Upon opening the Vigil gate, she saw Lola herself sitting on the doorstep, looking over toward the little wood crosses of the Mexican burying-ground. The girl hardly noted Jane's approach, but behind her, Señora Vigil came forward, shaking her head at Jane and touching her lip significantly. "She does not know," whispered the señora. "Her papa did not say good-by. He said it was better for him to 'slip away.' And me--I could not tell her! I am only a woman." "You think--she will not want--to live with me?" The other's face grew very bland. "She said to-day 'how ugly' was your house," confessed Señora Vigil. "And when you was feeding your chickens she cried out, '_Hola_, what a queer woman is yonder!' Children have funny things in their heads. But it is for you to tell her you come to fetch her away!" And the señora called out, "_Lolita, ven aca!_" The girl looked up startled. "_Que hay?_" she asked, coming toward them apprehensively. "Lola," began Jane, "your papa wants you should stay with me for a while. He--he saw how lonesome I was," she continued, unwisely, "and--and so he decided to leave you here. Lola, I hope--I--" She could not go on for the strangeness in Lola's gaze. "Is he _gone_--my father? But no! he would not leave me behind! No! no! _Dejeme! dejeme!_ you do not say the truth! You shall not touch me! I will not--will not go with you!" She turned wildly, dizzily, as if about to run she knew not where; and then flung herself down before Señora Vigil, clasping the Mexican woman's knees in a frantic, fainting grasp. A SACRED CHARGE CHAPTER TWO A SACRED CHARGE Jane helplessly regarded the child's despair, while Señora Vigil maintained an attitude curiously significant of deep compassion and a profound intention of neutrality. With the sound of Lola's distraught refusals in her ear, Jane felt upon her merely the instinct of flight. She rallied her powers of speech and set her hand on the gate, saying simply, "I'm going. She better stay here." But at this the señora's face, which had exhibited a kind of woful pleasure in the excitement of the occasion, took on an anxious frown. "And the board-money?" she exclaimed, with instant eagerness. "I guess it'll be all right. Mr. Keene said he'd send it every month." The señora's eyes narrowed. "He said so! Ay, but who can say he shall remember? There are eight chickens to eat of our meal already. No, Mees Combs! The _muchacha_ was left to you. It is a charge very sacred. Ave Maria! yes!" Jane had closed the gate. "I can't force her," she repeated. Señora Vigil, watching her go, fell a prey to lively dissatisfaction. "_Santo cielo!_" she thought. "What will my Pablo say to this? I must run to the mine for a word with him. It is most serious, this business!" And casting her apron over the whip-cord braids of her coarse hair, she started hastily down toward the bridge.