At sunset he
was in his accustomed seat in the orchard, his hands clasped over the
breviary in his listless lap, his eyes fixed upon the mountain between
him and that mysterious sea that had brought so much into his life. He
was filled with a strange desire to see it, a vague curiosity hitherto
unknown to his preoccupied life; he wished to gaze upon that strand,
perhaps the very spot where she had been found; he doubted not his
questioning eyes would discover some forgotten trace of her; under his
persistent will and aided by the Holy Virgin, the sea would give up its
secret. He looked at the fog creeping along the summit, and recalled the
latest gossip of San Carmel; how that since the advent of the Americanos
it was gradually encroaching on the Mission. The hated name vividly
recalled to him the features of the stranger as he had stood before him
three nights ago, in this very garden; so vividly that he sprang to
his feet with an exclamation. It was no fancy, but Senor Cranch himself
advancing from under the shadow of a pear tree.

"I reckoned I'd catch you here," said Mr. Cranch, with the same dry,
practical business fashion, as if he was only resuming an interrupted
conversation, "and I reckon I ain't going to keep you a minit longer
than I did t'other day." He mutely referred to his watch, which he
already held in his hand, and then put it back in his pocket. "Well! we
found her!"

"Francisco," interrupted the priest with a single stride, laying his
hand upon Cranch's arm, and staring into his eyes.

Mr. Cranch quietly removed Father Pedro's hand. "I reckon that wasn't
the name as I caught it," he returned dryly. "Hadn't you better sit
down?"

"Pardon me--pardon me, Senor," said the priest, hastily sinking back
upon his bench, "I was thinking of other things. You--you--came upon me
suddenly. I thought it was the acolyte. Go on, Senor! I am interested."

"I thought you'd be," said Cranch, quietly. "That's why I came. And then
you might be of service too."

"True, true," said the priest, with rapid accents; "and this girl,
Senor, this girl is--"

"Juanita, the mestiza, adopted daughter of Don Juan Briones, over on
the Santa Clare Valley," replied Cranch, jerking his thumb over his
shoulder, and then sitting down upon the bench beside Father Pedro.

The priest turned his feverish eyes piercingly upon his companion for a
few seconds, and then doggedly fixed them upon the ground. Cranch drew
a plug of tobacco