tion, you are regretting it?"

The young man replied, with a half reproachful gesture:

"Do you, then, think me still so weak? No, Father Esteban; I have
steeled myself against my selfishness for her sake. I could have
resigned her to the escape you had planned, believing her happier
for it, and ignorant of the real condition of the man she had learnt
to--to--pity. But," he added, turning suddenly and almost rudely upon
the priest, "do you know the meaning of this irruption of the outer
world to ME? Do you reflect that these men probably know my miserable
story?--that, as one of the passengers of the Excelsior, they will be
obliged to seek me and to restore me," he added, with a bitter laugh,
"to MY home, MY kindred--to the world I loathe?"

"But you need not follow them. Remain here."

"Here!--with the door thrown open to any talebearer OR PERHAPS TO MY
WIFE HERSELF? Never! Hear me, Father," he went on hurriedly: "these men
have come from San Francisco--have been to Mazatlan. Can you believe
that it is possible that they have never heard of this woman's search
for me? No! The quest of hate is as strong as the quest of love, and
more merciless to the hunted."

"But if that were so, foolish boy, she would have accompanied them."

"You are wrong! It would have been enough for her to have sent my
exposure by them--to have driven me from this refuge."

"This is but futile fancy, Diego," said Father Esteban, with a simulated
assurance he was far from feeling. "Nothing has yet been said--nothing
may be said. Wait, my child."

"Wait!" he echoed bitterly. "Ay, wait until the poor girl shall
hear--perhaps from her brother's lips--the story of my marriage as
bandied about by others; wait for her to know that the man who would
have made her love him was another's, and unworthy of her respect? No!
it is I who must leave this place, and at once."

"YOU?" echoed the Padre. "How?"

"By the same means you would have used for her departure. I must take
her place in that ship you are expecting. You will give ME letters
to your friends. Perhaps, when this is over, I may return--if I still
live."

Padre Esteban became thoughtful.

"You will not refuse me?" said the young man, taking the Padre's hand.
"It is for the best, believe me. I will remain secret here until then.
You will invent some excuse--illness, or what you like--to keep them
from penetrating here. Above all, to spare me from the misery of ever
reading my secret