"You pity me, señora! What is your pity worth?" I demanded, forcing back the tears.
"I have a way of escape to offer," she answered softly.
"Escape for him? Or for me?"
"For both. Now listen! There is but one way to relax Melinza's hold on Señor Rivers. He would exchange him willingly for you."
"Better for us both to die!" I exclaimed indignantly.
"I would sooner kill you with my own hands than give you up to him," said Doña Orosia, with a cold smile.
"Then what do you mean, señora?"
"I mean, Margarita mia, that you should feign a tenderness for him and let him think that it is I who would keep two loving souls apart."
"What! when I have shown him naught but dislike in all these months? He could never be so witless as to believe in such a sudden transformation."
"Such is the vanity of man," said Doña Orosia, "that he would find it easier to believe that you had feigned hatred all this while from fear of me, than to doubt that you had eventually fallen a victim to his fascinations."