"Fortunately for her," she said, "Mariquita has splendid health, and work did not kill her. She has the strength of a horse. Her mother did not leave it to her. I have always heard in the family that Aunt Margaret was delicate, physically unfit for hard work. Men do not notice those things. She died too young, and might have lived much longer if she had not overtaxed her strength. She ought to have been prevented from doing so much work. You were not too poor to have allowed her plenty of help--and you are much better off now." Don Joaquin almost jumped with horror; he had really adored his wife, and now he was being flatly and relentlessly accused of having perhaps shortened her life by lack of consideration for her. And was it true? He could not help remembering much to support the accusation. She had been a woman of feeble health and feeble temper; her singular beauty of feature and coloring had been in every eye but Joaquin's own, marred by an expression of discontent and complaining, though she had been too much in awe of her masterful husband to set out her grievances to him; he guessed now that she must have written grumbling letters to her relations far away in the East. The man was no monster of cruelty; he was merely stingy and money-loving, hard-natured, and without imagination. Possessed of iron health himself, he had never conceived that the sort of work his Indian mother had submissively performed could be beyond the strength of his wife. It was true that he was much richer now than he had been when he married, and Sarella had herself accustomed him to the idea of greater expenditure, however dexterously he might have done his best to neutralize those spendings. He was more obstinately set upon marrying her than ever, because he had for a long time now decided upon the marriage; he was nervously afraid of her drawing back if he didn't yield to her wishes, the utterance of which he took to be a sort of ultimatum. "Are these two women Catholics?" he demanded, feeling sure that Sister Aquinas would only recommend such; "I will not have Protestant servants in the house." "They are excellent Catholics," Sarella assured him, "educated in the convent." "Then I will consider the plan. You can ask Sister Aquinas about the conditions--wages, and so forth." "What a pity," thought Sarella, when the interview had ended, "that Mariquita never knew how to manage him." CHAPTER XXXII. There was no pomp of leave-taking about Mariquita's departure for Loretto. She was only going on a visit, and would return. "Whatever you decide upon," Sarella insisted, "you must come back for your father's wedding." Mariquita promised, and went away, her father driving her all the way to Loretto in the auto. Her departure did not move him much, though he would have been better pleased, after all, if she were going away to a husband's house. Sarella, watching them disappear in the distance, felt it more than the stoical old half-breed.