der; but looking at
Alessandro, she saw terror and sadness on his face. No shadow there
ever escaped her eye. "What is it, Alessandro?" she exclaimed. "Is it
something about Father Salvierderra? Is he ill?"

Alessandro shook his head. He did not know what to say. Looking from
one to the other, seeing the confused pain in both their faces, Ramona,
laying both her hands on her breast, in the expressive gesture she had
learned from the Indian women, cried out in a piteous tone: "You will
not tell me! You do not speak! Then he is dead!" and she sank on her
knees.

"Yes, my daughter, he is dead," said Father Gaspara, more tenderly than
that brusque and warlike priest often spoke. "He died a month ago, at
Santa Barbara. I am grieved to have brought you tidings to give you
such sorrow. But you must not mourn for him. He was very feeble, and he
longed to die, I heard. He could no longer work, and he did not wish to
live."

Ramona had buried her face in her hands. The Father's words were only
a confused sound in her ears. She had heard nothing after the words, "a
month ago." She remained silent and motionless for some moments; then
rising, without speaking a word, or looking at either of the men, she
crossed the room and knelt down before the Madonna. By a common impulse,
both Alessandro and Father Gaspara silently left the room. As they stood
together outside the door, the Father said, "I would go back to Lomax's
if it were not so late. I like not to be here when your wife is in such
grief."

"That would but be another grief, Father," said Alessandro. "She has
been full of happiness in making ready for you. She is very strong of
soul. It is she who makes me strong often, and not I who give strength
to her."

"My faith, but the man is right," thought Father Gaspara, a half-hour
later, when, with a calm face, Ramona summoned them to supper. He did
not know, as Alessandro did, how that face had changed in the half-hour.
It wore a look Alessandro had never seen upon it. Almost he dreaded to
speak to her.

When he walked by her side, later in the evening, as she went across the
valley to Fernando's house, he ventured to mention Father Salvierderra's
name. Ramona laid her hand on his lips. "I cannot talk about him yet,
dear," she said. "I never believed that he would die without giving us
his blessing. Do not speak of him till to-morrow is over."

Ramona's saddened face smote on all the women's hearts as they met her
the ne