his uncle's was very much like a rattlesnake warming himself in a hole of
a rock.

"Ah, yes!" sighed Coronado. "Admirable old gentleman! I should not have
forgotten him. However, he is a solace which comes rather late. It is only
two years since he perceived that he had done me injustice, and received
me into favor. And his affection is somewhat cold. Garcia is an old man
laden with affairs. Moreover, men in general have little sympathy with
men. When we are saddened, we do not look to our own sex for cheer. We
look to yours."

Almost every woman responds promptly to a claim for pity.

"I am sorry for you, Coronado," said Clara, in her artless way. "I am,
truly."

"You do not know, you cannot know, how you console me."

Satisfied with the results of his experiment in boring for sympathy, he
tried another, a dangerous one, it would seem, but very potent when it
succeeds.

"This lack of affection has had sad results. I have searched everywhere
for it, only to meet with disappointment. In my desperation I have
searched where I should not. I have demanded true love of people who had
no true love to give. And for this error and wrong I have been terribly
punished. The mere failure of hope and trust has been hard enough to bear.
But that was not the half. Shame, self-contempt, remorse have been an
infinitely heavier burden. If any man was ever cured of trusting for
happiness to a wicked world, it is Coronado."

In spite of his words and his elaborately penitent expression, Clara only
partially understood him. Some kind of evil life he was obviously
confessing, but what kind she only guessed in the vaguest fashion.
However, she comprehended enough to interest her warmly: here was a
penitent sinner who had forsaken ways of wickedness; here was a struggling
soul which needed encouragement and tenderness. A woman loves to believe
that she can be potent over hearts, and especially that she can be potent
for good. Clara fixed upon Coronado's face a gaze of compassion and
benevolence which was almost superhuman. It should have shamed him into
honesty; but he was capable of trying to deceive the saints and the
Virgin; he merely decided that she was in a fit frame to accept him.

"At last I have a faint hope of a sure and pure happiness," he said. "I
have found one who I know can strengthen me and comfort me, if she will. I
am seeking to be worthy of her. I am worthy of her so far as adoration can
make me. I am ready to surr