“About you.”

“Oh!” she laughed.  “You must not take it so seriously as that.  Everybody is very kind, you know.  And I am quite happy here.  At least, I think I am.  Where are the chocolates?  I believe you have eaten them on the way—­you and the Moor.  I always said you were the same sort of people, you two, didn’t I?”

By way of reply he handed the little neat packets, tied with ribbon.

“Thank you,” she said.  “You are kind, Marcos.  Somehow you never say things, but you do them—­which is better, is it not?”

“I will get you out of here,” he answered, “if you want it.”

“How?” she asked, with a startled ring in her voice.  “Can you really do it?  Tell me how.”

“No,” answered Marcos.  “I will not tell you how.  Not now.  But I can do it if you are in real danger of going into religion against your will; if there is real necessity.”

“How?” she asked again, with a deeper note in her voice.

“I will not tell you,” he answered, “until the necessity arises.  It is a secret, and you might have to tell it... in confession.”

“Yes,” she admitted.  “Perhaps you are right.  But you will come again next Thursday, Marcos?”

“Yes,” he answered, “next Thursday.”  “By the way, I forgot.  I wrote you a note, in case there should have been no time to speak to you.  Where is it, in my pocket?  No, here, I have it.  Do you want it?”

“Yes.”

And Marcos tried to get his hand through the hole in the wall, but he failed.

“Aha?” laughed Juanita.  “You see I have the advantage of you.”

“Yes,” he answered gravely.  “You have the advantage of me.”

And on the other side of the wall, he smiled slowly to himself.

“Go!  Go at once,” she whispered hurriedly, “Milagros is calling me.  There is some one coming.  I can see through the leaves.  It is Sor Teresa.  And she has some one with her.  Oh! it is Senor Mon.  He is terrible.  He sees everything.  Go, Marcos!”

And Marcos did not wait.  He had the note in his hand—­a small screw of paper, all wet with the dew on the woodbine.  He galloped up the hill, close under the wall, and put his willing horse straight at the canal.  The horse leapt in and struggled, half swimming, across.

To have gone any other way would have been to make himself visible from one part or another of the convent grounds, and Evasio Mon was in that garden.

Both Sor Teresa and Evasio Mon saw Juanita emerge from the nut trees and join her friend, but neither appeared to have noticed anything unusual.

“By the way,” said Mon, pleasantly, “I am on foot and can save myself a considerable distance by using the door at the foot of the garden.”

“That way is unfrequented,” answered Sor Teresa.  “It is scarcely considered desirable at night.”

“Oh! no one will touch me—­a poor man,” said Mon, with his pleasant smile.  “Have you the key with you?”