第22章

He varied his espionage by subterfuges,which his knowledge of the old town made easy.He watched the door of the hotel,himself unseen,from the windows of a billiard saloon opposite,which he had frequented in former days.Yet he was surprised the same afternoon to see her,from his coigne of vantage,reentering the hotel,where he was sure he had left her a few moments ago.Had she gone out by some other exit,--or had she been disguised?But on entering his room that evening he was confounded by an incident that seemed to him as convincing of her identity as it was audacious.Lying on his pillow were a few dead leaves of an odorous mountain fern,known only to the Sierras.They were tied together by a narrow blue ribbon,and had evidently been intended to attract his attention.As he took them in his hand,the distinguishing subtle aroma of the little sylvan hollow in the hills came to him like a memory and a revelation!He summoned the chambermaid;she knew nothing of them,or indeed of any one who had entered his room.He walked cautiously into the hall;the lady's sitting-room door was open,the room was empty."The occupant,"said the chambermaid,"had left that afternoon."He held the proof of her identity in his hand,but she herself had vanished!That she had recognized him there was now no doubt:had she divined the real object of his quest,or had she accepted it as a mere sentimental gallantry at the moment when she knew it was hopeless,and she herself was perfectly safe from pursuit?In either event he had been duped.He did not know whether to be piqued,angry,--or relieved of his irresolute quest.

Nevertheless,he spent the rest of the twilight and the early evening in fruitlessly wandering through the one long thoroughfare of the town,until it merged into the bosky Alameda,or spacious grove,that connected it with Santa Luisa.By degrees his chagrin and disappointment were forgotten in the memories of the past,evoked by the familiar pathway.The moon was slowly riding overhead,and silvering the carriage-way between the straight ebony lines of trees,while the footpaths were diapered with black and white checkers.The faint tinkling of a tram-car bell in the distance apprised him of one of the few innovations of the past.

The car was approaching him,overtook him,and was passing,with its faintly illuminated windows,when,glancing carelessly up,he beheld at one of them the profile of the face which he had just thought he had lost forever!

He stopped for an instant,not in indecision this time,but in a grim resolution to let no chance escape him now.The car was going slowly;it was easy to board it now,but again the tinkle of the bell indicated that it was stopping at the corner of a road beyond.

He checked his pace,--a lady alighted,--it was she!She turned into the cross-street,darkened with the shadows of some low suburban tenement houses,and he boldly followed.He was fully determined to find out her secret,and even,if necessary,to accost her for that purpose.He was perfectly aware what he was doing,and all its risks and penalties;he knew the audacity of such an introduction,but he felt in his left-hand pocket for the sprig of fern which was an excuse for it;he knew the danger of following a possible confidante of desperadoes,but he felt in his right-hand pocket for the derringer that was equal to it.They were both there;he was ready.

He was nearing the convent and the oldest and most ruinous part of the town.He did not disguise from himself the gloomy significance of this;even in the old days the crumbling adobe buildings that abutted on the old garden wall of the convent were the haunts of lawless Mexicans and vagabond peons.As the roadway began to be rough and uneven,and the gaunt outlines of the sagging roofs of tiles stood out against the sky above the lurking shadows of ruined doorways,he was prepared for the worst.As the crumbling but still massive walls of the convent garden loomed ahead,the tall,graceful,black-gowned figure he was following presently turned into the shadow of the wall itself.He quickened his pace,lest it should again escape him.Suddenly it stopped,and remained motionless.He stopped,too.At the same moment it vanished!

He ran quickly forward to where it had stood,and found himself before a large iron gate,with a smaller one in the centre,that had just clanged to on its rusty hinges.He rubbed his eyes!--the place,the gate,the wall,were all strangely familiar!Then he stepped back into the roadway,and looked at it again.He was not mistaken.

He was standing before the porter's lodge of the Convent of the Sacred Heart.