eemed strangely longer than the others had.
All day Ramona watched and listened. Felipe, too; for, knowing what
Alessandro's impatience would be, he had, in truth, looked for him on
the previous night. The horse he rode was a fleet one, and would have
made the journey with ease in half the time. But Felipe reflected that
there might be many things for Alessandro to arrange at Temecula. He
would doubtless return prepared to take Ramona back with him, in case
that proved the only alternative left them. Felipe grew wretched as
his fancy dwelt on the picture of Ramona's future. He had been in the
Temecula village. He knew its poverty; the thought of Ramona there was
monstrous, To the indolent, ease-loving Felipe it was incredible that a
girl reared as Ramona had been, could for a moment contemplate leading
the life of a poor laboring man's wife. He could not conceive of love's
making one undertake any such life. Felipe had much to learn of love.
Night came; no Alessandro. Till the darkness settled down, Ramona sat,
watching the willows. When she could no longer see, she listened. The
Senora, noting all, also listened. She was uneasy as to the next stage
of affairs, but she would not speak. Nothing should induce her to swerve
from the line of conduct on which she had determined. It was the full of
the moon. When the first broad beam of its light came over the hill, and
flooded the garden and the white front of the little chapel, just as it
had done on that first night when Alessandro watched with Felipe on the
veranda, Ramona pressed her face against the window-panes, and gazed out
into the garden. At each flickering, motion of the shadows she saw the
form of a man approaching. Again and again she saw it. Again and again
the breeze died, and the shadow ceased. It was near morning before,
weary, sad, she crept to bed; but not to sleep. With wide-open, anxious
eyes, she still watched and listened. Never had the thought once crossed
her mind that Alessandro might not come at the time Felipe had said. In
her childlike simplicity she had accepted this as unquestioningly as
she had accepted other facts in her life. Now that he did not come,
unreasoning and unfounded terror took possession of her, and she asked
herself continually, "Will he ever come! They sent him away; perhaps he
will be too proud to come back!" Then faith would return, and saying to
herself, "He would never, never forsake me; he knows I have no one in
the whole wo