Her relations with James Hurlstone during this interval were at first marked by a strange and unreasoning reserve.  Whether she resented the singular coalition forced upon them by the Council and felt the awkwardness of their unintentional imposture when they met, she did not know, but she generally avoided his society.  This was not difficult, as he himself had shown no desire to intrude his confidences upon her; and even in her shyness she could not help thinking that if he had treated the situation lightly or humorously—­as she felt sure Mr. Brace or Mr. Crosby would have done—­it would have been less awkward and unpleasant.  But his gloomy reserve seemed to the high-spirited girl to color their innocent partnership with the darkness of conspiracy.

“If your conscience troubles you, Mr. Hurlstone, in regard to the wretched infatuation of those people,” she had once said, “undeceive them, if you can, and I will assist you.  And don’t let that affair of Captain Bunker worry you either.  I have already confessed to the Comandante that he escaped through my carelessness.”

“You could not have done otherwise without sacrificing the poor Secretary, who must have helped you,” Hurlstone returned quietly.

Miss Keene bit her lip and dropped the subject.  At their next meeting Hurlstone himself resumed it.

“I hope you don’t allow that absurd decree of the Council to disturb you; I imagine they’re quite convinced of their folly.  I know that the Padre is; and I know that he thinks you’ve earned a right to the gratitude of the Council in your gracious task at the Presidio school that is far beyond any fancied political service.”

“I really haven’t thought about it at all,” said Miss Keene coolly.  “I thought it was you who were annoyed.”

“I? not at all,” returned Hurlstone quickly.  “I have been able to assist the Padre in arranging the ecclesiastical archives of the church, and in suggesting some improvement in codifying the ordinances of the last forty years.  No; I believe I’m earning my living here, and I fancy they think so.”

“Then it isn’t that that troubles you?” said Miss Keene carelessly, but glancing at him under the shade of her lashes.

“No,” he said coldly, turning away.

Yet unsatisfactory as these brief interviews were, they revived in Miss Keene the sympathizing curiosity and interest she had always felt for this singular man, and which had been only held in abeyance at the beginning of their exile; in fact, she found herself thinking of him more during the interval when they seldom saw each other, and apparently had few interests in common, than when they were together on the Excelsior.  Gradually she slipped into three successive phases of feeling towards him, each of them marked with an equal degree of peril to her peace of mind.  She began with a profound interest in the mystery of his secluded habits, his strange abstraction, and a recognition