“Are you?” Angela asked.

“Am I—­what?”

“Hungry.”

“Good heavens, no!”

Time passed vaguely, as time does pass in the dark, when there are no means of counting the minutes.  They could hear their watches ticking, if they listened, but they never listened long enough to know how the seconds went by.  And all the matches were gone.

“It’s like being lost in a cave, or a mine, or the catacombs,” Angela reflected aloud, “with your only candle burnt out.  You can’t tell whether it’s minutes or hours.”

“It must be mighty tedious for you, I’m afraid; though Billy’s sure to come back soon,” said Nick.

“No, somehow it isn’t tedious,” she answered as if puzzled.  “I suppose I’m rather excited.  And you——­”

“Well, I suppose I’m rather excited, too,” said Nick, in his low, quiet voice, that did not betray what he felt.  Angela’s voice told more of what went on in her soul.  It was, as Nick often thought, a voice of lights and shadows.

At last—­what time it might be they could not tell—­there came a sound of a key turning in a lock.  The door opened, and a yellow ray from a lantern streamed into the church, making the owl in its corner flutter wildly.  Billy’s face showed in a frame of dull gold, as he peered about, blinking.

Then, for the first time, Angela knew that Nick had been angry with the chauffeur.  There was something in his tone as he said, “Well!  So you have come!” which suggested that, if she had not been there, the “forest creature” might have added some strong and primitive language.

“Couldn’t help it, Mr. Hilliard.  I done the best I could,” Billy explained hastily.  “When I got out there, I was up against a tough proposition, and I guess it would have been tougher yet if I’d stopped to do much thinking.”

“I don’t know what your proposition was.  But seems to me if it had been mine I’d have found time to yell:  ‘All right—­coming as soon as I can!’ as I passed the open window,” Nick remarked dryly.  “Mrs. May’ll think we’re a nice lot.”

But Billy broke into a flood of explanations, too proud to excuse himself to Hilliard, after being, as he thought, unjustly reproached, yet willing to justify himself in the eyes of the lady.

He had dropped from the window, he said, just in time to see a dim figure, which looked like that of a Padre, disappearing in the distance.  He had started instantly in pursuit.  If he had waited to call out under the window the figure would have disappeared, and he might not have found it again.  As it was the old man had gone so far, and was going so fast, that it had taken some time to catch up.  He—­Billy—­had yelled.  The Padre—­for the Padre it was—­had eventually stopped.  Then had followed explanations why the key was in the church door, and the door open; why the door was afterward locked, and why the Padre was hurrying away from the Mission, late in the evening, with the key in his pocket.  And all these explanations were simple enough, simpler than Billy’s own.