The sound of voices beside a ruined fountain a hundred yards away indicated the vicinity of the party; but a single glance showed him that she was not among them.  So much the better—­he would find her alone.  Cautiously slipping beside the wall of the house, under the shadow of a creeper, he gained the long avenue without attracting attention.  She was not there.  Had she effectively evaded contact with the others by leaving the garden through the little gate in the wall that entered the Mission enclosure?  It was partly open, as if some one had just passed through.  He followed, took a few steps, and stopped abruptly.  In the shadow of one of the old pear-trees a man and woman were standing.  An impulse of wild jealousy seized him; he was about to leap forward, but the next moment the measured voice of the Comandante, addressing Mrs. Markham, fell upon his ear.  He drew back with a sudden flush upon his face.  The Comandante of Todos Santos, in grave, earnest accents, was actually offering to Mrs. Markham the same proposal that he, Don Ramon, had made to Mrs. Brimmer but a moment ago!

“No one,” said the Comandante sententiously, “will know it but myself.  You will leave the ship at Acapulco; you will rejoin your husband in good time; you will be happy, my child; you will forget the old man who drags out the few years of loneliness still left to him in Todos Santos.”

Forgetting himself, Don Ramon leaned breathlessly forward to hear Mrs. Markham’s reply.  Would she answer the Comandante as Dona Barbara had answered him?  Her words rose distinctly in the evening air.

“You’re a gentleman, Don Miguel Briones; and the least respect I can show a man of your kind is not to pretend that I don’t understand the sacrifice you’re making.  I shall always remember it as about the biggest compliment I ever received, and the biggest risk that any man—­except one—­ever ran for me.  But as the man who ran that bigger risk isn’t here to speak for himself, and generally trusts his wife, Susan Markham, to speak for him—­it’s all the same as if he thanked you.  There’s my hand, Don Miguel:  shake it.  Well—­if you prefer it—­kiss it then.  There—­don’t be a fool—­but let’s go back to Miss Keene.”

CHAPTER IV.

A gleam of sunshine.

While these various passions had been kindled by her compatriots in the peaceful ashes of Todos Santos, Eleanor Keene had moved among them indifferently and, at times, unconsciously.  The stranding of her young life on that unknown shore had not drawn her towards her fellow-exiles, and the circumstances which afterwards separated her from daily contact with them completed the social estrangement.  She found herself more in sympathy with the natives, to whom she had shown no familiarity, than with her own people, who had mixed with them more or less contemptuously.  She found the naivete of Dona Isabel more amusing than