convent. Of course, it was better that it was so. Discipline and
seclusion had to be maintained. The young girl should look upon this
as her home. The rules for visitors were necessarily severe. It was
rare indeed--except in a case of urgency, such as happened last
night--that even a lady, unless the parent of a scholar, was admitted
to the hospitality of the convent. And this lady was only the friend
of that same sister of the American capitalist, although she was the
one who had brought her there. No, she was not a relation. Perhaps Don
Preble had heard of a Mrs. Barker,--the friend of Rivers of the
Sierras. It was a queer combination of names. But what will you? The
names of Americanos mean nothing. And Don Preble knows them not. Ah!
possibly?--good! The lady would be remembered, being tall, dark, and
of fine presence, though sad. A few hours earlier and Don Preble could
have judged for himself, for, as it were, she might have passed through
this visitors' room. But she was gone--departed by the coach. It was
from a telegram--those heathen contrivances that blurt out things to
you, with never an excuse, nor a smile, nor a kiss of the hand! For
her part, she never let her scholars receive them, but opened them
herself, and translated them in a Christian spirit, after due
preparation, at her leisure. And it was this telegram that made the
Senora Barker go, or, without doubt, she would have of herself told to
the Don Preble, her compatriot of the Sierras, how good the convent was
for his niece.
Stung by the thought that this woman had again evaded him, and
disconcerted and confused by the scarcely intelligible information he
had acquired, Key could with difficulty maintain his composure. "The
caballero is tired of his long pasear," said the Lady Superior gently.
"We will have a glass of wine in the lodge waiting-room." She led the
way from the reception room to the outer door, but stopped at the sound
of approaching footsteps and rustling muslin along the gravel walk.
"The second class are going out," she said, as a gentle procession of
white frocks, led by two nuns, filed before the gateway. "We will wait
until they have passed. But the senor can see that my children do not
look unhappy."
They certainly looked very cheerful, although they had halted before
the gateway with a little of the demureness of young people who know
they are overlooked by authority, and had bumped against each other
with affected gravity. Somewhat ashamed of his useless deception, and
the guileless simplicity of the good Lady Superior, Key hesitated and
began: "I am afraid that I am really giving you too much trouble," and
suddenly stopped.
For as his voice broke the demure silence, one of the nearest--a young
girl of apparently seventeen--turned towards him with a quick and an
apparently irresistible impulse, and as quickly turned away again. But
in that instant Key caught a glimpse of a face that might not only have
thrilled him in its beauty, its freshness, but in some vague
suggestiveness. Yet it was not that which set his pulses beating; it
was the look of joyous recognition set in the parted lips and sparkling
eyes, the glow of childlike innocent pleasure that mantled the sweet
young face, the frank confusion of suddenly realized expectancy and
longing. A great truth gripped his throbbing heart, and held it still.
It was the face that he had seen in the hollow!
The movement of the young girl was too marked to escape the eye of the
Lady Superior, though she had translated it differently. "You must not
believe our young ladies are all so rude, Don Preble," she said dryly;
"though our dear child has still some of the mountain freedom. And
this is the Senor Rivers's sister. But possibly--who knows?" she said
gently, yet with a sudden sharpness in her clear eyes,--"perhaps she
recognized in your voice a companion of her brother."
Luckily for Key, the shock had been so sudden and overpowering that he
showed none of the lesser symptoms of agitation or embarrassment. In
this revelation of a secret, that he now instinctively felt was bound
up with his own future happiness, he exhibited none of the signs of a
discovered intriguer or unmasked Lothario. He said quietly and coldly:
"I am afraid I have not the pleasure of knowing the young lady, and
certainly have never before addressed her." Yet he scarcely heard his
companion's voice, and answered mechanically, seeing only before him
the vision of the girl's bewitching face, in its still more bewitching
consciousness of his presence. With all that he now knew, or thought
he knew, came a strange delicacy of asking further questions, a vague
fear of compromising HER, a quick impatience of his present deception;
even his whole quest of her seemed now to be a profanation, for which
he must ask her forgiveness. He longed to be alone to recover himself.
Even the temptation to linger on some pretext, and wait for her return
and another glance from her joyous eyes, was not as strong as his
conviction of the necessity of cooler thought and action. He had met
his fate that morning, for good or ill; that was all he knew. As soon
as he could decently retire, he thanked the Lady Superior, promised to
communicate with her later, and taking leave of Father Cipriano, found
himself again in the street.
Who was she, what was she, and what meant her joyous recognition of
him? It is to be feared that it was the last question that affected
him most, now that he felt that he must have really loved her from the
first. Had she really seen him before, and had been as mysteriously
impressed as he was? It was not the reflection of a conceited man, for
Key had not that kind of vanity, and he had already touched the
humility that is at the base of any genuine passion. But he would not
think of that now. He had established the identity of the other woman,
as being her companion in the house in the hollow on that eventful
night; but it was HER profile that he had seen at the window. The
mysterious brother Rivers might have been one of the robbers,--perhaps
the one who accompanied Mrs. Barker to San Jose. But it was plain that
the young girl had no complicity with the actions of the gang, whatever
might have been her companion's confederation. In the prescience of a
true lover, he knew that she must have been deceived and kept in utter
ignorance of it. There was no look of it in her lovely, guileless
eyes; her very impulsiveness and ingenuousness would have long since
betrayed the secret. Was it left for him, at this very outset of his
passion, to be the one to tell her? Could he bear to see those frank,
beautiful eyes dimmed with shame and sorrow? His own grew moist.
Another idea began to haunt him. Would it not be wiser, even more
manly, for him--a man over twice her years--to leave her alone with her
secret, and so pass out of her innocent young life as chancefully as he
had entered it? But was it altogether chanceful? Was there not in her
innocent happiness in him a recognition of something in him better than
he had dared to think himself? It was the last conceit of the humility
of love.
He reached his hotel at last, unresolved, perplexed, yet singularly
happy. The clerk handed him, in passing, a business-looking letter,
formally addressed. Without opening it, he took it to his room, and
throwing himself listlessly on a chair by the window again tried to
think. But the atmosphere of his room only recalled to him the
mysterious gift he had found the day before on his pillow. He felt now
with a thrill that it must have been from HER. How did she convey it
there? She would not have intrusted it to Mrs. Barker. The idea
struck him now as distastefully as it seemed improbable. Perhaps she
had been here herself with her companion--the convent sometimes made
that concession to a relative or well-known friend. He recalled the
fact that he had seen Mrs. Barker enter the hotel alone, after the
incident of the opening door, while he was leaning over the balustrade.
It was SHE who was alone THEN, and had recognized his voice; and he had
not known it. She was out again to-day with the procession. A sudden
idea struck him. He glanced quickly at the letter in his hand, and
hurriedly opened it. It contained only three lines, in a large formal
hand, but they sent the swift blood to his cheeks.
"I heard your voice to-day for the third time. I want to hear it
again. I will come at dusk. Do not go out until then."
He sat stupefied. Was it madness, audacity, or a trick? He summoned
the waiter. The letter had been left by a boy from the confectioner's
shop in the next block. He remembered it of old,--a resort for the
young ladies of the convent. Nothing was easier than conveying a
letter in that way. He remembered with a shock of disillusion and
disgust that it was a common device of silly but innocent assignation.
Was he to be the ridiculous accomplice of a schoolgirl's extravagant
escapade, or the deluded victim of some infamous plot of her infamous
companion? He could not believe either; yet he could not check a
certain revulsion of feeling towards her, which only a moment ago he
would have believed impossible.
Yet whatever was her purpose, he must prevent her coming there at any
hazard. Her visit would be the culmination of her folly, or the
success of any plot. Even while he was fully conscious of the material
effect of any scandal and exposure to her, even while he was incensed
and disillusionized at her unexpected audacity, he was unusually
stirred with the conviction that she was wronging herself, and that
more than ever she demanded his help and his consideration. Still she
must not come. But how was he to prevent her? It wanted but an hour
of dusk. Even if he could again penetrate the convent on some pretext
at that inaccessible hour for visitors,--twilight,--how could he
communicate with her? He might intercept her on the way, and persuade
her to return; but she must be kept from entering the hotel.
He seized his hat and rushed downstairs. But here another difficulty
beset him. It was easy enough to take the ordinary road to the
convent, but would SHE follow that public one in what must be a
surreptitious escape? And might she not have eluded the procession
that morning, and even now be concealed somewhere, waiting for the
darkness to make her visit. He concluded to patrol the block next to
the hotel, yet near enough to intercept her before she reached it,
until the hour came. The time passed slowly. He loitered before shop
windows, or entered and made purchases, with his eye on the street.
The figure of a pretty girl,--and there were many,--the fluttering
ribbons on a distant hat, or the flashing of a cambric skirt around the
corner sent a nervous thrill through him. The reflection of his grave,
abstracted face against a shop window, or the announcement of the
workings of his own mine on a bulletin board, in its incongruity with
his present occupation, gave him an hysterical impulse to laugh. The
shadows were already gathering, when he saw a slender, graceful figure
disappear in the confectioner's shop on the block below. In his
elaborate precautions, he had overlooked that common trysting spot. He
hurried thither, and entered. The object of his search was not there,
and he was compelled to make a shamefaced, awkward survey of the tables
in an inner refreshment saloon to satisfy himself. Any one of the
pretty girls seated there might have been the one who had just entered,
but none was the one he sought. He hurried into the street again,--he
had wasted a precious moment,--and resumed his watch. The sun had
sunk, the Angelus had rung out of a chapel belfry, and shadows were
darkening the vista of the Alameda. She had not come. Perhaps she had
thought better of it; perhaps she had been prevented; perhaps the whole
appointment had been only a trick of some day-scholars, who were
laughing at him behind some window. In proportion as he became
convinced that she was not coming, he was conscious of a keen despair
growing in his heart, and a sickening remorse that he had ever thought
of preventing her. And when he at last reluctantly reentered the
hotel, he was as miserable over the conviction that she was not coming
as he had been at her expected arrival. The porter met him hurriedly
in the hall.
"Sister Seraphina of the Sacred Heart has been here, in a hurry to see
you on a matter of importance," he said, eyeing Key somewhat curiously.
"She would not wait in the public parlor, as she said her business was
confidential, so I have put her in a private sitting-room on your
floor."
Key felt the blood leave his cheeks. The secret was out for all his
precaution. The Lady Superior had discovered the girl's flight,--or
her attempt. One of the governing sisterhood was here to arraign him
for it, or at least prevent an open scandal. Yet he was resolved; and
seizing this last straw, he hurriedly mounted the stairs, determined to
do battle at any risk for the girl's safety, and to perjure himself to
any extent.
She was standing in the room by the window. The light fell upon the
coarse serge dress with its white facings, on the single girdle that
scarcely defined the formless waist, on the huge crucifix that dangled
ungracefully almost to her knees, on the hideous, white-winged coif
that, with the coarse but dense white veil, was itself a renunciation
of all human vanity. It was a figure he remembered well as a boy, and
even in his excitement and half resentment touched him now, as when a
boy, with a sense of its pathetic isolation. His head bowed with
boyish deference as she approached gently, passed him a slight
salutation, and closed the door that he had forgotten to shut behind
him.
Then, with a rapid movement, so quick that he could scarcely follow it,
the coif, veil, rosary, and crucifix were swept off, and the young
