sylum from the world and the wife you have
repudiated. Why should you abandon it? For the girl, there is no cause
why she should remain--beyond yourself. She has a brother whom she
loves--who wants her--who has the right to claim her at any time. She
will go to him."

"But how?"

"That has been my secret, and will be my sacrifice to you, Diego, my
son. I have foreseen all this; I have expected it from the day that
girl sent you her woman's message, that was half a challenge, from
her school--I have known it from the day you walked together on the
sea-shore. I was blind before that--for I am weak in my way, too, and
I had dreamed of other things. God has willed it otherwise." He paused,
and returning the pressure of Hurlstone's hand, went on. "My secret and
my sacrifice for you is this. For the last two hundred years the Church
has had a secret and trusty messenger from the See at Guadalajara--in
a ship that touches here for a few hours only every three years. Her
arrival and departure is known only to myself and my brothers of the
Council. By this wisdom and the provision of God, the integrity of
the Holy Church and the conversion of the heathen have been maintained
without interruption and interference. You know now, my son, why your
comrades were placed under surveillance; why it was necessary that the
people should believe in a political conspiracy among yourselves,
rather than the facts as they existed, which might have bred a dangerous
curiosity among them. I have given you our secret, Diego--that is but a
part of my sacrifice. When that ship arrives, and she is expected
daily, I will secretly place Miss Keene and her friend on board, with
explanatory letters to the Archbishop, and she will be assisted to
rejoin her brother. It will be against the wishes of the Council; but my
will," continued the old man, with a gesture of imperiousness, "is the
will of the Church, and the law that overrides all."

He had stopped, with a strange fire in his eyes. It still continued to
burn as he went on rapidly,--

"You will understand the sacrifice I am making in telling you this, when
you know that I could have done all that I propose without your leave or
hindrance. Yes, Diego; I had but to stretch out my hand thus, and that
foolish fire-brand of a heretic muchacha would have vanished from Todos
Santos forever. I could have left you in your fool's paradise, and one
morning you would have found her gone. I should have condol