“What do you mean?” he said.

“I mean,” replied my father, “I mean, Zindorf, that each master has a certain intent in events, and this intent is indicated by his set of signs.  Now the great purpose of these two masters, we believe, in all the moving of events, is directly opposed.  Thus, when we use a sign of one of these masters, we express by the symbol of it the hope that events will take the direction of his established purpose.

“Don’t you see then . . . don’t you see, that we dare not use the signs of one in the service of the other?”

“Pendleton,” said the man, “I do not understand you.”

He spoke slowly and precisely, like one moving with an excess of care.

My father went on, his voice strong and level, his eyes on Zindorf.

“The thing is a great mystery,” he said.  “It is not clear to any of us in its causes or its relations.  But old legends and old beliefs, running down from the very morning of the world, tell us - warn us, Zindorf — that the signs of each of these masters are abhorrent to the other.  Neither will tolerate the use of his adversary’s sign.  Moreover, Zindorf, there is a double peril in it.”

And his voice rose.

“There is the peril that the new master will abandon the blunderer for the insult, and there is the peril that the old one will destroy him for the sacrilege!”

At this moment the door behind Zindorf opened, and the young girl entered.  She was excited and her eyes danced.

“Oh!” she said, “people are coming on every road!”

She looked, my father said, like a painted picture, her dark Castilian beauty illumined by the pleasure in her interpretation of events.  She thought the countryside assembled after the manner of my father to express its felicitations.

Zindorf crossed in great strides to the window:  Mr. Lucian Morrow, sober and overwhelmed by the mystery of events about him, got unsteadily on his feet, holding with both hands to the oak back of a chair.

My father said that the tragedy of the thing was on him, and he acted under the pressure of it.

“My child,” he said, “you are to go to the house of your grandfather in Havana.  If Mr. Lucian Morrow wishes to renew his suit for your hand in marriage, he will do it there.  Go now and make your preparations for the journey.”

The girl cried out in pleasure at the words.

“My grandfather is a great person in New Spain.  I have always longed to see him . . . father promised . . . and now I am to go . . . when do we set out, Meester Pendleton?”

“At once,” replied my father, “to-day.”  Then he crossed the room and opened the door for her to go out.  He held the latch until the girl was down the stairway.  Then he closed the door.

The big man, falsely in his aspect, like a monk, looking out at the far-off figures on the distant roads, now turned about.