"You say Victorio Colenzo was the lover of some light girl you know?

Indeed, you are much mistaken. Instead of being any girl's lover, he belonged solely to me. He was my own dearly beloved husband, Father Felix. I had not yet told you of our marriage for I wanted you to think of me only in my own personal right, but I am the widow of the man whose shameful and horrible death you have just been describing to me ... I am the weeping widow of Victorio Colenzo, Father Felix, and, if it be in my power, his death shall be avenged in blood!"

As she ceased speaking she put her hands before her face and gave way, utterly, to her great sorrow, for she had but spoken the solemn truth although no one of her many acquaintances suspected that she was a married woman at all.

Father Felix was dumbfounded by the intelligence the young woman had just given to him and pitied her from the very bottom of his tender heart and he blamed his blundering tongue for giving to her such a shock as he had just been the cause of; at the same time he could not blame himself as much as he might have done had he not known of the marriage contract of Estrella and this same man of whom he had been speaking; he hastened to place this young girl in the right light before his companion by saying:

"My dear Madam, as to the girl of whom I was just speaking, she is in every sense of the word a good girl and innocent of any wrong intention; if there is a sinner in this matter it was he who is now not to be condemned by any human being, for he has gone before his Maker Who will mete out to him whatever is his just dessert. I am deeply grieved that I should have caused you this deep grief at this time, but, as the circ.u.mstances are, you would have been obliged to know it very soon in any case."

The young woman who had been waiting for the Priest to come to her to make his report as to how he had done the work that she had set for him to do, was beautiful as any dream of womanhood could ever be.

Her great gray eyes, that shone like stars upon a misty night, were lifted to his face and questioned him as to the truth of his last statement while they plainly showed the almost holy faith she had in all he did:

"Dear Father Felix," she said, finally, stifling as best she could the sobs that shook her slender figure, "dear Father Felix, I know you speak the truth, and, yet, it does not seem to me that he could have ever been a hypocrite such as a man would have to be to be what you infer he was.

He was my darling husband ... if he, also, was the lover of a trusting girl, then he sinned most grievously ... it breaks my heart," she ended, clasping her soft, white hands together spasmodically, "it breaks my heart to think he could be such a villain as you say he was. Dear Father Felix," she began again, for hope will sometimes come upon the very heels of wild despair, "dear Father Felix, are you sure that this man who is newly dead can be the Victorio Colenzo that I know ... the man who is ... I hope he is ... my own dear husband? The one I mean was a prisoner with the others you have liberated ... it was for his sake alone that I arranged to have you do the work you've done ... might it not be that you have been mistaken in the man? Might there not have even been two men bearing the same name within that prison?"

Eagerly and hopefully, she questioned the good Priest. He sadly shook his head and said to her:

"The young man whose body lay within the entrance to the prison when we had battered down the door, was tall and very dark ... his hair was like a raven's wing for blackness ... his eyes were like the falcon's in their keenness ... he was a handsome fellow in every possible way and the girl, Estrella, of whom I spoke, fairly worshipped him although her own family flouted her for doing so, as he only came to see her at long intervals and seemed ashamed to be seen with her ... seldom ever went out anywhere with her, but they were plighted lovers ... that I know ...

they came to me together, one evening, in the church, and I blessed their future union, believing him to be an honest man and knowing her to be a gentle, true and loving girl."

"I fear he was my husband, Father Felix.... I fear the very one I hoped to liberate has lost his life and lost his honor, too. Father Felix, tell me how to bear this great and hopeless sorrow! _Is_ there any way to bear a sorrow such as this one is? _Can_ I shut my Husband's memory from my heart because I can no longer have respect for him? _Is_ there any way," she wailed, pleadingly, "_is_ there any way to bear a sorrow such as this one is? _Tell_ me, good Father, _tell_ me, is there any way of escape for me who am as innocent as is this young girl of whom you have just spoken? Is there some way in which I can a.s.sist her, Father Felix? Perhaps it is my duty, under these circ.u.mstances, to hunt her up and try to help her, who is, also, as it were, a widow of my darling Husband. Must I do this, Father? Would it be my duty, as the wife of Victorio Colenzo, to look this girl up and try to help her bear her sorrow on account of his death?"

The good Priest looked at her in deep amazement, but he answered her as calmly as he could command his voice to speak:

"No, my Daughter, no ... that would be going beyond reason as to duty.

It might be right for you to send her something if she were in need of monetary a.s.sistance.... I do not think she is, however, I do not think Estrella is in need of anything to live upon ... they had not been married, you understand ... she was not his wife as you were ... only just he'd promised he would marry her, sometime. No, you owe her nothing more than womanly sympathy in her bereavement and you do not need to see her at all, for that matter. It would give you unnecessary pain, it seems to me. As for her, if we can, we will let her remain in ignorance of the character of him she loved ... she would the sooner repair the injury, it seems to me, if she could still respect his memory. It must be doubly hard for you, my Daughter, to lose him and respect for him at the same time ... yet, it would have been a terrible knowledge for you to have gained ... that he had misled this innocent girl ... even during his life. A man has little thought of the women who love him when he plays fast and loose with more than one of them at a time, anyway. I wish I knew what words to say to you to make you strong to bear this misery, dear Daughter ... you must bear it all alone, I know that much ... only G.o.d in His great Mercy, can a.s.sist you in this matter ...

only He can tell you what to do or how to endure your agony of spirit, for only He can understand your heart. I am but a feeble instrument in G.o.d's Own Hands, my dear, afflicted Daughter.... I am but a very feeble instrument.... I wish I knew the way to help you bear this thing. I wish that I could say the fitting word to turn your mind to other thoughts, for only in the mind can fitting help be found ... only the spiritual side of your strong nature can uphold you now."

He'd kept on talking to her hoping to alleviate her pain in some degree ... hoping that her fits of violent and heart-breaking weeping would grow farther and farther apart until they would cease altogether so that, being calmer, she could better face this heavy burden that was hers, and hers alone, to bear. Seeing no cessation of her sobs and moans of agony of spirit, he began to speak of other matters, hoping to distract her mind and turn her thoughts to other things, thereby giving her an opportunity to face the sorrow that had come upon her so suddenly with more strength than she would have if she continued to dwell on it alone. So he bethought him of the soldiery and of their coming riding into the prado and he began to tell her of this phase of the adventure he had on her account, mainly. She listened calmly to this narrative and even asked some questions, haltingly, but, just as soon as that account was ended, she began again to ask concerning poor Victorio:

"Where have they taken his remains, good Father? Where can I find my darling Husband's body? How can I bear to have to see his face which has always to my knowledge been so full of life and youth and perfect health lying stark and still with no expression in his glorious dark eyes that always looked so lovingly at me? Father Felix, even now, it seems to me that there must be some mistake about my Husband's being the same man who was the lover of this girl you know about.... I think that I will see her ... there ... beside my darling Husband's body and decide the matter for myself instead of listening to the tales that have been told to me. That is how I think I will proceed," she ended, then, quite calmly, as it seemed, for secretly she then began to hope that it was not her husband, after all, "That is how I will proceed about this terrible calamity, Father Felix. I will see this girl beside the body of the man she says has been her lover ... he may not be my darling Husband, after all."

And so their conference ended, he giving her explicit directions as to where Victorio's body had been placed, and she thanking him for carrying out her wishes even though, as it seemed then, the very thing she had him do the work for had failed her utterly.

Father Felix went back, then, to the refectory, with this complicated matter bearing hard upon his heart. He pitied both the suffering women very much and wished to help them both if so be he could find the proper way to do the task in.

He pondered deeply on the various situations he'd surprised in carrying out the project of the woman he had met, that night; she had not told him of her plans in their entirety, and, so, it seemed, the very plans she doted on the most had very far miscarried and the work, so far as she had been concerned, had not only been as futile as any work could ever be, but, also, it had brought to her a new and horrible calamity besides the failure of her plans and loss of him she evidently deeply loved as tender women love but only once in all their human lives, perhaps, for Victorio Colenzo had been a man to claim the love of tender women ... he was very tall and very handsome, too; his deep, dark eyes were very full of loving expression and his strong arms, folded close about a tender woman's yielding form, would lift her spirit up and make her almost wild with joy and gladness.

And, as it looked now, those strong arms had been folded, not only round his own wife's tender form, but, also, about, at least, one other woman's, too. Good Father Felix reflected on the fraility of man and pondered deeply on the tenderness of women, but he did not, even then, reach the very root of the whole matter, for he, being what he was, would not be very likely ever to know the heights and depths, as well, of human love, for he had always been a religious devotee in spite of his great strength of limb ... he'd only used his bodily powers to forward the work to which his whole life was devoted utterly, and, so, good Father Felix could not fully understand a man such as Victorio Colenzo must have been to leave the record that he'd left behind him when he died, there, in the entrance to that dark and gloomy prison, just as he had been about to come again, a free man, into the glorious light of day.

CHAPTER IV

Father Felix had prepared the widow of Victorio Colenzo for the sight she would behold when she went to the rude dwelling where they had laid the form of the prisoner whose dead body had been found lying in the entrance to the prison on the day the people battered down the doors and set at liberty several political prisoners confined therein, but no one could, really, prepare a woman for the vision presented to her eyes when she entered the cottage that had been turned into a temporary morgue, for more than one of those engaged in the deadly strife with the soldiery in the prado after the deliverance of the prisoners had given up his earthly life, either at the time of the attack or afterwards from wounds inflicted either intentionally or inadvertently by those who had been sent to the prado to quell an uprising of the Cuban populace.

As the woman we have before described entered the rude shelter where the dead bodies of several of the residents of the little village lay, she was surprised and grieved by the number of the dead and, also, by the many mourners who crowded among the slabs on which the bodies lay, for there was little of orderly array there, everything being of the rudest and most primitive pattern as the reigning government did not wish to dignify those who had opposed it even after death had taken from their limbs the power to oppose anything in the world of men and women.

The woman, who was of a higher cla.s.s than most of those a.s.sembled there, was treated with marked deference as became her superior position both as to wealth and education, for the widow of Victorio Colenzo occupied a proud place in her own right, having been, for a long time, the occupant of a large and beautiful residence that commanded a wide view of the harbor of Havana and was situated on an elevation above the little village of San Domingo; this home had been hers long before she had ever met the handsome peon whom she had acknowledged as her husband to Father Felix after having learned of his death.

It was through her own instigation that the man had taken the position which had, subsequently, placed him among the prisoners for offenses against the reigning government who had been liberated under her direct orders and with her p.r.o.nounced sanction, although she had not actually taken part in the work which she had directed.

This woman was of another type entirely as compared with the others in that small dwelling and walked among them almost haughtily in spite of her eagerness in the search after evidence that would convince her that she had not been utterly mistaken in the man she had secretly married, believing him to represent the finest and highest example of patriotic courage and devotion that she had met during the whole of her long residence in the Island of Cuba.

She had come to the Island, in her first youth, as the daughter of the American Consul who represented the United States in the council chambers where were gathered those who discussed affairs of state with the ruling Spanish powers; her father had purchased the beautiful site on which he had built the home that was still hers, although both of her parents had died, there in Cuba, within the past few years; the girl had been left practically without living relatives, and, so, loving her Island home, she had remained there in spite of the solicitations of many American friends who had visited her in Cuba and urged her to return to the United States with them; she was of a reticent and retiring disposition, loving a good book more than almost anything else in the world, and being surrounded by a splendid library, her time was fully and pleasantly occupied, as she had trustworthy retainers who followed her mandates because they loved to fulfill them and pitied her loneliness while they almost worshiped her superior manners and style of speech as well as of living; Father Felix, alone, understood her mental attainments and was greatly bewildered when she told him that she had married Victorio Colenzo as he considered her far removed from the peons who were the regular inhabitants of the Island and among whom he labored as a missionary rather than as an equal, although his deep humility of manner always led them to believe that he was on their own level of intelligence, while the aloofness of this one woman set her apart from all of her neighbors and made her seem to them like a being from another and a higher world.

As she walked among the slabs on which the dead bodies had been laid, that morning, for she had come down from her home early, having slept, during the past night, only the few hours preceding her meeting with Father Felix, as she hoped to have her doubts set at rest and to be a.s.sured that the man she had secretly united to herself by marriage was still worthy of her respect and love which she had given to him without further knowledge of his character than what he chose to exhibit to her in their infrequent meetings prior to his declaration of undying worship and deep and overpowering love for herself as well as of patriotic zeal which latter emotion she fully sympathized with, as she regarded it as similar in many ways to her own feeling for her much-beloved land which was all the more powerful because of her isolation from others of her own nation, she representing, to herself at least, the whole of the entire broad expanse of the United States; it was this sympathy with the ardent patriotism of Victorio Colenzo that had led to her present plight for, believing him to possess the strong feelings for his native land which he had professed to her to have, she had urged his partic.i.p.ation in the plot which, on its discovery by the Spanish authorities, had plunged him, with others, into the prison from which, through her own earnest efforts, they had just been liberated, or, at least, a part of them.

Now, she reached the side of the farthest slab in that small room, and noticed, at once, crouching down beside it, a fair-haired girl who seemed, beyond all doubt, the one bereft by the condition of the body lying there, so straight and still, beneath the rude pall that had been thrown over it so that even its face was hidden from sight. She softly touched the mourner on the shoulder nearest to her and whispered:

"My poor Girl, for whom do you mourn? Is it the body of your brother lying here, or, yet," she went on, hesitatingly, for a horrible suspicion began to thrust its ugly head before her vision, "can he who lies here so quietly have been, maybe, your husband? You are young but I know well that the girls, here, marry very young...."

She ended haltingly, for the girl had raised her lovely face, tear-stained and drawn by sorrow, and looked up into the face that bent so near to her own:

"He was my plighted husband, Lady; he _would_ have been my husband had death not intervened to take him from me! I _love_ him so ..." she suddenly screamed in agony, "I _love_ him so ... Victorio! Why have you left me all alone in a cruel world to be a widow before I was a wife?

Victorio...."

And, then, she rose, as one who had that right, and turned the pall back from the countenance of him who lay there on that senseless slab.

The other woman did not scream, as poor Estrella had ... she did not even move, indeed, but stood as if she had been carved from marble, for her face was almost just as pale as death itself ... the pulsing blood receded from her cheeks and from her trembling lips ... she stood so tall and still that the poor girl became conscious of her in spite of her own grief and wondered if she, also, sought to find some one she loved among the dead; with that thought in her mind, she stepped back from the corpse she had been leaning over, and said to her who stood there silently as if her interest in the affairs of life had, suddenly, ceased:

"I beg your pardon for my selfishness. Are you, too, one of those who lost some loved one yesterday? Do you seek, here, in this sad place, the body of one whom you've loved as I have loved the man who lies here ...

dead ... before me?"

The older girl was silent, for she could not talk to poor Estrella as she wished to do ... as she had meant to do in case her worst fears had to be realized; she did not wish to add a single hair's weight to the sorrow that the poor girl felt for him who had been false to both of those trusting women who stood there beside his corpse; she did not wish to harm the innocent girl, for she could see how true and loving she had been by gazing, only for a moment, in her wide, blue eyes, and, yet, it was her right and, perhaps, it was also her duty, to the man who had been her earthly husband, to claim his body and to bury it as would become the husband of a woman such as she had, always, been; but, as he'd always begged her to keep secret their marriage which had taken place in Havana instead of having Father Felix marry them at his request, for political reasons, he had told her, with the thought that she, being an American, might complicate his position with the Spanish government, as he had occupied a place of trust under the Governor, until the proper time would come to expose his actual feelings for his native land.

And, so, she had to think of this side of the complicated problem presented to her by her strange position while she stood there with that weeping, loving, sympathetic, untaught girl clinging to her hand and questioning her. At length, having collected a little of her usual unselfish consideration for the people living on the Island, she turned to poor Estrella and said to her, softly, and, yet, without condescension in her manner:

"Yes, my poor Girl, I, also, seek someone I love among the newly dead.... I, also, wish to find the man I loved as you have loved the man who lies here on this slab.... I, also...."

Then, her courage failed her utterly and she fainted dead away, even as poor Estrella, herself, had, when she had first beheld the body of the man who had made love to both of them.

The fair-haired girl bent over the older woman and lifted her in her strong arms and carried her into the outer air and found the carriage where it waited for its mistress and placed her in the care of those who served her; then, for the first time, she realized who the lady was who'd found her there beside her dead, as she supposed, for Victorio had no family in San Domingo, having only come there recently, and having held himself as somewhat superior to the most of his own countrymen whom he met, so poor Estrella claimed his body as having been his sweetheart, since he had, as she believed, no wife in all the world, for he had often told her he had never found a woman he could love before he met her.

Now, she helped to chafe the hands of her who lay there in that costly carriage with her brown hair making a soft frame for her pale face which lay upon the lap of one who loved her with the kind of love an ignorant, older woman gives to one she much admires and who is far superior to her in every possible way; this woman smoothed the fluffy hair back from the high white brow, now, and spoke to her as if she were her baby instead of one whom she looked up to and respected:

"There ... there! My Pretty! Open your sweet eyes and look at your own loving Mage!" she said, as the long, brown lashes that fringed the delicate white lids still brushed the rounded cheeks that were almost as white as the smooth brow. "Look up at me and let me see your shining eyes, again!"

"Her heart is beating, now, more regularly," said Estrella, for her hand had sought the other's bosom to see if she still lived at all. "She breathes more easily, too. I think she will recover very soon ... poor Lady! She sympathized with me in my great sorrow so deeply that she fainted. How sweet and dear she is!" she added, softly, as a shudder shook the form before her. "How very sweet and dear she is. You _must_ love her very much indeed.... I never happened to see her before today, but I know who she is, now, and how very kind she has been to so many of our people."

"I wish the color would creep back into her cheeks ..." moaned Mage.

"Her cheeks are almost always rosy as the dawn ... it seems so strange to see them white ... she don't look natural to me this way ... you should see her when she thinks her husband's coming to the house ...

_then_ her cheeks are like a flame of light ... her eyes are just as bright as stars at midnight ... there! They've opening, now ... my Pretty ... my own pretty Dear ... Mage is here ... I'm right here by you Dearie ... there! I'm afraid she's fainted away, again. She seemed to look at you, Estrella, stand farther back so, when she opens her eyes next time, she'll see just me ... she knows old Mage loves her always ... she knows her own old Mage would take good care of her no matter what would come.... Dearie ... I am right here ... old Mage is close beside you...."

At that, the woman lying there within her faithful arms, stirred softly, and, once again, her glorious gray eyes opened, and she looked at poor old Mage whose face was all distraught with many wrinkles and with deep anxiety for her. Then she raised herself to a sitting posture and put her hands before her eyes as if to hide some horrible spectre from her sight, and, then, she looked at poor Estrella standing there not knowing what to do, for Mage would not allow her, even now, to come a single step nearer to her mistress, and then she spoke: