This idea filled me with a new life. Yes, I might be the means of improving this wild race. Perhaps God had permitted me to be spurned and cast forth like a rabid dog from among the gentiles, that I might become a benefactor to the Caloes. Surely they could not deal more treacherously by me than my father’s people had done. These thoughts were succeeded by a remembrance of Cora, and they gave way before the great duty that I had imposed on myself.
“Chaleco,” I said, with energy and decision, “there is yet something for me to do here. I had a friend”——
He interrupted me.
“I know the parson’s daughter, a little golden-haired, blue-eyed thing, that will always be a child. You would find her—for what?”
“That she may return to her father—that she may be saved,” I answered.
“Nay, nay, let her go. What has Papita’s child in common with this traitress? What is there worth loving in one who could become the victim of a wily boy like that?”
I felt the blood rush to my forehead at this scornful mention of the man I had loved with all the fervor of my mother’s race, and all the pride of his. But was he not a traitor? How could I resent it, though the swart gipsy did revile him? But the anger I dared not form in words broke out in decision of purpose.
“Stay with me—help me till I find Cora—till I send an assurance of her marriage back to that broken-hearted man, and I will then go with you to Granada.”
“Heart and soul?” questioned the gipsy.
“Heart and soul!” I replied.