smoke that drifted past the window. And
now the father of that wronged girl sat before him, wrapped in the
tatters of a shredded happiness! Should he tell him? Should he say
that he had cared for this man's little grandson since his advent into
this sense of existence that mortals call life? For there could be no
doubt now that the little Maria was his daughter.

"Don Jorge," he said, "you have suffered much. My heart bleeds for
you. And yet--"

"_Na_, Padre, there is nothing to do. Were I to find my family I could
only slay them and the priests who came between us!"

"But, Don Jorge," cried Jose in horror, "you surely meditate no such
vengeance as that!"

The man smiled grimly. "_Senor Padre_," he returned coldly, "I am
Spanish. The blood of the old cavaliers flows in my veins. I have been
betrayed, trapped, fooled, and my honored name has been foully soiled.
What will remove the stain, think you? Blood--nothing else! _Caramba!_
The priest of Maganguey who poured the first drop of poison into my
wife's too willing ears--_Bien_, I have said enough!"

"_Hombre!_ You don't mean--"

"I mean, _Senor Padre_, that I drifted down the river, unseen, to
Maganguey one night. I entered that priest's house. He did not awake
the next morning."

"God!" exclaimed Jose, starting up.

"_Na_, Padre, not God, but Satan! He rules this world."

Jose sank back in his chair. Don Jorge leaned forward and laid a hand
upon his knee. "My friend," he said evenly, "you are young--how old,
may I ask?"

"Twenty-seven," murmured Jose.

"_Caramba!_ A child! _B