Part 24 (1/2)

”I'm sure I should have been much happier if I had had any one to talk to,” she added, looking up into his face with a naivete of faint reproach; ”it's very different for men, you know. They can always distract themselves with something. Although,” she continued hesitatingly, ”I've sometimes thought YOU would have been happier if you had had somebody to tell your troubles to--I don't mean the Padre; for, good as he is, he is a foreigner, you know, and wouldn't look upon things as WE do--but some one in sympathy with you.”

She stopped, alarmed at the change of expression in his face. A quick flush had crossed his cheek; for an instant he had looked suspiciously into her questioning eyes. But the next moment the idea of his quietly selecting this simple, unsophisticated girl as the confidant of his miserable marriage, and the desperation that had brought him there, struck him as being irresistibly ludicrous and he smiled. It was the first time that the habitual morbid intensity of his thoughts on that one subject had ever been disturbed by reaction; it was the first time that a clear ray of reason had pierced the gloom in which he had enwrapped it. Seeing him smile, the young girl smiled too. Then they smiled together vaguely and sympathetically, as over some unspoken confidence. But, unknown and unsuspected by himself, that smile had completed his emanc.i.p.ation and triumph. The next moment, when he sought with a conscientious sigh to reenter his old mood, he was half shocked to find it gone. Whatever gradual influence--the outcome of these few months of rest and repose--may have already been at work to dissipate his clouded fancy, he was only vaguely conscious that the laughing breath of the young girl had blown it away forever.

The perilous point pa.s.sed, unconsciously to both of them, they fell into freer conversation, tacitly avoiding the subject of Mr. Hurlstone's past reserve only as being less interesting. Hurlstone did not return Miss Keene's confidences--not because he wished to deceive her, but that he preferred to entertain her; while she did not care to know his secret now that it no longer affected their sympathy in other things. It was a pleasant, innocent selfishness, that, however, led them along, step by step, to more uncertain and difficult ground.

In their idle, happy walk they had strayed towards the beach, and had come upon a large stone cross with its base half hidden in sand, and covered with small tenacious, sweet-scented creepers, bearing a pale lilac blossom that exhaled a mingled odor of sea and sh.o.r.e. Hurlstone pointed out the cross as one of the earliest outposts of the Church on the edge of the unclaimed heathen wilderness. It was hung with strings of gaudy sh.e.l.ls and feathers, which Hurlstone explained were votive offerings in which their pagan superst.i.tions still mingled with their new faith.

”I don't like to worry that good old Padre,” he continued, with a light smile, ”but I'm afraid that they prefer this cross to the chapel for certain heathenish reasons of their own. I am quite sure that they still hold some obscure rites here under the good Father's very nose, and that, in the guise of this emblem of our universal faith, they wors.h.i.+p some deity we have no knowledge of.”

”It's a shame,” said Miss Keene quickly.

To her surprise, Hurlstone did not appear so shocked as she, in her belief of his religious sympathy with the Padre, had imagined.

”They're a harmless race,” he said carelessly. ”The place is much frequented by the children--especially the young girls; a good many of these offerings came from them.”

The better to examine these quaint tributes, Miss Keene had thrown herself, with an impulsive, girlish abandonment, on the mound by the cross, and Hurlstone sat down beside her. Their eyes met in an innocent pleasure of each other's company. She thought him very handsome in the dark, half official Mexican dress that necessity alone had obliged him to a.s.sume, and much more distinguished-looking than his companions in their extravagant foppery; he thought her beauty more youthful and artless than he had imagined it to be, and with his older and graver experiences felt a certain protecting superiority that was pleasant and rea.s.suring.

Nevertheless, seated so near each other, they were very quiet. Hurlstone could not tell whether it was the sea or the flowers, but the dress of the young girl seemed to exhale some subtle perfume of her own freshness that half took away his breath. She had sc.r.a.ped up a handful of sand, and was allowing it to escape through her slim fingers in a slender rain on the ground. He was watching the operation with what he began to fear was fatuous imbecility.

”Miss Keene?--I beg your pardon”--

”Mr. Hurlstone?--Excuse me, you were saying”--

They had both spoken at the same moment, and smiled forgivingly at each other. Hurlstone gallantly insisted upon the precedence of her thought--the scamp had doubted the coherency of his own.

”I used to think,” she began--”you won't be angry, will you?”

”Decidedly not.”

”I used to think you had an idea of becoming a priest.”

”Why?”

”Because--you are sure you won't be angry--because I thought you hated women!”

”Father Esteban is a priest,” said Hurlstone, with a faint smile, ”and you know he thinks kindly of your s.e.x.”

”Yes; but perhaps HIS life was never spoiled by some wicked woman like--like yours.”

For an instant he gazed intently into her eyes.

”Who told you that?”

”No one.”

She was evidently speaking the absolute truth. There was no deceit or suppression in her clear gaze; if anything, only the faintest look of wonder at his astonishment. And he--this jealously guarded secret, the curse of his whole wretched life, had been guessed by this simple girl, without comment, without reserve, without horror! And there had been no scene, no convulsion of Nature, no tragedy; he had not thrown himself into yonder sea; she had not fled from him shrinking, but was sitting there opposite to him in gentle smiling expectation, the golden light of Todos Santos around them, a bit of bright ribbon s.h.i.+ning in her dark hair, and he, miserable, outcast, and recluse, had not even changed his position, but was looking up without tremulousness or excitement, and smiling, too.

He raised himself suddenly on his knee.

”And what if it were all true?” he demanded.