Father Felix wondered if this evident sadness and dread were due, in part, to the experiences through which they had both passed, and also, the thought of the man whom Ruth had married surreptitiously would often cross the mind of the good Priest, for he knew well she often must remember him and his dashing, dark and manly beauty; old Mage almost cursed him in her fierce old heart when she noticed that Ruth was sad although she'd always been so glad to come back home. "It's that fellow's fault!" she grumbled to herself. "It's all his fault ... I hope he's good and dead by this time! I'm sure I'd help to make him so, most willingly! What did he want to come into her young life and almost ruin it for? The low-lived pup!" They started out, as dusk was falling, the day they reached Havana, to go to San Domingo, and, then, home; Father Felix went with them as far as his refectory, and there he bade them a cheerful good-bye and said he'd come up, soon, and see them in their home again. Ruth, somehow, feared to say good-bye to the good Priest and kept his hand in hers much longer than was her wont with any man ... he was a bulwark for anyone who clung to him for strength ... his was a nature strong and good and clean and kind.... Ruth felt this more than usually, that evening, and dreaded to go on without him; he noticed this strange mood in her and said with cheery acquiescence: "Perhaps I'd better go on up the hill with you, my Daughter. I can as well as not. No one awaits me except my little choir-boys and they have managed a long time without me. If you will wait a moment while I look about a bit, I'll just go on up with you and see you nicely settled in your own old place and then I'll come back here and settle down myself." Suiting his actions to his words, the good Priest looked around and climbed the hill with Ruth and her small retinue; the path seemed so familiar with the shadows falling all around it, that she laughed and said to Father Felix: "I am a coward, after all ... afraid of friendly wind-mills like Don Quixote ... having had to do so much with Spaniards may have made me like them in some degree at least.... I wonder if Cervantes was afraid, himself, of things that no one ought to be afraid of! I wonder if Sancho Panza was afraid, too ... was Rozinante...." And, then, she stopped, for they had reached what had been, once, the outer gate of her palatial residence; there was no gate there ... there was no residence ... there was no life there ... it was the tomb of hope and home for her; the dwelling had been razed completely ... in its stead were only smouldering ruins ... all her precious memories ... her visible and tangible reminders of her parents ... had been swept away ... she had paid an awful price for helping those who needed help from her.