I sought in vain about the house and garden for Mariposilla.

The child had not been away from the ranch since the news of Sidney's marriage, and her sudden absence alarmed me.

I remembered that it was Saturday. Perhaps Mariposilla had gone to the old church for confession. Arturo had the pony, and for a moment I was in despair.

Fortunately a neighbor arrived with a horse and buggy, which I borrowed.

I was determined not to alarm the DoÑa Maria, and drove away at once in the direction of the Old Mission. The road, for the first time, seemed long and uninteresting. The neighbor's horse was an ancient nag, who discovered at once my impatience and inexperience. He absolutely refused to accelerate his midsummer dog-trot. The persuasions of a stranger he ignored.

Despairing, I submitted, while I vaguely questioned myself as to what I should do, in case Mariposilla had not gone to the church.

When at last I caught sight of the long, gray outline, hiding among cool, green peppers, my heart seemed to stand still.

As I turned into the main approach leading to the Mission, the old bells broke suddenly the oppressive silence. Their melancholy strokes were for the dead; perhaps for the DoÑa Maria's mother, I thought.

Mechanically I counted the tolls, until their number had reached sixteen, then the old bells paused a moment before they again repeated the years of the youthful dead.

Upon approaching nearer I perceived that a funeral procession had just left the church. An assistant priest and a barefooted Mexican altar-boy stood framed in the arch of the ancient portal.

The sad little procession was now entering the old graveyard at the rear of the Mission. I could hear the sobs of the mourners, and my heart went out to the poor mother, garbed in faded mourning, bowed with both grief and labor.

The little coffin was borne on a bier by six swarthy young Mexicans, possibly one of them the lover of the dead girl.

The sight was pathetic, and at this particular time I felt it to be more than I could bear.

A moment later I peered into the old church—it was empty.

Where now could I go? To whom should I apply for help?

Father Ramirez was evidently not about; a strange priest had followed the funeral procession, and doubtless the old friend of the Del Valles had gone at once with Arturo.

I had probably missed passing them by taking a different road, having endeavored to shorten the distance by a cut through a ranch.

Mechanically I climbed into the buggy, believing that there was no course left but to return home for assistance, when in the distance I saw, almost like a sign from on high, the deserted hotel of East San Gabriel.

Without stopping to consider the probable absurdity of my surmise, I started the old horse upon the maddest race of his life.

In my excitement the wielding of the whip was a nervous joy.

The old bones of the beast seemed almost to crack as he leaped along the road.

All at once I seemed to be acting without reason, for when I at last entered the grounds of the deserted caravansary, there were no evidences to justify my suspicions.

The summer's silence was intense; not a human being was visible, and the desolation pervading the deserted resort was sickening as well as satisfying.

I felt that I had been absurd to believe for a moment that Mariposilla could have wished to reËnter the place, and I was also convinced that, in her feeble condition, she could never have walked the distance from the ranch.

The old horse was now resting in front of the silent hotel, and my very inaction was unbearable. I racked my brain to the verge of despair, before I again hit upon a possible explanation for Mariposilla's disappearance.

Why had I not thought of it before? Why had I taken it for granted that Arturo had gone alone for Father Ramirez? The priest drove always in his own conveyance, and what could be more natural than to believe that Arturo had induced Mariposilla to accompany him upon his errand? Was it not reasonable to believe that the young people had laid aside their personal feelings at such a time, desiring to perform together a last, trifling duty to the dead grandmother?

True to the comforting inspiration, I had turned the reluctant horse to leave the grounds, when, rushing joyfully in front of the astonished brute, I beheld the hounds, Mariposilla's grayhounds, who knew where their little mistress was hiding.

Hastily hitching the horse to the nearest tree I reconnoitered at once the long veranda. Each door that I tried was locked; the windows were fastened, and the inside blinds closed.

Close at my heels followed the dogs, now wildly excited.

As a last resort, I decided to urge them to lead me.

"Dear Pachita! dear Pancho!" I cried, patting encouragingly their long, beautiful heads, while I entreated their almost human eyes to reply. "Take me to Mariposilla."

"Where is Mariposilla?" I repeated, slowly, "your dear little mistress, Mariposilla?"

For a moment, the poor brutes whined piteously; the next, they had darted away to the rear of the hotel.

I followed hotly, and at the corner of the house I perceived them wild with excitement at the foot of the escape ladder, leading from the ground to the upper veranda.

I needed no more to convince me of the truth.

Mariposilla had ascended the ladder which the dogs had not been able to scale. The half-frantic girl had sought to enter again the rooms once occupied by the Sandersons.

I delayed no longer. In a moment I was above, trying in vain the doors. As I approached the window of Sidney's now deserted bedroom, I perceived instantly that its glass had been shattered, and knew at once that Mariposilla was within.

For a moment, I stood rooted with apprehension; I dared not enter. A horrible dread deprived me of strength, until from within a piteous sobbing, more musical, more welcome than any sounds which I had ever before heard, told me that the child I sought was safe.

"Thank God!" I cried, springing into the room.

There, upon Sidney's deserted bed, upon his pillow, lay Mariposilla.

For a moment I shrank away, for the child had not heard me enter. I would willingly have allowed her the full extent of her strange, unusual consolation. Now that she was safe, I would have stayed with her the remainder of the afternoon, but the thought of the DoÑa Maria compelled me to speak.

"Dear child," I said, approaching the bed; "you must come home. We are in great distress. Your grandmother has just died."

"Just died?" she repeated, touchingly. "Why can I, too, not die? Indeed, kind SeÑora, I am most tired of life; I would gladly go with my grandmother."

"No, dear," I answered, "you must not want to die. It is wrong for you to remain so miserable. You should remember your dear mother, and try to recover your spirits, to be once more our good, happy child.

"Think no more of Sidney; dismiss now forever from your thoughts the selfish man who has deceived you."

Like a young tigress wounded into fury, the girl sprang from the bed.

"I blame him not," she cried, passionately. "It is the wicked, wicked Gladys who has stolen his love. I knew she would coax him from me when she sent so often her beautiful face to his mother.

"She loved him much, I was sure, but he said always that he loved her not in return; that she made him most tired, when he must listen to her learning and long words.

"That he loved none but me—poor, little Mariposilla, who knew nothing but to love him only."

"Yes, dear," I said; "you have loved as few ever love. I pity the man who has thrown lightly away your warm, true heart; but I know that after a time you will cease to pine. You will see that Sidney gave you up, not because Miss Carpenter was more beautiful, or that he loved her more, but because she had millions of dollars to make his life luxurious and idle.

"Be a brave girl," I continued, noticing with pleasure that the child had brightened visibly at my words. "Be good and brave for your own sake, and for the sake of the dear DoÑa Maria.

"Come home before you are missed, or your mother will be greatly distressed by your absence."

Obediently she followed me from the room, and down the ladder. As we drove away from the grounds she threw her arms about my neck and sobbed pitifully.

"Dear, kind SeÑora," she cried, "I will be good; indeed I will be good.

"If Sidney loves Gladys only for gold, he will yet come back! he will yet be mine!"

It was impossible for me to misunderstand the girl's passionate meaning. I trembled at the recollection of the opportunities and temptations of the winter. For the first time a terrible realization of the child's Spanish inheritances seized me. I felt that she would never acknowledge moral barriers to be a final restraint to her denied destiny; never be able to resist the undisciplined desires of her heart.

For the present I could not hope to unfold the immoral, or impossible consequences of Sidney Sanderson's return. Nothing but time and angelic patience would enable me to make plain to the ignorant girl the arbitrary laws of fate.