ed with you,
and consoled you, and you would have forgotten her as you did the other.
I should not have hesitated; it is the right of the Church through all
time to break through those carnal ties without heed of the suffering
flesh, and I ought to have done so. This, and this alone, would have
been worthy of Las Casas and Junipero Serra! But I am weak and old--I
am no longer fit for His work. Far better that the ship which takes her
away should bring back my successor and one more worthy Todos Santos
than I."

He stopped, his eyes dimmed, he buried his face in his hands.

"You have done right, Father Esteban," said Hurlstone, gently putting
his arm round the priest's shoulders, "and I swear to you your secret is
as safe as if you had never revealed it to me. Perhaps," he added, with
a sigh, "I should have been happier if I had not known it--if she had
passed out of my life as mysteriously as she had entered it; but you
will try to accept my sacrifice as some return for yours. I shall see
her no more."

"But will you swear it?" said the priest eagerly. "Will you swear that
you will not even seek her to say farewell; for in that moment the
wretched girl may shake your resolution?"

"I shall not see her," repeated the young man slowly.

"But if she asks an interview," persisted the priest, "on the pretense
of having your advice?"

"She will not," returned Hurlstone, with a half bitter recollection of
their last parting. "You do not know her pride."

"Perhaps," said the priest musingly. "But I have YOUR word, Diego. And
now let us return to the Mission, for there is much to prepare, and you
shall assist me."

Meantime, Hurlstone was only half right in his estimate of Miss Keene's
feelings, although the result was the same. The first shock to her
delicacy in his abrupt speech had been succeeded by a renewal of her
uneasiness concerning his past life or history. While she would, in her
unselfish attachment for him, have undoubtingly accepted any explanation
he might have chosen to give her, his continued reserve and avoidance of
her left full scope to her imaginings. Rejecting any hypothesis of his
history except that of some unfortunate love episode, she began to think
that perhaps he still loved this nameless woman. Had anything occurred
to renew his affection? It was impossible, in their isolated condition,
that he would hear from her. But perhaps the priest might have been a
confidant of his past, and had recal