special work, I may have had dreams of a home and love as you are now
experiencing; but it was only for a short time, for, I thought, 'who
would choose a poor outcast foundling for a wife?' I will tell you how I
came to take up the work I have been doing these years;" and Apolinaria
related her youthful desire to enter a convent, and how she was led to
give herself to her present active work. This she, did, partly because
she felt it was only just to Pedro, partly because she wished to lead
him away from again bringing up the subject of his love.

Pedro listened absently to her story. The fire had died out of his heart
with the uttering of his confession, for he knew, even before he began,
how hopeless it all was. How could such an one as Apolinaria, engrossed
and absorbed in her work, but raised far, above this life and its
passions, think of so poor and humble a being? He had been overpowered
with the intensity of his emotion, and, his resolution broken, he had
hurried on, knowing, poor fool that he was, the hopelessness and folly
of it. Like a sudden, severe storm, coming after a day of intense,
sultry heat, leaving the air refreshed, and the birds singing
melodiously their evening hymns, so it was with Pedro. After his wild
outburst, he was once more the quiet, reserved young man he had shown
himself to be the same, yet with a difference, for his love for
Apolinaria had an effect on him that he felt all his life. She became to
him an example which he, followed willingly and joyfully, on their
journey toward the life beyond.

When Apolinaria concluded her tale, a silence of some minutes fell upon
the two, broken by the plaintive cry of an owl as it flew softly
overhead toward the church. At last Apolinaria awoke from the revery
into which she had fallen, and speaking brightly and cheerfully, but
with a tender accent, said: