"You can
guess whether it has been a happy day for me! And she has promised to be
my wife. It was in the Mission church of San Miguel, bless him!"
"Then it was you who forgot the key in the church door!" exclaimed Angela.
"I felt it was, somehow. And no wonder you forgot!" She threw a smiling
glance at Nick.
Nick said nothing, but he too blessed San Miguel. He knew nothing about
the bodily ailments which brought people to sulphur springs, but he
thought that no torture of the body could be worse than jealousy; and of
that pain San Miguel had in a moment cured him.
He blessed also the owl which had rustled and made Angela want him near
her.
"I believe I'll catch it, and have it tamed at my place," he said to
himself. "I'll give it a good time all the rest of its life."
And next morning early, while Angela slept, he motored out again to the
Mission, found the Padre, caught the owl which was young and dazed,
brought it to the hotel, and hired a boy to take it by train to
Bakersfield.
XVI
ANGELA AT HER WORST
But something had happened to Angela next day. That was clear, from her
manner. What had changed her from a clinging, sweetly mid-Victorian girl
into a reserved, coldly polite woman, Nick could not imagine.
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