"Ah!" said the secretary to Padre Esteban, in Spanish, "it is true! she knows not fear! She was in the room alone with the madman; he would let none approach but her! She took a knife from him--else the medico had suffered!" "He recognized her, you see! Ah! they know her power," said the Comandante, joining the group. "You will help me, Father Esteban?" said the young girl, letting the fire of her dark eyes soften to a look of almost childish appeal--"you will help me to intercede for him? It is the restraint only that is killing him--that is goading him to madness! Think of him, Father--think of him: ruined and disgraced, dying to retrieve himself by any reckless action, any desperate chance of recovery, and yet locked up where he can do nothing--attempt nothing--not even lift a hand to pursue the man who has helped to bring him to this!" "But he CAN do nothing! The ship is gone!" remonstrated the Comandante. "Yes, the ship is gone; but the ocean is still there," said Miss Keene. "But he has no boat." "He will find or make one." "And the fog conceals the channel." "He can go where THEY have gone, or meet their fate. You do not know my countrymen, Senor Comandante," she said proudly. "Ah, yes--pardon! They are at San Antonio--the baker, the buffoon, the two young men who dig. They are already baking and digging and joking. We have it from my officer, who has just returned." Miss Keene bit her pretty lips. "They think it is a mistake; they cannot believe that any intentional indignity is offered them," she said quietly. "Perhaps it is well they do not." "They desired me to express their condolences to the Senora," said the Padre, with exasperating gentleness, "and were relieved to be assured by me of your perfect security in the hands of these gentlemen." Miss Keene raised her clear eyes to the ecclesiastic. That accomplished diplomat of Todos Santos absolutely felt confused under the cool scrutiny of this girl's unbiased and unsophisticated intelligence. "Then you HAVE seen them," she said, "and you know their innocence, and the utter absurdity of this surveillance?" "I have not seen them ALL," said the priest softly. "There is still another--a Senor Hurlstone--who is missing? Is he not?" It was not in the possibility of Eleanor Keene's truthful blood to do other than respond with a slight color to this question. She had already concealed from every one the fact of having seen the missing man in the Mission garden the evening before. It did not, however, prevent her the next moment from calmly meeting the glance of the priest as she answered gravely,-- "I believe so. But I cannot see what that has to do with the detention of the others." "Much, perhaps. It has been said that you alone, my child, were in the confidence of this man." "Who dared say that?" exclaimed Miss Keene in English, forgetting herself in her indignation.