“What! isn’t it true?” exclaimed Thurstane, reddening with joy.  “Then you are not heir to your grandfather’s fortune?  It was one of his lies?  Oh, my little girl, I am forever happy.”

She had not meant all this; but how could she undeceive him?  The tempting thought came into her mind that she would marry him while he was in this ignorance, and so relieve him of his noble scruples about taking an heiress.  It was one of those white lies which, it seems to us, must fade out of themselves from the record book, without even needing to be blotted by the tear of an angel.

“Are you glad?” she smiled, though anxious at heart, for deception alarmed her.  “Really glad to find me poor?”

His only response was to cover her hands, and hair, and forehead with kisses.

At last came the question, When?  Clara hesitated; her face and neck bloomed with blushes as dewy as flowers; she looked at him once piteously, and then her gaze fell in beautiful shame.

“When would you like?” she at last found breath to whisper.

“Now—­here,” was the answer, holding both her hands and begging with his blue-black eyes, as soft then as a woman’s.

“Yes, at once,” he continued to implore.  “It is best everyway.  It will save you from persecutions.  My love, is it not best?”

Under the circumstances we cannot wonder that this should be just as she desired.

“Yes—­it is—­best,” she murmured, hiding her face against his shoulder.  “What you say is true.  It will save me trouble.”

After a short heaven of silence he added, “I will go and see what is needed.  I must find a priest.”

As he was departing she caught him; it seemed to her just then that she could not be a wife so soon; but the result was that after another silence and a faint sobbing, she let him go.

Meantime Coronado, that persevering and audacious but unlucky conspirator, was in treble trouble.  He was afraid that he would lose Clara; afraid that his plottings had been brought to light, and that he would be punished; afraid that his uncle would die and thus deprive him of all chance of succeeding to any part of the estate of Munoz.  Garcia had been brought ashore apparently at his last gasp, and he had not yet come out of his insensibility.  For a time Coronado hoped that he was in one of his fits; but after eighteen hours he gave up that feeble consolation; he became terribly anxious about the old man; he felt as though he loved him.  The people of Monterey universally admitted that they had never before known such an affectionate nephew and tender-hearted Christian as Coronado.

He tried to see Clara, meaning to make the most with her of Garcia’s condition, and hoping that thus he could divert her a little from Thurstane.  But somehow all his messages failed; the little house which held her repelled him as if it had been a nunnery; nor could he get a word or even a note from her.  The truth is that Clara, fearing lest Coronado should tell more stories about her million to Thurstane, had taken the women of the family into her confidence and easily got them to lay a sly embargo on callers and correspondents.