"No one goes to him," said Ana. "He never stays in one place. If you see him, you see him--but--"
"Oh, yes, he comes to San Juan once a year at least, so they will not forget him."
Ana's lips curled in a little smile, quickly suppressed.
"But, Anita, that he tells you all these things, so that you know the reasons of Capitan--"
"Oh, Capitan is a sort of cousin of our family. Even when he is outcast, I do not want him to lose his soul; so I--my people do not know--but always I pay for a mass when I hear that the robbers have killed a man. I never think that Capitan would like to kill; still, it might happen. So I remember--as I remembered him when I was a little girl, and when I was married--and I pay for a mass, that is all."
"I am glad to-night, very glad you tell me all this, Anita. Not glad that it is so, but, thanks to God, it is something to do--to do--to do!"
"And what?" asked Ana, regarding her curiously. Heretofore the wife of Rafael had appeared to her self-restrained and cold, but to-night--
Raquel caught her hand and pressed it, and laughed.
"You are saving me to-night, Anita, and you do not know it," she said, with feverish intensity. "I was unhappy when I rode to your door; so tired of all the world that I could think of nothing sweeter than to ride on and on to the sea, and into it, and go to sleep there."
"So it is, but I shall do penance, and when the padre comes again, O my dear Ana, you alone will not pay for the masses; we can do many things for good together, you and I. You must come to me to the Mission; you must! I have had many things to fight alone, Anita, and I never can tell you what they are. But this new thing we can fight together, darling--you for your relation and I for my husband and my promise; and, the saints helping us, we shall win, Anita, and it will all come right; and thanks to God I came to you this night!"
Her eyes were alight with excitement, her cheeks flushed and burning. Once or twice she shivered slightly; and Ana, who had been reassured by the beautiful color so quickly replacing the pallor of the cheeks, grew all at once apprehensive, as she noticed that the hands of Raquel were very cold indeed, and that her laugh was nervous, and that her teeth chattered, and that the words she tried to utter grew indistinct.