After she had disappeared, Padre Libertad entered from an inner room and smiled grimly at Bryton. "You are the sort of lover to be unhappy," he observed. "You can't console yourself with the other women. Half the men in the valley are mad over that woman, who would coquette with you if you did not turn ice when she comes near." Keith stared out of the window toward the hills of the sea, tinged with the warm rose of the sunset. And the man in a priest's robe tried to laugh, and ended with a sigh. "I admire your strength, though I doubt if I could emulate it," he confessed. "One pretty woman in sight is worth a dozen goddesses over the hill." "Talk sense if you can!" "I can. I shall leave to-night instead of to-morrow. I find I can go to Mexico, or South America if I choose, without touching land. I shall be running away with the property of a relative, and you might not care to mix up with it." "An hour ago you had no such plan." "An hour ago I had not confessed Victorio Lopez! I know an old record of his, and he thinks it is witchcraft. There is a lot of coin going along,--a matter of several rawhide sacks of it,--but it will be donated by a man who can afford gifts. Let me have your address two months ahead, and I can tell you how it all turns out." "You should be glad to get away alive, without weighting yourself with coin. There is a woman here who would care if things went entirely wrong." "Ana? It is for her I take the chance. I know a corner down the coast where fifty thousand will last forever. She is free, and she is of California--no snow of the hills in her blood! She will come to me after the chase is over." "She knows?" "Not yet. Women's fears upset things sometimes. If I do not tell her, it will be better. I need only tell that I am going; she is waiting eagerly for that." "And Victorio Lopez?" "He is paralyzed by the fear that I may give some old proofs of things to the alcalde. Oh, Victorio is all right. He knows two Indian sailors who will say nothing. They need to get away, and want a chance. We will bind and gag the others and put them ashore. It is all settled. The saints be thanked that I know boats and the coast!" Bryton scarcely knew whether to think the plan a wild fancy or an actual fact. The whole scheme of life those days was so filled with the strange and tragic, that all the echoes of laughter and the tinkle of guitars in the corridors could not even temper it. At sunset Rafael Arteaga rode a dripping horse into the plaza, and shouted cordial responses to the chorus of greetings awaiting him. All the day he had been in the saddle. "On business," was the only explanation to Don Eduardo and Dona Maria. To his wife he had offered none, nor spoken since the scene in the chapel. But he was in high good spirits, gay and eager.