features between them.  I suppose my astonishment caused me to utter some exclamation, for he glanced up the cliff, saw me, turned and fled.  I shouted and ran, but could not overtake him, and when I reached the open space, I saw a figure speeding away on a white mustang pony, and knew from the fluttering of the black skirts that it was the same man.  My sketch shows the right side of his face, the other was drawn down almost beyond the lineaments of humanity.  Beg pardon, madam, but would you be so good as to tell me whether this freak of nature was congenital, or the result of some frightful accident?”

Beryl had shut her eyes, and her lips were compressed to stifle the moan that struggled in her throat.  When she spoke, the stranger detected a change in her voice.

“The person whose countenance was recalled by your sketch, was afflicted by no physical blemish, when last I saw him.”

“His appearance was so singular, that I made sundry inquiries about him, but only one person seemed ever to have encountered him; and that was a half-breed Indian driver, belonging to our party.  He told me, ‘Brother Luke’ belonged to a band of monks living somewhere beyond the mountains; and that he sometimes crossed, searching for stray cattle.  That is the history of my sketch, and since I am indebted to you for its recovery, I regret for your sake that it is so meagre.”

“It was last August that you made the sketch?”

“Last August.  And now may I ask, to whom my thanks are due?”

“I am merely an humble member of a sisterhood of working women, and my name could possess no interest for you.  I owe you an apology for trespassing upon your time, and prying into the mysteries of your portfolio; but the beauty of your sketch, and its startling resemblance to one in whom I have long felt an interest, must plead my pardon.  I am grateful, sir, for your courtesy, and will detain you no longer.”

He bowed profoundly; she bent her head, and walked quickly away, keeping her face lowered, dreading observation.

For the first time since her trial and conviction, a sensation of perfect tranquillity shed rest upon her anxious and foreboding heart.  Bertie was safe from capture, on foreign soil; and the testimony of the traveller that he prayed in the solitude of the wilderness, brought her the comforting assurance, that the fires of remorse had begun the purification of his sinful soul from the crime that had blackened so many lives.  Trained in his early youth at a Jesuit College, his sympathies had ever been with the priesthood to whom his tutors belonged; and his sister readily understood how swiftly he fled to their penitential, expiatory system, when the blood of his grandfather had stained his hands, and the scouts of the law hunted him to desert wilds.