“Don Felipe here? The coward, the cur! How dare he return?” she cried with a sudden outburst, her words ringing with indignation and resentment. She impatiently tapped the palm of her hand with her fan as she began to realize what his return might mean to her.

She knew that Senora had come to warn her not on her own account, but solely on Don Felipe’s. Knowing as she did the reckless character of the man, she thoroughly realized the danger, and knew that she must be on her guard, not only for her own sake, but for Captain Forest’s as well. Like the bird of ill omen that he was, his presence boded no good to her. Already she felt his baleful shadow fall across her path.

The unusual attention which Chiquita had begun to pay to her personal appearance did not escape the observant eye of Padre Antonio. Knowing the nature of woman as few men did, he was wise enough not to question her, experience having taught him that the majority of women can only keep a secret for a certain length of time. He smiled and admired, or twitted her with the simple remark: “For whom are we dressing this morning, Chiquita mia?” But she only laughed in reply, or shaking her finger at him with a mysterious air, would say: “What woman would not dress for Padre Antonio?” But Padre Antonio was not so innocent as he tried to appear. Instinct, reenforced by long experience, told him that these were the first real symptoms of love which his wild little Indian girl, as he chose to call her, had shown.

He had always suspected that she never really cared for Don Felipe, and had done his best to break off the engagement before the catastrophe had overtaken the latter; but this was different. That of which he was loath to think, yet which he knew must inevitably happen, had come to pass.

His knowledge of human nature told him that she had at last met the man worthy of her love, but, he asked himself, would Captain Forest, of a different race and reared under totally different conditions, reciprocate that love? He could not endure the thought that his little girl might be made unhappy should the Captain fail to respond to her love.

He, too, had seen Chiquita give him the rose from his study window which overlooked the garden. So, when the sermon upon which he was engaged was completed, he quietly descended to the garden with the intention of administering to her a gentle admonition as well as giving her a little wholesome advice. Chiquita, hearing the sound of his measured tread on the gravel as he approached along the pathway, reseated herself on the bench and began to fan herself unconcernedly.

What a picture she made against the pale plumy branches of the tamarisk, thought Padre Antonio.

“I thought I heard voices,” he said, seating himself beside her. “Has any one been here?”

“Dona Fernandez has just gone,” replied Chiquita absently. “She has been giving me some of her advice.”

“Advice?” echoed Padre Antonio, realizing the moment of his arrival to be most opportune. “That’s just what I have come to give you, my child advice!”

“What! You, too, Padre?” she exclaimed petulantly, looking at him inquiringly. “Dios! what have I done that everybody comes to give me advice when I have so many other things to think of?”

“Chiquita,” slowly began Padre Antonio, laying his hand gently on her own, “I have always known you to be wiser than most women, the result no doubt, of your early life and training in the wilds where people must live by their wits for self-preservation if for nothing else.” He paused that he might the better collect his thoughts. She guessed what was coming and began toying with her fan, an arch smile playing about her delicate, sensitive mouth as she regarded him out of the corners of her large dark eyes.

“Chiquita,” he continued, “I do not like your extravagance. Have a care, child, lest you become addicted to vanity.”

“Again, just what the Senora said! Am I so vain as all that, Padre mio, that you should be obliged to remind me of it?”

“Then why this continual display?” he asked pointedly. “You never used to show such consideration for your admirers.” She felt that it would be not only foolish, but worse than useless to attempt to fence about the truth with him.

“Ah, Padre mio,” she sighed softly, blushing and laying her hand lightly on his shoulder and looking up into his face with deep lustrous eyes that softened with her words, “you you forget that I have never been in love before.”

“In love!” echoed Padre Antonio in turn. “Ah! I knew it was that,” and into his eyes there came an expression of tenderness and a far-away look as though the word recalled memories of other days. Memories which music or the glories of the sunset, or the cooing of the wood-dove at eventide might awaken within the soul. The sunlight played along the path at their feet. The breeze wafted the fragrance of the roses about them and a linnet, perched on the swaying branch of a tree overhead, gave voice to his song, singing of the joy of life. Again he sighed, and Chiquita looking up quickly, saw in his eyes that which she had never suspected.

“Padre mio,” she said at length, lowering her eyes and slowly opening and shutting her fan, “have have you ever been in love?”

“My child!” he cried with a start, suddenly recollecting where he was. “You forget what I am! What are you thinking of?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing!” she returned quietly. “Only it’s so so sweet to be in love, Padre mio. And yet so ”

“So what, my child?” he interrupted hurriedly, as if to get through with the subject as quickly as possible.

“So terrible,” she answered.

“So terrible?”

“Yes, terrible, Padre mio, for I never knew before how ugly I am.”

“My poor child, you have quite lost your head!” he answered sympathetically.

“Ah, no,” she said rising and facing him, “you do not understand; I have a most dangerous rival. To win the Senor I am compelled to use every means and strategy within my power. Can you not see?” she continued passionately; “she has everything; I have nothing. She is not only beautiful, but rich, and Blessed Virgin, what dresses she has, and jewels enough to cover an altar-cloth!”

“My child!” he cried. “You are merely jealous of the Senorita’s beauty. For shame, that you should set such store upon worldly things!”

“Padre mio, you would not have your little Chiquita unhappy, would you?” she went on without heeding his words, a beseeching tone in her voice. “Should I fail to win Captain Forest’s love, my heart will break!” She stood with downcast eyes before him, an expression of pain on her face.

“Ah, yes, my child, I understand,” he answered compassionately, also rising from the bench. “Your temptation is great. Beware of pride and the vanities of this world, for he that exalteth himself shall be humbled.

“Chiquita,” he continued earnestly, “my greatest care in bringing you up has ever been to keep you the pure and simple being that you were when you came to me. Do not forget God demandeth that the souls which he gave into our keeping should be returned unto him again in the same pure unblemished state that we received them. Therefore, take heed, my child, for although God has endowed you with great beauty of both mind and body, do not foolishly imagine that, by arraying yourself in the vanities of this world, you can add an atom to the natural beauty He has bestowed upon you already. Be but pleasing in God’s sight and it must follow that you will please all men as well.”

“Oh! you really do think me beautiful, Padre?” she cried, a radiant look on her face.

“My child, my child, you do not listen to what I have to say!” he groaned despairingly.

“Oh, yes, I do, Padre mio! But you forget that, when God endowed woman with a soul, he gave her a heart as well. Willingly we render our souls unto God, but our hearts belong to men.” The logic of her argument was too much for Padre Antonio, and he laughed as she had never seen him laugh before.

“Verily,” he said at length, wiping the tears from his eyes and reseating himself on the bench, “the spirit and flesh must ever contend for the mastery of the soul on earth; it is our fate the good Lord intended that it should be so.”

“Ah, yes,” she returned. “It’s not always the good that seems to please us most in this world.”

“Aye, verily!” he rejoined, relapsing into silence. Again the linnet gave voice to his song, and the cooling breeze sighed among the tamarisk plumes that waved about their heads.

“Do you remember when you first came to me, Chiquita mia?” he asked at last.

“That was ten years ago, Padre.”

“I then thought,” he went on, “that the good Lord had sent you to me to make a little angel out of you, but ”

“Ah, Padre mio,” she interrupted, “it’s too bad! I’m afraid I’m still the little devil that I was!” and laughing, she rose from her seat and passing around to his end of the bench, stood beside him and began to pull the leaves from a rose-bush.

“Padre mio,” she said softly, looking down at him with mischievous lights dancing in her eyes, “you don’t really regret that I have remained what I am, do you?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to infer that, my child!” he answered with a note of reproach in his voice, looking up into her shadowy, downcast face. She gave a little laugh, and tapping him gently on one shoulder with her fan, said: “Do you know what you are, Padre mio?”

“What, my child?” he asked innocently, his face brightening at the question.

“You’re the dearest old goose that ever lived!” and bending over him, she kissed him lightly on the crown of his head before he could prevent it.

“Chiquita, my child you’re too impulsive! Have I not repeatedly forbade you ” but the sound of her laughter and retreating footsteps on the pathway leading to the house was the only response his words invoked. “Dios!” he exclaimed, recovering his breath. “I sometimes think that God created man, but woman the devil! They never listen to anything one has to tell them!”

Chiquita went quietly to her room, walked straight to her bureau and opening the lower drawer, took out a small pistol which lay concealed beneath a chemise in one corner. Examining it carefully with the practiced eye and hand of one who has been accustomed to the use of firearms all her life, she loaded it and then placed it inside her breast. She knew Don Felipe as no one else did, and thoroughly realized the danger that threatened her. From that hour, waking or sleeping, the weapon must never leave her.