"The weight of a sin! Add to it the malediction of G.o.d, and see if you can carry that burden about with you, wretched girl! Only I can take it from you."
"No, not you, not you!" cried Rosario, with desperation. "But hear me; I want to confess it all, all! Afterward, turn me out of this house where I was born."
"I turn you out!"
"I will go away, then."
"Still less. I will teach you a daughter"s duty, which you have forgotten."
"I will fly, then; he will take me with him!"
"Has he told you to do so? has he counselled you to do that? has he commanded you to do that?" asked the mother, launching these words like thunderbolts against her daughter.
"He has counselled me to do it. We have agreed to be married. We must be married, mamma, dear mamma. I will love you--I know that I ought to love you--I shall be forever lost if I do not love you."
She wrung her hands, and falling on her knees kissed her mother"s feet.
"Rosario, Rosario!" cried Dona Perfecta, in a terrible voice, "rise!"
There was a short pause.
"This man--has he written to you?"
"Yes."
"And have you seen him again since that night?"
"Yes."
"And you have written to him!"
"I have written to him also. Oh, senora! why do you look at me in that way? You are not my mother.
"Would to G.o.d that I were not! Rejoice in the harm you are doing me. You are killing me; you have given me my death-blow!" cried Dona Perfecta, with indescribable agitation. "You say that this man--"
"Is my husband--I will be his wife, protected by the law. You are not a woman! Why do you look at me in that way? You make me tremble. Mother, mother, do not condemn me!"
"You have already condemned yourself--that is enough. Obey me, and I will forgive you. Answer me--when did you receive letters from that man?"
"To-day."
"What treachery! What infamy!" cried her mother, roaring rather than speaking. "Had you appointed a meeting?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"To-night."
"Where?"
"Here, here! I will confess every thing, every thing! I know it is a crime. I am a wretch; but you who are my mother will take me out of this h.e.l.l. Give your consent. Say one word to me, only one word!"
"That man here in my house!" cried Dona Perfecta, springing back several paces from her daughter.
Rosario followed her on her knees. At the same instant three blows were heard, three crashes, three reports. It was the heart of Maria Remedios knocking at the door through the knocker. The house trembled with awful dread. Mother and daughter stood motionless as statues.
A servant went down stairs to open the door, and shortly afterward Maria Remedios, who was not now a woman but a basilisk enveloped in a mantle, entered Dona Perfecta"s room. Her face, flushed with anxiety, exhaled fire.
"He is there, he is there!" she said, as she entered. "He got into the garden through the condemned door."
She paused for breath at every syllable.
"I know already," returned Dona Perfecta, with a sort of bellow.
Rosario fell senseless on the floor.
"Let us go down stairs," said Dona Perfecta, without paying any attention to her daughter"s swoon.
The two women glided down stairs like two snakes. The maids and the man-servant were in the hall, not knowing what to do. Dona Perfecta pa.s.sed through the dining-room into the garden, followed by Maria Remedios.
"Fortunately we have Ca-Ca-Ca-balluco there," said the canon"s niece.
"Where?"
"In the garden, also. He cli-cli-climbed over the wall."
Dona Perfecta explored the darkness with her wrathful eyes. Rage gave them the singular power of seeing in the dark peculiar to the feline race.
"I see a figure there," she said. "It is going toward the oleanders."
"It is he!" cried Remedios. "But there comes Ramos--Ramos!"
The colossal figure of the Centaur was plainly distinguishable.
"Toward the oleanders, Ramos! Toward the oleanders!"
Dona Perfecta took a few steps forward. Her hoa.r.s.e voice, vibrating with a terrible accent, hissed forth these words:
"Cristobal, Cristobal--kill him!"
A shot was heard. Then another.
CHAPTER x.x.xII
CONCLUSION