it was near
midnight when the door of Felipe's room opened, and he and his mother
came out, still speaking in low tones. Felipe lay down on his couch; his
mother, bending over, kissed him, bade him good-night, and went into her
own room.

It had been some time now since Alessandro had left off sleeping on the
veranda floor by Felipe's side. Felipe was so well it was not needful.
But Felipe felt sure he would come to-night, and was not surprised
when, a few minutes after the Senora's door closed, he heard a low voice
through the vines, "Senor Felipe?"

"Hush, Alessandro," whispered Felipe. "Do not make a sound. To-morrow
morning early I will see you, behind the little sheepfold. It is not
safe to talk here."

"Where is the Senorita?" Alessandro breathed rather than said.

"In her room," answered Felipe.

"Well?" said Alessandro.

"Yes," said Felipe, hoping he was not lying; and this was all Alessandro
had to comfort himself with, through his long night of watching. No, not
all; one other thing comforted him,--the notes of two wood-doves, that
at intervals he heard, cooing to each other; just the two notes, the
call and the answer, "Love?" "Here." "Love?" "Here,"--and long intervals
of silence between. Plain as if written on a page was the thing they
told.

"That is what my Ramona is like," thought he, "the gentle wood-dove. If
she is my wife my people will call her Majel, the Wood-Dove."

XI

WHEN the Senora bade Felipe good-night, she did not go to bed. After
closing her door, she sat down to think what should be done about
Ramona. It had been a hard task she had set herself, talking all the
evening with Felipe without alluding to the topic uppermost in her mind.
But Felipe was still nervous and irritable. She would not spoil his
night's rest, she thought, by talking of disagreeable things. Moreover,
she was not clear in her own mind what she wished to have done about
Alessandro. If Ramona were to be sent away to the nuns, which was the
only thing the Senora could think of as yet, there would be no reason
for discharging Alessandro. And with him the Senora was by no means
ready to part, though in her first anger she had been ready to dismiss
him on the spot. As she pursued her reflections, the whole situation
cleared itself in her mind; so easily do affairs fall into line, in the
plottings and plannings of an arbitrary person, who makes in his formula
no allowance for a human element which he cannot co