"Towards God--yes. That is His business, and no one else understands it at all. No, I did not think you would have been judging. Only I thought you might be troubled a little. It is a great loss, my father's and mine, that we live out here where there is no Mass, and where there are no Sacraments. But Our Lord does the same things differently. It is not hard for Him to make up losses." One thing which struck the girl's hearer was that the grave simplicity of her tones was never sad. It seemed to him the perfection of obedience. "My father," she went on, "is very good. He always tells the truth. Those who deal in horses are said to tell many lies about them. He never does. He is very just--to the men, and everybody. And he does not grind them, nor does he insult them in reproof. He hates laziness and stupidity, and will not suffer either. Yet he does not gibe in finding fault nor say things, being master, to which they being servants may not retort. That makes fault-finding bitter and intolerable. He works very hard and takes no pleasure. He greatly loved my mother, and was in all things a true husband. That was a great burden God laid on him--the loss of her, but he carried it always in silence. You can hardly know all these things." Gore saw that she was more observant than he had fancied--that she had been conscious of criticism in him of her father, and was earnest in exacting justice for him. "But," he said, "I shall not forget them now." "I shall thank you for that," she told him, beginning to move forward towards the homestead that was full in sight, half a mile away. "And it will be getting very late. Tea is much later on Sunday, for the men like to sleep, but it will be time now." They walked on together, side by side, he leading his horse by the bridle hung loosely over his shoulder. The horse after its very long journey of to-day and yesterday was tired out, and only too willing to go straight to his stable. They did not now talk much. Don Joaquin, watching them as they came from the house door, saw that. CHAPTER XII. "Mr. Gore came back with you," he said to Mariquita as she joined him. Gore had gone round to the stables with his horse. "Yes. As he came back from Maxwell he passed the place where I was sitting, and we came on together--after talking for a time." Mariquita did not think her father was cross-examining her. Nor was he. He was not given to inquisitiveness, and seldom scrutinized her doings. "Mr. Gore," she continued, "went to Maxwell for the sake of going to Mass." "So he is a Catholic!" And Mariquita observed with pleasure that her father spoke in a tone of satisfaction. He had never before appeared to be in the least concerned with the religion of any of the men about the place.