NOW, this arch-priest had been a peon, and a soldier in del Torre’s army; and then he had left it, and had seen the viceroy and been traitor to the rebels, and so became a priest; and then, heaven and the vice-queen knew how, bishop; and but that his archiepiscopal credentials were now fresh from Rome, del Torre, still a Catholic, had called him traitor! Del Torre could not like the man, though he stood between him and God; and he knew that disliking must be mutual; and he marvelled, simple soldier! that the intoxicating message came from him. But he put this cup of heaven from his lips. For del Torre, from his fierce August of war, had learned to love this April maiden with all his heart, and with all his life and his strong soul. Were not his hairs gray, and his face so worn and weather-beaten? And his heart--he had none fit for this lady of the light. Enough that it was his pearls that clasped her slender waist. The Archbishop, too, had seen his gray hairs; yet he thought that it was best? He had said so. Perhaps he wanted her possessions for the Church. His nephew Don Ramon cursed the Archbishop for sitting there that night, and saying to her--what? Novitiate and convent, perhaps, or his own sins. For the lady Dolores was devout as only girls can be who have warm hearts and noble souls, and are brought up in cloisters. Del Torre stood on the other side of the Calvary hill, where the sunset lay, and looked at it, dimly--for his heart was breaking; the Archbishop kept close his converse with Dolores; perhaps he saw her fiery younger lover lurking in the branches. She rose--she and Jacinta--and the priest walked home with them. He talked to her of nephew Ramon and his crimes--not his sins with women, for the priest, too, was a crafty man, and did her sex no honor--but of his gambling, his brawling, his unsaintliness. He said Ramon was a coward; and when Dolores’ pale cheek reddened, he marked it again; and when she broke at this, he told her a trumped-up story of his last battle under his grave uncle. For Dolores, noble maiden, had not yet confessed her life’s love to herself--how then to her confessor?