Meantime Coronado, that persevering and audacious but unlucky conspirator, was in treble trouble. He was afraid that he would lose Clara; afraid that his plottings had been brought to light, and that he would be punished; afraid that his uncle would die and thus deprive him of all chance of succeeding to any part of the estate of Muñoz. Garcia had been brought ashore apparently at his last gasp, and he had not yet come out of his insensibility. For a time Coronado hoped that he was in one of his fits; but after eighteen hours he gave up that feeble consolation; he became terribly anxious about the old man; he felt as though he loved him. The people of Monterey universally admitted that they had never before known such an affectionate nephew and tender-hearted Christian as Coronado. He tried to see Clara, meaning to make the most with her of Garcia's condition, and hoping that thus he could divert her a little from Thurstane. But somehow all his messages failed; the little house which held her repelled him as if it had been a nunnery; nor could he get a word or even a note from her. The truth is that Clara, fearing lest Coronado should tell more stories about her million to Thurstane, had taken the women of the family into her confidence and easily got them to lay a sly embargo on callers and correspondents. On the second day Garcia came to himself for a few minutes, and struggled hard to say something to his nephew, but could give forth only a feeble jabber, after which he turned blank again. Coronado, in the extreme of anxiety, now made another effort to get at Clara. Reaching her house, he learned from a bystander that she had gone out to walk with the Americano, and then he thought he discovered them entering the distant church. He set off at once in pursuit, asking himself with an anxiety which almost made him faint, "Are they to be married?" CHAPTER XLII. In those days the hymeneal laws of California were as easy as old shoes, and people could espouse each other about as rapidly as they might want to. The consequence was that, although Ralph Thurstane and Clara Van Diemen had only been two days in Monterey and had gone through no forms of publication, they were actually being married when Coronado reached the village church. Leaning against the wall, with eyes as fixed and face as livid as if he were a corpse from the neighboring cemetery, he silently witnessed a ceremony which it would have been useless for him to interrupt, and then, stepping softly out of a side door, lurked away.