My hesitation vanished like the morning mist before the rising sun.
"If Angela will be my wife," I said, "I will be your successor."
"It is the answer I expected, Monsieur Nigel. I am content to let Angela be the arbiter of your fate and the fate of Quipai. She will be here presently. Put the question yourself. She knows nothing of this; but I have watched you both, and though my eyes are growing dim I am not blind."
And with that the abbé left me to my thoughts. It was not the first time that the idea of asking Angela to be my wife had entered my mind. I loved her from the moment I first set eyes on her, and my love has become a passion. But I had not been able to see my way. How could I ask a beautiful, gently nurtured girl to share the lot of a penniless wanderer, even if she could consent to leave Quipai, which I greatly doubted. But now! Compared with Angela, the excitements and ambitions of which the abbé had spoken did not weigh as a feather in the balance. Without her life would be a dreary penance; with her a much worse place than Quipai would be an earthly paradise.
But would she have me? The abbé seemed to think so. Nevertheless, I felt by no means sure about it. True, she appeared to like my company. But that might be because I had so much to tell her that was strange and new; and though I had observed her narrowly, I had detected none of that charming self-consciousness, that tender confusion, those stolen glances, whereby the conventional lover gauges his mistress's feelings, and knows before he speaks that his love is returned. Angela was always the same--frank, open, and joyous, and, except that her caresses were reserved for him, made no difference between the abbé and me.
"A _chirimoya_ for your thoughts, señor!" said a well-known voice, in musical Castilian. "For these three minutes I have been standing close by you, with this freshly gathered chirimoya, and you took no notice of me."
"A thousand pardons and a thousand thanks, señorita!" I answered, taking the proffered fruit. "But my thoughts were worth all the chirimoyas in the world, delicious as they are, for they were of you."
"That God was very good in sending you to Quipai."
"Because you have done the abbé good. Aforetime he was often sad. You remember his saying that he had cares. I know not what, but now he seems himself again."