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As they came out of the chapel, Father Gaspara leading the way, the Irish couple shambling along shamefacedly apart from each other, Alessandro, still holding Ramona's hand in his, said, "Will you ride, dear? It is but a step." "No, thanks, dear Alessandro, I would rather walk," she replied; and Alessandro slipping the bridles of the two horses over his left arm, they walked on.
Father Gaspara heard the question and answer, and was still more puzzled. "He speaks as a gentleman speaks to a lady," he mused. "What does it mean? Who are they?"
"Thank you very much, Father," said Ramona, without lifting her eyes from the ground; and in the same low, tremulous tone, "I am glad that I know that he is dead." "Strange what a hold those Franciscans got on these Indians!" mused Father Gaspara, as he rode down the valley. "There's none of them would look like that if I were dead, I warrant me!
Father Gaspara was a well-born man, and in his home in Spain had been used to associations far superior to any which he had known in his Californian life, A gentle courtesy of tone and speech, such as that with which Alessandro had addressed Ramona, was not often heard in his parish. When they entered his house, he again regarded them both attentively.
The clean whitewashed walls, the bed neatly made, with broad lace on sheets and pillows, hung with curtains and a canopy of bright red calico, the old carved chairs, the Madonna shrine in its bower of green leaves, the shelves on the walls, the white-curtained window, all made up a picture such as Father Gaspara had never before seen in his pilgrimages among the Indian villages.
Did they know where Alessandro had married this wife of his, of whom every word they spoke seemed both like and unlike Ramona? Yes. It was in San Diego they had been married, by Father Gaspara.
Alessandro had explained to her his plan, which was to go by way of Temecula to San Diego, to be married there by Father Gaspara, the priest of that parish, and then go to the village or pueblo of San Pasquale, about fifteen miles northwest of San Diego.
Father Gaspara had gone with Ysidro to a lawyer in San Diego, and had shown to his lawyer Ysidro's paper, the old one from the Mexican Governor of California, establishing the pueblo of San Pasquale, and saying how many leagues of land the Indians were to have; but the lawyer had only laughed at Father Gaspara for believing that such a paper as that was good for anything.
Hunger was again getting the better of sympathy in Father Gaspara, and as he sat down to his long-deferred supper, the Indian couple faded from his mind; but after supper was over, as he sat smoking his pipe on the veranda, they returned again, and lingered in his thoughts, lingered strangely, it seemed to him; he could not shake off the impression that there was something unusual about the woman.
And he was gone, and out of sight on the swift galloping Benito, before Father Gaspara bethought himself. "And I remembered not to ask who his wife was. I will look back at the record," said the Father. Taking down the old volume, he ran his eye back over the year. Marriages were not so many in Father Gaspara's parish, that the list took long to read.
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