Hope had passed the crisis of her fever, but had been slow and reluctant to convalesce. She did not care whether she lived or died. At times she seemed touchingly grateful for the care and attention given her, and at other times she accepted it indifferently. Luis came in once to bring her yellow roses. She turned her mournful eyes, made huge with illness and the dark smudges beneath, hopefully toward him. She seemed to remember the evening they had spent together as one of the few bright spots of her new life, and asked him if he would not find her little brother for her. Doña Gertrudis did not realize what a tender heart her son had; with a sob of agony he ran out of the house and disappeared for hours. Hope would never get well; she was grieving her heart out. Yet in a week after Doren’s return the alchemy of happiness had not only raised her from her bed, but had filled out her cheeks, brought a little color to the sweetly curved but prim lips. Then she seemed more alive than she had ever been. It was as though it had taken this terrible anxiety, and the consequent overwhelming happiness of Doren’s restoral to her, to break down the cold barriers in her nature. In her gratitude she turned to Don Tiburcio, and scarcely two weeks after Doren’s return Hope went with the courtly don to the cathedral, where they were married by Father Filemon Hubert. The padre then gave them as splendid a dinner as his kitchen could encompass, and when they had paid their respects to Don Anabel and Doña Gertrudis they took Doren and departed southward to select a site for a new hacienda on lands belonging to Don Tiburcio’s father within the state of New Mexico. In parting with Don Anabel, Don Tiburcio informed him that as an evidence of his gratitude to them for their kindness to Hope, he wished to present Don Anabel with a picture which, while it would not take the place of the old master stolen from him, would still be some consolation. It was a Goya, he said, that master of modern Spanish art who had died in Spain only the year before, but whose work was prized highly. Don Tiburcio’s father possessed two examples, one of which should be sent to Don Tiburcio on next year’s caravan. Consuelo looked after them, departing so happily, with the feeling that if her happiness had been given for theirs, it had been done by the hand of God through her. And although the man Bragdon had died, Hope and the boy were in reality far better off now. Don Tiburcio was radiantly happy, and the sister and brother were content in the possession of each other.