She looked at him with wide eyes, not understanding, and he went on, his face savage again, his voice harsh.  He told her the whole story of that night in the mission.  He omitted nothing—­the menacing cross, the sacrilegious theft, the deliberate murder; the pictures were painted with blood and fire.  She did not interrupt him with cry or gasp, but her expression changed many times.  Horror held her eyes for a time, then slowly retreated, and his own fierce pride looked back at him.  She lifted her head when he had finished, her throat throbbing, her nostrils twitching.

“Thou hast done that—­for me?”

“Ay, Ysabel!”

“Thou hast murdered thy immortal soul—­for me?”

“Ysabel!”

“Thou lovest me like that!  O God, in what likeness hast thou made me?  In whatsoever image it may have been, I thank Thee—­and repudiate Thee!”

She took the cross from her throat and broke it in two pieces with her strong white fingers.

“Thou art lost, eternally damned:  but I will go down to hell with thee.”  And she threw herself upon him and kissed him on the mouth.

For a moment he forgot the lesson thrust into his brain by the hideous fingers of the desert.  He was almost happy.  He put his hands about her warm face after a time.  “We must go to-night,” he said.  “I went to General Castro’s to change my clothes, and learned that a ship sails for the United States to-night.  We will go on that.  I dare not delay twenty-four hours.  It may be that they are upon my heels now.  How can we meet?”

Her thoughts had travelled faster than his words, and she answered at once:  “There is a ball at the Custom-house to-night.  I will go.  You will have a boat below the rocks.  You know that the Custom-house is on the rocks at the end of the town, near the fort.  No?  It will be easier for me to slip from the ball-room than from this house.  Only tell me where you will meet me.”

“The ship sails at midnight.  I too will go to the ball; for with me you can escape more easily.  Have you a maid you can trust?”

“My Luisa is faithful.”

“Then tell her to be on the beach between the rocks of the Custom-house and the Fort with what you must take with you.”

Again he kissed her many times, but softly.  “Wear thy pearls to-night.  I wish to see thy triumphant hour in Monterey.”

“Yes,” she said, “I shall wear the pearls.”

VI

The corridor of the Custom-house had been enclosed to protect the musicians and supper table from the wind and fog.  The store-room had been cleared, the floor scrubbed, the walls hung with the colours of Mexico.  All in honour of Pio Pico, again in brief exile from his beloved Los Angeles.  The Governor, blazing with diamonds, stood at the upper end of the room by Dona Modeste Castro’s side.  About them were Castro and other prominent men of