Pilar, as she went to and fro under the fruit trees in the garden, or sat on the long corridor weaving baskets, watched that adobe with fascinated eyes.  She knew that Andreo was tunnelling it, and one day a tiny hole proclaimed that his work was accomplished.  But how to get the note?  The old women’s eyes were very sharp when the girls were in front of the gratings.  Then the civilizing development of Christianity upon the heathen intellect triumphantly asserted itself.  Pilar, too, conceived a brilliant scheme.  That night the padre, who encouraged any evidence of industry, no matter how eccentric, gave her a little garden of her own—­a patch where she could raise sweet peas and Castilian roses.

“That is well, that is well, my Nausicaa,” he said, stroking her smoky braids.  “Go cut the slips and plant them where thou wilt.  I will send thee a package of sweet pea seeds.”

Pilar spent every spare hour bending over her “patch”; and the hole, at first no bigger than a pin’s point, was larger at each setting of the sun behind the mountain.  The old women, scolding on the corridor, called to her not to forget vespers.

On the third evening, kneeling on the damp ground, she drew from the little tunnel in the adobe a thin slip of wood covered with the labour of sleepless nights.  She hid it in her smock—­that first of California’s love-letters—­then ran with shaking knees and prostrated herself before the altar.  That night the moon streamed through her grating, and she deciphered the fact that Andreo had loosened eight adobes above her garden, and would await her every midnight.

Pilar sat up in bed and glanced about the room with terrified delight.  It took her but a moment to decide the question; love had kept her awake too many nights.  The neophytes were asleep; as they turned now and again, their narrow beds of hide, suspended from the ceiling, swung too gently to awaken them.  The old women snored loudly.  Pilar slipped from her bed and looked through the grating.  Andreo was there, the dignity and repose of primeval man in his bearing.  She waved her hand and pointed downward to the wall; then, throwing on the long coarse gray smock that was her only garment, crept from the room and down the stair.  The door was protected against hostile tribes by a heavy iron bar, but Pilar’s small hands were hard and strong, and in a moment she stood over the adobes which had crushed her roses and sweet peas.

As she crawled through the opening, Andreo took her hand bashfully, for they never had spoken.  “Come,” he said; “we must be far away before dawn.”