I delayed no longer. In a moment I was above, trying in vain the doors.

As I approached the window of Sidney's now deserted bedroom, I perceived instantly that its gla.s.s had been shattered, and knew at once that Mariposilla was within.

For a moment, I stood rooted with apprehension; I dared not enter. A horrible dread deprived me of strength, until from within a piteous sobbing, more musical, more welcome than any sounds which I had ever before heard, told me that the child I sought was safe.

"Thank G.o.d!" I cried, springing into the room.

There, upon Sidney's deserted bed, upon his pillow, lay Mariposilla.

For a moment I shrank away, for the child had not heard me enter. I would willingly have allowed her the full extent of her strange, unusual consolation. Now that she was safe, I would have stayed with her the remainder of the afternoon, but the thought of the Dona Maria compelled me to speak.

"Dear child," I said, approaching the bed; "you must come home. We are in great distress. Your grandmother has just died."

"Just died?" she repeated, touchingly. "Why can I, too, not die? Indeed, kind Senora, I am most tired of life; I would gladly go with my grandmother."

"No, dear," I answered, "you must not want to die. It is wrong for you to remain so miserable. You should remember your dear mother, and try to recover your spirits, to be once more our good, happy child.

"Think no more of Sidney; dismiss now forever from your thoughts the selfish man who has deceived you."

Like a young tigress wounded into fury, the girl sprang from the bed.

"I blame him not," she cried, pa.s.sionately. "It is the wicked, wicked Gladys who has stolen his love. I knew she would coax him from me when she sent so often her beautiful face to his mother.

"She loved him much, I was sure, but he said always that he loved her not in return; that she made him most tired, when he must listen to her learning and long words.

"That he loved none but me--poor, little Mariposilla, who knew nothing but to love him only."

"Yes, dear," I said; "you have loved as few ever love. I pity the man who has thrown lightly away your warm, true heart; but I know that after a time you will cease to pine. You will see that Sidney gave you up, not because Miss Carpenter was more beautiful, or that he loved her more, but because she had millions of dollars to make his life luxurious and idle.

"Be a brave girl," I continued, noticing with pleasure that the child had brightened visibly at my words. "Be good and brave for your own sake, and for the sake of the dear Dona Maria.

"Come home before you are missed, or your mother will be greatly distressed by your absence."

Obediently she followed me from the room, and down the ladder. As we drove away from the grounds she threw her arms about my neck and sobbed pitifully.

"Dear, kind Senora," she cried, "I will be good; indeed I will be good.

"If Sidney loves Gladys only for gold, he will yet come back! he will yet be mine!"

It was impossible for me to misunderstand the girl's pa.s.sionate meaning.

I trembled at the recollection of the opportunities and temptations of the winter. For the first time a terrible realization of the child's Spanish inheritances seized me. I felt that she would never acknowledge moral barriers to be a final restraint to her denied destiny; never be able to resist the undisciplined desires of her heart.

For the present I could not hope to unfold the immoral, or impossible consequences of Sidney Sanderson's return. Nothing but time and angelic patience would enable me to make plain to the ignorant girl the arbitrary laws of fate.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The sun had departed for the day, the evening had flushed and died in the cool arms of night.

In the chamber of death there was now the breathless calm which follows when all has been done.

Before the little Virgin, and about the spotless bed, where in purest linen slept the mother of the Dona Maria, holy candles had been lighted.

Still unmolested stood the small stand covered with a fine drawn linen cover, upon which had rested for weeks the tumblers and bottles needed now no longer.

"See," the Dona Maria said tenderly, "see the spoon in the potion I had prepared but a moment before the poor suffering body found peace."

When I offered to remove the medicines, the devoted daughter was not willing.

"Touch not the table yet, kind Senora," she pleaded. "Wait until the dear body has been taken away; then will I find courage to disturb the tumblers that the dear hands once held."

As the Dona Maria spoke, Mariposilla entered the room, bearing a little cross of white roses. She laid it timidly upon the breast of her grandmother; then, frightened and hysterical, she fled from the bed.

"Poor child," said the Dona Maria, "she fears death greatly. She thinks only of the fire that must at first purify the soul, not of the joys of eternity.

"Go now, Senora, retire at once for the night. You are weary and in need of rest.

"I care not for company. I will remain alone with my mother and our blessed Lady. I desire to entreat that the sufferings of the dear one may be short.

"Surely the dear Lord will have mercy upon the aged one who has already endured so much upon earth."

"Good Dona Maria," I plead, "you will surely be ill if you kneel all night in prayer. To-morrow will be a sad, hard day, and without rest you will be unfit for its strain."

"No, Senora," she replied firmly; "I shall not be ill. After midnight I shall sleep; until then I shall pray."

I saw that my persuasions were in vain, and left her alone with her dead.

As I pa.s.sed through the living-room to reach my own, I was startled by a white-robed figure in front of the Virgin's picture.

The full July moon, streaming through the open door, discovered touchingly the hopeless misery of Mariposilla. She was in her nightgown, gazing piteously into the illuminated face of the unsympathetic doll above the chimney shelf.

As I approached her, she turned sadly from the picture.

In the moonlight, I saw great tears shining in her eyes.

"She loves me not; she is angry and smiles no more," she said, despairingly.

The child's lovely face expressed so perfectly the agony of desertion that I felt powerless to comfort her. Her firm belief in the Virgin's displeasure had torn from her heart its last hope. For weeks she believed that the little mother would have mercy, would intercede for her, and restore in some miraculous way her lover; but to-night the Virgin would not smile. She refused to pity her sorrowful child.

"Dear Mariposilla," I said, remembering the tactics that I sometimes employed with Marjorie; "you must not think because the Virgin refuses to smile that she is angry.

"We ourselves cannot smile. We are sad and awed by the presence of death, and surely it would be heartless for 'our Lady' to smile, when those who love and trust her are in trouble.

"You are nervous and weary. You shall room with me to-night. I have already prepared you a nice bed upon my couch."

I drew her gently in the direction of my room, persuaded that I had quieted for a time her moody fears.

"No! no!" she cried, bursting away from me; "I can not sleep. I will never sleep again."