My father came up hurriedly with an exclamation of surprise, and evidently alarmed. His hat was off—his beautiful brown hair, damp and heavy with night dew—but his hands were hot as he lifted me up, and when I clung to his neck and laid my cheek to his, it was like fire. Moonlight gives almost supernatural brilliancy to the human eye. His glittered like stars.
“My child, my poor child,” he said, “what is the matter? How came you abroad? Your little feet are wet with dew, wet, clothes and all; what has come over us, my pet, my darling?”
He took out his watch and looked at it in the moonlight. It was twelve o’clock. Holding me close to his bosom, he strode across the garden and up the steps, crushing the vines beneath his feet. There was no light in the chamber, but upon the cushion which she had occupied at his feet sat my mother. The moon had mounted higher, and its light fell like a great silver flag through the casement. She sat in the centre motionless and drooping like a Magdalene, with light streaming over her from the background, as we sometimes, but rarely, see in a picture.
At the noise of my father’s footstep, she started up, and came forth with a wild, wondering look.
“How is this, Aurora?” he said, in a voice of mild reproof, “I left you with the child hours ago, and now when I thought you both at rest, she is wandering away in the night, wet through and shivering with cold.”
“I did not know it. When you went out a strange numbness fell upon me. It seemed as if I were in the caves at Granada again, and that all our people were preparing to take me to the Valley of Stones, I was so passive, so still!”
“Aurora!” said my father, in a tone of bitter reproof, “you know how I loathe that subject—never mention it again—never think of it!”
“I never have thought of it till to-night,” she answered, abstractedly, “why should I?”
“And why to-night?”
“I do not know. My life has two sides, one all blackness,” here she shuddered—“the other all light; the barranca at Granada, and this house, my grandmother and you.”