Her tone had a little hard ring for a moment; her eyes were sparkling with a certain admiration for the character she was describing. The story had brought the color back to Raquel's face, and she listened feverishly. What strange, strange things could be possible in the smiling valleys of San Juan! For the moment she forgot the dull ache in her heart which had driven her to ride alone back to sanctuary. "And you know all this, Anita; even the words of the padre! How?" She caught Ana's hands in hers impetuously, and made her look in her eyes. "He told me," said her friend, simply. "Then you know him? You see him sometimes?" "Sometimes." "And he is called--?" "Libertad." "Padre Libertad--the Liberated? I never have heard him spoken of. Where can I find him? Anita, I will go alone, but this feud shall be ended. He will help me. And I--I never knew what he saved me from that night. I scarcely thanked him. He was so strange, so abrupt, so masterful, I accepted all he did, and never knew! Tell me. Anita. I will go to him--I will--" "No one goes to him," said Ana. "He never stays in one place. If you see him, you see him--but--" "But he comes to San Juan?" "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." "Raquel! That is a mortal sin!"