Vrain is not dead."

The chapel was as silent as the grave. My heart stood still. Before me
was Jondo, big, strong, self-controlled, inured to the tragic deeds of
the epic years of the West. No pen of mine will ever make the picture of
Jondo's face at these words of Father Josef.

Eloise turned deathly pale, and her dark eyes opened wide, seeing
nothing. It was not I who comforted her, but Jondo, who put his strong
arm about her, and she leaned against his shoulder. Father and daughter
in spirit, stricken to the heart.

"For many years she has lived in that lonely ranch-house on the Narveo
grant in the little canon up the San Christobal Arroyo. When the fever
left her with memory darkened forever, you recorded her as dead. But
your wife, Gloria Ramero, spared no pains to make her comfortable. She
has never known a want, nor lived through one unhappy hour, because she
has forgotten."

"A priest, confessor for men's inmost souls, who babbles all he knows! I
wonder that this roof does not fall on you and strike you dead before
this altar." Ferdinand Ramero's voice rose to a shout.

"It was too strongly built by one who knew men's inmost souls, and what
they needed most," Father Josef replied. "You drove me to this by your
insistence. I would have shielded you--and these."

He turned to Eloise and Jondo as he spoke.

"One more point, since you hold it ready to spring when I am through.
You stand accused of plotting for your father's murder. The evidence
still holds, and some men who rode with you to-day to seize this gentle
girl and drag her back to a marriage with your son--and save your
ill-gotten gold thereby--some of these men who will confess to me and do
penance to-morrow night, are the same men who long ago confessed to
other crimes--you can guess what they were.

"It pays well to repent before such a holy tattler as yourself."
Ramero's blue eyes burned deep as their fire was centered on the priest.

"These are the counts against you," Father Josef said in review,
ignoring the last outburst of wrath. "A life of ease and inheritance
through money not your own, nor even rightly yours to control. A
stricken woman listed with the dead, whose memory might have come
again--God knows--if but the loving touch of childish hands had long ago
been on her hands. It is years too late for all that now. A brave young
ward rescued from your direct control by Esmond Clarenden's force of
will and daring to do the right. You