musingly. "And until to-day there has been no Catholic more devout--"

"It lies with you, mi padre, whether I continue to be the best of
Catholics or become the most abandoned of heretics. You know me better
than anyone. You know that I will not weaken and bend and submit, like
a thousand other women. I could be bad--bad--bad--and I will be! Do
you hear?" And she shook his arm violently, while her hoarse voice
filled the church.

"My child! My child! I have always believed that you had it in you to
become a saint. Yes, yes, I feel the strength and maturity of your
nature, I know the lengths to which it might lead another; but you
could not be bad, Conchita. I have known many women. In you alone
have I perceived the capacity for spiritual exaltation. You are the
stuff of which saints and martyrs are made. The violent will, the
transcendent passions--they have existed in the greatest of our saints,
and been conquered."

"I will not conquer. I-- Oh, padre--for the love of heaven--"

He left the box hastily and lifted her where she had fallen and carried
her into the room adjoining the church. He laid her on the floor, and
ran for Dona Ignacia, who, refreshed with wine and chocolate, came
swiftly. But when Concha, under practical administrations and maternal
endearments, finally opened her eyes, she pushed her mother coldly
aside, rose and steadied herself against the wall for a moment, then
returned to the church, closing the door behind her.

When a woman has borne thirteen children in the lost corners of the
world, with scarce a thought in thirty years for aught else save the
husband and his comforts, it is not to be expected that her wits should
be rapiers or her vocabulary distinguished. But Dona Ignacia's
unresting heart had an intelligence of its own, and no inner convulsion
could alter the superb dignity of mien which Nature had granted her.
As she rose and confronted Father Abella he moved forward with the
instinct to kiss her hand, as he had seen Rezanov do.

"Mi padre," she said, "Concha is the first of my children to push me
aside, and it is like a blow on the heart; but I have neither anger nor
resentment, for it was not the act of a child to its parent, but of one
woman to another. Alas! this Russian, what has he done, when her own
mother can give her no comfort? We all love when young, but this is
more. I loved Jose so much I thought I should die when they would have
compelled me to m