that
he even now thought her less a saint; but ah, how well he knew her to
be human! He had gone alone in the dark to this spot many a time, and,
lying on the grass, put his hands into the running water, and played
with it dreamily, thinking, in his poetic Indian fashion, thoughts like
these: "Whither have gone the drops that passed beneath her hands, just
here? These drops will never find those in the sea; but I love this
water!"

Margarita had seen him thus lying, and without dreaming of the refined
sentiment which prompted his action, had yet groped blindly towards it,
thinking to herself: "He hopes his Senorita will come down to him there.
A nice place it is for a lady to meet her lover, at the washing-stones!
It will take swifter water than any in that brook, Senorita Ramona, to
wash you white in the Senora's eyes, if ever she come upon you there
with the head shepherd, making free with him, may be! Oh, but if that
could only happen, I'd die content!" And the more Margarita watched,
the more she thought it not unlikely that it might turn out so. It was
oftener at the willows than anywhere else that Ramona and Alessandro
met; and, as Margarita noticed with malicious satisfaction, they talked
each time longer, each time parted more lingeringly. Several times it
had happened to be near supper-time; and Margarita, with one eye on
the garden-walk, had hovered restlessly near the Senora, hoping to be
ordered to call the Senorita to supper.

"If but I could come on them of a sudden, and say to her as she did to
me, 'You are wanted in the house'! Oh, but it would do my soul good! I'd
say it so it would sting like a lash laid on both their faces! It will
come! It will come! It will be there that she'll be caught one of these
fine times she's having! I'll wait! It will come!"

X

IT came. And when it came, it fell out worse for Ramona than Margarita's
most malicious hopes had pictured; but Margarita had no hand in it. It
was the Senora herself.

Since Felipe had so far gained as to be able to be dressed, sit in his
chair on the veranda, and walk about the house and garden a little,
the Senora, at ease in her mind about him, had resumed her old habit of
long, lonely walks on the place. It had been well said by her servants,
that there was not a blade of grass on the estate that the Senora had
not seen. She knew every inch of her land. She had a special purpose
in walking over it now. She was carefully examining t