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 *****te of Dona Isabel more amusing than the doubtful simplicity of that married ingenue Mrs.Brimmer, although she still met the young girl's advances with a certain reserve.She found herself often pained by the practical brusqueness with which Mrs.Markham put aside the Comandante's delicate attentions, and she was moved with a strange pity for his childlike trustfulness, which she knew was hopeless.As the months passed, on the few occasions that she still met the Excelsior's passengers she was surprised to find how they had faded from her memory, and to discover in them the existence of qualities that made her wonder how she could have ever been familiar with them.She reproached herself with this fickleness; she wondered if she would have felt thus if they had completed their voyage to San Francisco together; and she recalled, with a sad smile, the enthusiastic plans they had formed during the passage to perpetuate their fellowship by anniversaries and festivals.But she, at last, succumbed, and finally accepted their open alienation as preferable to the growing awkwardness of their chance encounters.
For a few weeks following the flight of Captain Bunker and her acceptance of the hospitality and protection of the Council, she became despondent.The courage that had sustained her, and the energy she had shown in the first days of their abandonment, suddenly gave way, for no apparent reason.She bitterly regretted the brother whom she scarcely remembered; she imagined his suspense and anguish on her account, and suffered for both; she felt the dumb pain of homesickness for a home she had never known.Her loneliness became intolerable.Her condition at last affected Mrs.
Markham, whose own idleness had been beguiled by writing to her husband an exhaustive account of her captivity, which had finally swelled to a volume on Todos Santos, its resources, inhabitants, and customs."Good heavens!" she said, "you must do something, child, to occupy your mind--if it is only a flirtation with that conceited Secretary." But this terrible alternative was happily not required.The Comandante had still retained as part of the old patriarchal government of the Mission the Presidio school, for the primary instruction of the children of the soldiers,--dependants of the garrison.Miss Keene, fascinated by several little pairs of beady black eyes that had looked up trustingly to hers from the playground on the glacis, offered to teach English to the Comandante's flock.The offer was submitted to the spiritual head of Todos Santos, and full permission given by Padre Esteban to the fair heretic.Singing was added to the Instruction, and in a few months the fame of the gracious Dona Leonor's pupils stirred to emulation even the boy choristers of the Mission.
Her relations with James Hurlstone during this interval were at first marked by a strange and unreasoning reserve.Whether she resented the singular coalition forced upon them by the Council and felt the awkwardness of their unintentional imposture when they met, she did not know, but she generally avoided his society.This was not difficult, as he himself had shown no desire to intrude his confidences upon her; and even in her shyness she could not help thinking that if he had treated the situation lightly or humorously--as she felt sure Mr.Brace or Mr.Crosby would have done--it would have been less awkward and unpleasant.But his gloomy reserve seemed to the high-spirited girl to color their innocent partnership with the darkness of conspiracy.
"If your conscience troubles you, Mr.Hurlstone, in regard to the wretched infatuation of those people," she had once said, "undeceive them, if you can, and I will assist you.And don't let that affair of Captain Bunker worry you either.I have already confessed to the Comandante that he escaped through my carelessness.""You could not have done otherwise without sacrificing the poor Secretary, who must have helped you," Hurlstone returned quietly.
Miss Keene bit her lip and dropped the subject.At their next meeting Hurlstone himself resumed it.
"I hope you don't allow that absurd decree of the Council to disturb you; I imagine they're quite convinced of their folly.Iknow that the Padre is; and I know that he thinks you've earned a right to the gratitude of the Council in your gracious task at the Presidio school that is far beyond any fancied political service.""I really haven't thought about it at all," said Miss Keene coolly.
"I thought it was YOU who were annoyed."
"I? not at all," returned Hurlstone quickly."I have been able to assist the Padre in arranging the ecclesiastical archives of the church, and in suggesting some improvement in codifying the ordinances of the last forty years.No; I believe I'm earning my living here, and I fancy they think so.""Then it isn't THAT that troubles you?" said Miss Keene carelessly, but glancing at him under the shade of her lashes.
"No," he said coldly, turning away.