I'm ready to go with ye now, Mr. Hall, and am sorry you got into the troubil along o' me."
CHAPTER XLV.
IN THE TRACK OF A STORM.
A quarter of an hour before the messenger of Peter Dumphy had reached Poinsett's office, Mr. Poinsett had received a more urgent message. A telegraph dispatch from San Antonio had been put into his hands. Its few curt words, more significant to an imaginative man than rhetorical expression, ran as follows:
"Mission Church destroyed. Father Felipe safe. Blessed Trinity in ruins and Dolores missing. My house spared. Come at once.—Maria Sepulvida."
The following afternoon at four o'clock Arthur Poinsett reached San Geronimo, within fifteen miles of his destination. Here the dispatch was confirmed, with some slight local exaggeration.
"Saints and devils! There is no longer a St. Anthony! The temblor has swallowed him!" said the innkeeper, sententiously. "It is the end of all! Such is the world. Thou wilt find stones on stones instead of houses, Don Arturo. Wherefor another glass of the brandy of France, or the whisky of the American, as thou dost prefer? But of San Antonio, nothing! Absolutely! Perfectly. Truly—nothing!"
In spite of this cheering prophecy, Mr. Poinsett did not wait for the slow diligence, but, mounting a fleet mustang, dashed off in quest of the missing Mission. He was somewhat relieved, at the end of an hour, by the far-off flash of the sea, the rising of the dark green fringe of the Mission orchard and Encinal, and above it the white dome of one of the Mission towers. But at the next moment Arthur checked his horse and rubbed his eyes in wonder. Where was the other tower? He put spurs to his horse again and dashed off at another angle, and again stopped and gazed. There was but one tower remaining. The Mission Church must have been destroyed!
Perhaps it was this discovery, perhaps it was some instinct stronger than this; but when Arthur had satisfied himself of this fact he left the direct road, which would have brought him to the Mission, and diverged upon the open plain toward the Rancho of the Blessed Trinity. A fierce wind from the sea swept the broad llano and seemed to oppose him step by step—a wind so persistent and gratuitous that it appeared to Arthur to possess a moral quality, and, as such, was to be resisted and overcome by his superior will. Here, at least, all was unchanged; here was the dead, flat monotony of land and sky. Here was the brittle, harsh stubble of the summer fields, sun-baked and wind-dried; here were the long stretches of silence, from which even the harrying wind made no opposition or complaint; here were the formless specks of slowly moving cattle even as he remembered them before. A momentary chill came over him as he recalled his own perilous experience on these plains, a momentary glow suffused his cheek as he thought of his rescue by the lovely but cold recluse. Again he heard the name of "Philip" softly whispered in his ears, again he felt the flood of old memories sweep over him as he rode, even as he had felt them when he lay that day panting upon the earth. And yet Arthur had long since convinced his mind that he was mistaken in supposing that Donna Dolores had addressed him at that extreme moment as "Philip;" he had long since believed it was a trick of his disordered and exhausted brain; the conduct of Dolores toward himself, habitually restrained by grave courtesy, never justified him in directly asking the question, nor suggested any familiarity that might have made it probable. She had never alluded to it again—but had apparently forgotten it. Not so Arthur! He had often gone over that memorable scene, with a strange, tormenting pleasure that was almost a pain. It was the one incident of his life, for whose poetry he was not immediately responsible—the one genuine heart-thrill whose sincerity he had not afterward stopped to question in his critical fashion—the one enjoyment that had not afterward appeared mean and delusive. And now the heroine of this episode was missing, and he might never perhaps see her again! And yet, when he first heard the news, he was conscious of a strange sense of relief—rather let me say of an awakening from a dream, that, though delicious, had become dangerous and might unfit him for the practical duties of his life. Donna Dolores had never affected him as a real personage—at least the interest he felt in her was, he had always considered, due to her relations to some romantic condition of his mind, and her final disappearance from the plane of his mental vision, was only the exit of an actress from the mimic stage. It seemed only natural that she should disappear as mysteriously as she came. There was no shock even to the
