t for a moment, looking off with unseeing eyes between
the trunks of the pear trees, over the little valley.

"That may all be as you say," he answered after a while. "I have not
learned it yet, in any case. Now, I only know that I love her--oh, as if
it all were yesterday--and that I am suffering, suffering, always."

He leaned forward, his head supported on his clenched fists, the
infinite sadness of his face deepening like a shadow, the tears brimming
in his deep-set eyes. A question that he must ask, which involved
the thing that was scarcely to be thought of, occurred to him at this
moment. After hesitating for a long moment, he said:

"I have been away a long time, and I have had no news of this place
since I left. Is there anything to tell, Father? Has any discovery been
made, any suspicion developed, as to--the Other?"

The priest shook his head.

"Not a word, not a whisper. It is a mystery. It always will be."

Vanamee clasped his head between his clenched fists, rocking himself to
and fro.

"Oh, the terror of it," he murmured. "The horror of it. And she--think
of it, Sarria, only sixteen, a little girl; so innocent, that she never
knew what wrong meant, pure as a little child is pure, who believed that
all things were good; mature only in her love. And to be struck down
like that, while your God looked down from Heaven and would not take her
part." All at once he seemed to lose control of himself. One of those
furies of impotent grief and wrath that assailed him from time to time,
blind, insensate, incoherent, suddenly took possession of him. A
torrent of words issued from his lips, and he flung out an arm, the
fist clenched, in a fierce, quick gesture, partly of despair, partly of
defiance, partly of supplication. "No, your God would not take her part.
Where was God's mercy in that? Where was Heaven's protection in that?
Where was the loving kindness you preach about? Why did God give her
life if it was to be stamped out? Why did God give her the power of love
if it was to come to nothing? Sarria, listen to me. Why did God make
her so divinely pure if He permitted that abomination? Ha!" he exclaimed
bitterly, "your God! Why, an Apache buck would have been more merciful.
Your God! There is no God. There is only the Devil. The Heaven you pray
to is only a joke, a wretched trick, a delusion. It is only Hell that is
real."

Sarria caught him by the arm.

"You are a fool and a child," he exclaimed, "and