"Oh, let the women alone to look after the wants of the padre," laughed his host. "They own my house when they are in it, though sometimes I never see them. 'How much money do you want?' I say when they come, and that ends my business with the padres! I buy and sell with them and get beaten at _monte_ or _malilla_, but I let women do the praying with them! Here comes my wife. Refugia, this is the preserver of your house, the Senor Bryton. Have some whiskey, dear; you are still pale." "Pale! Never shall I get over this day. Think of the shame of it! Dona Raquel Arteaga has been entertained like a queen by the bishop, and when she honors our home, her servant is dragged out to be burned! The word will go out that we are savages. Enrico, never so long as you live do you leave this house again without a man in it!" "Surely not. Drink the whiskey, dear, and be composed." Dona Refugia drank the fiery liquor, and appeared to enjoy it very much, but it had not a quieting influence. It rather helped her to remember and recount all the details of her own stages of fear during the stampede of the self-appointed executioners. "After the night we all had," she lamented, "to have it followed by such a day! God grant that Dona Raquel slept or was unconscious through it all. Had she seen those fiends, it might have killed her or brought back the fever. Juanita says a padre has come, which is the one lucky thing." "Senor Bryton came first, which was a more lucky thing," said her husband; "all the saints could not have saved the woman from the fire if he had not come when he did. Such a thing has not happened here in this valley since I was a boy. Have some more of the wine; it will give you an appetite for supper." At the mention of supper his wife remembered that all the help of the kitchen might have deserted the premises under the scourging of Don Enrico's reata, and calling the girls to help, she left the gentlemen to their glasses. At the hall she halted to ask after Raquel, and in the shadow saw her niece and the padre talking softly. Ana's head was bent as though weeping, and the hand of the padre was smoothing her hair, and his words were reassuring. "There, there! it is not so bad, after all," he was saying. "You did the best you knew; and now that I am here, there is nothing to do but--" "Oh, I know," broke in Ana; "you say all this so I will not blame myself. You would do the same if the worst, the very worst, happened." "It is not going to happen," he said, quietly; then, as he saw Dona Refugia in the hall, "Your friend is surely not so dangerously ill as you fear; by to-morrow--" Ana looked up quickly at his change of tone, and arose to her feet. "Here is my aunt," she said. "Aunt Refugia, this is a padre journeying south to Mexico. He--he came at the right moment to help Senor Bryton, and I have asked him to stay--and--"