by daylight! It was the fugitive's joy in the
desert, where he is free from human beings and under the protecting wing
of solitude. There, in the distance, was a glimmer of light. A drinking
place, probably! And he turned, all a-tremble, in the opposite
direction, as though a danger lay that way. Oh, if some one should see
him! He would die of shame. The most insignificant "cat" would be too
much for him! No, silence, darkness, to be alone, was all he wanted!

So he walked the streets of the village and then down on the beach,
which also seemed to terrify him. "God, how those fishermen must have
been making fun of me!" Probably all the boats there were in the secret
and when they creaked it was their way of laughing at the wool they saw
on the eyes of the _Mayflower's_ captain! Occasionally he would awaken
from the torpor in which he was wandering doggedly from place to place.
One time he came to himself just long enough to see that he was boarding
his boat. At another, he found himself on his own door-step with his
hand about to raise the latch. No, somewhere else, somewhere else. A
moment's quiet and calm! There would be time for that, later! In the
end, shocks like these gradually roused him from his anguished
abstraction.

No, he would never put up with it! Never! People were going to find out
what sort of a man the Rector was! But after all, it wasn't necessary to
be too hard on Dolores. She was running true to form--a real daughter of
_tio_ Paella, drunkard that he had been, patron and agent of the girls
in the Fishmarket section, talking around his house as though Dolores
were some member of his "flock"! What could she ever have learned from a
man like that! To be a bad girl, that's all, and no decency whatever.
And that was how, just how, she had turned out! But you couldn't blame
her, could you? The real one to blame was he himself, great fool that he
had been, ever to think of marrying a woman who had to be just what
Dolores was!

Hadn't _sina_ Tona always said so? Mother saw through her from the
start, and had never wanted a girl of _tio_ Paella's in the family. A
bad woman, Dolores, granted! But he couldn't talk very loud if he had
married her with his eyes open. But Tonet! What could you find to say
for him! Disgracing your own brother! Who ever heard of monstrousness
like that! Your own brother! No, you cut the heart out of a beast of
that kind!

But scarcely had his blood-thirsty schemes of vengeance