"Look distressed no longer, little one," he said, reassuringly. "You have helped me to a good day's work, very good. Listen! I like your new American friend very much, and when you go to San Juan I count on you to help to make him welcome there. He is going to do me a good turn with Rafael Arteaga, and I forgive him all the horses he helped to save for the army men. He does not know it, but he is going to be my good friend, that fine Americano. He is so fine and so strong, Ana, that he thinks he can put a woman he loves in a niche of the memory, as we put statues of the saints in the niches of the altar-places." "What do you say?" she queried, perplexed by his smile and words. "And that though the woman loves him so much that she kisses her own hands where his lips have been, and though he loves her so much that he is half mad at denial, yet he will leave her always there in the little niche of the altar,--just above his head, but in reach of his hands; and the hands will never try to lift her down, Anita. He will only look at her as he rides past, and leave her there to remember." "I think you have gone mad," said Ana, sharply. "What did the Indian witch tell you in the hall?" "Ask her!" he suggested. But when Ana did so, she met only scowls and gutturals. And even the sound sleep of Raquel, and the absolute freedom from delirium, brought nothing but suspicion to the heart of old Polonia. It was witchcraft, like all the rest, and the padre should have put the malediction on the Americano when he had so good a chance. Above all, he should not have let him ride away in safety. [Music: _Indian Reveille._] CHAPTER XIV The padre himself rode away very early. Don Enrico lent him a horse to ride to San Juan, and wondered a little that the San Gabriel people had not done as much; but times were changing in the land. One could not expect the old customs to live when so many strangers were crowding into the country. The offered horse was accepted gratefully, and the padre breakfasted with the vaqueros, and left for the south before the family were astir. Bryton watched him go, but lingered for a sight of Ana, that he might hear how the night had passed inside the window of the golden rose. And Ana was the last to join the party at breakfast, but was a very happy creature, compared with the nervous, pale woman of the night before. All were astonished at the fact that Raquel announced that she had slept like a child and all the illness and fever were forgotten. She was not sure but that she could ride to San Juan, and above all things she was grateful to Ana, and wished both the girls to go with her and visit in the old Mission.