So, for Pancha at least, the time passed blithely on. Her mood of compassion for Pedro was forgotten, and her loss of Chona's friendship--if ever she had possessed it--caused her no great sorrow; and all because her love for Pepe filled to overflowing her loving heart. * * * * * This was the way that matters stood the next Easter, when Pepe again came up to Monterey to take part in the blessed services of the church, to see again his old father, and again to receive graciously the congratulations of his friends. And this time Pepe told his love to Pancha in words. In the warm twilight of the spring evening--being followed, as custom in Mexico prescribes, by the discreet _tia_ Antonia, also come into Monterey for the Easter festival--they walked slowly among the bushes and trees lining the bank of the _ojo de agua_, passed beneath the arch of the causeway, and stood beside the broad, clear pool where the water of the great spring pauses a little before it flows outward to the stream. It was on this very spot, say the legends of the town, that the good Franciscan fathers, three hundred years ago, set up the holy cross and sang their song of thankfulness and praise. And here it was--while the discreet _tia_ Antonia manifested her discretion by standing where she could watch closely, yet could not hear--that to Pancha were whispered the sweetest words that ever she had heard, that ever she was to hear. In her memory dwelt for a little while joyously the picture of the dark water at her feet that, a little beyond, grew duskily green with aquatic plants; the massive stone causeway that cast a shadow upon them in the waning light reflected from the red sky beyond the Mitras crest; the trees beside the spring swaying a little in the gentle evening wind; the hush over all of the departing day. Very dear to Pancha was the memory of this picture--until, in the same setting, came another picture, ghastly, terrible, that made the place more horrible to her than the crazing horror of a dream. But the future was closed to her, happily, and in her heart that Easter evening was only a perfect happiness and a perfect love.