CHAPTER XVI.
A DEPARTING SOUL.
A FEW weeks after this excursion, Doña Carmen's disease suddenly grew much worse. The physicians, indeed, had no doubt that her end was drawing near. She was in a state of complete prostration. Her face was so thin, that there seemed to be nothing left but the skin, and the large, sad, kind eyes, which rested with strange intensity on all who came near her, as if trying to read in theirs the terrible secret of death. And in view of her death, a thousand sordid feelings surged up in the minds of those who ought most to have sorrowed over it. Salabert reflected with indignation on the inheritance which was to pass to his daughter. He made fresh efforts to induce his wife to revoke her will, but without success. For the first time in her life, Doña Carmen showed great firmness of character. Though she was incapable of a revengeful sentiment, she perhaps felt bound by her desire to close her existence by an act of justice. A life of abject submission, during which she had never opposed the smallest obstacle to her husband's will, to his money-making schemes, or his illicit passions, had surely earned her the privilege of asserting her rights on her death-bed, and gratifying the impulses of her heart.
Osorio kept silent watch, with concealed greed, over the progress of her malady, looking to its termination as the end of his own difficulties. Doña Carmen would be released from her earthly husk, and he from his creditors. Clementina herself, the object of the tender soul's devoted affection, could not help rejoicing over the prospect of so many millions which were to drop into her hands. She did her best to silence her desires, and subdue her impatience; but, in spite of herself, a tempting fiend made her heart give a little leap of gladness, every time the anticipation flashed through her brain.
It was with infernal astuteness that Salabert set to work to infuse distrust into his wife's mind. Sometimes by insinuation, and sometimes by brutally broad hints, he poured the poison of suspicion into her soul. Clementina and Osorio were looking for her death, as for flowers in May. What airs they would give themselves when they had paid all their debts! And then they would live and enjoy themselves on her money.
The poor woman said nothing, indignant at these base innuendoes. But, nevertheless, in her soul, broken and saddened by suffering, the keen point of this envenomed dart festered deeply, though she strove to conceal her anguish. Every time Clementina came to see her—and towards the end this was twice a day—her stepmother's eyes would rest on hers in mute interrogation, trying to read in them the thoughts in the brain behind. This intent gaze embarrassed the younger woman, making her feel a perturbation, which, though slight, occasionally betrayed itself.
As her malady increased, this anxiety on Doña Carmen's part became almost a mania. In the isolation of soul in which she lived, Clementina represented the one link of affection which bound her to life. It was because her stepdaughter had always been cold and haughty to every one else, that she had never doubted the sincerity of her love for her, and it had made her happy and proud. It had sufficed to indemnify her for the scornful indifference with which every one else had treated her. Now, the horrible doubt which had been forced upon her, filled her heart with bitterness. Such a spirit of goodness and love as her own craved to believe in goodness and love. The uprooting of this last belief made her heart bleed with anguish.
One evening they were alone together; Doña Carmen, motionless in her deep arm-chair, with her head thrown back on the pillows, was listening to Clementina, who was reading aloud the pious history of the apparition of the Virgin of la Salette. Her thoughts wandered from the narrative; they were disturbed as usual by the fatal doubt, which tortured her more than even her acute physical sufferings. She could not take her eyes off Clementina's fair head, with the fixed look of divination peculiar to dying persons, as though she could read what was passing within, but without gaining the certainty she longed for. More than once, when the reader glanced up, she met that dull, grief-stricken gaze, and hastily looked down again with a sudden sense of uneasiness. A desire, a whim, had blazed up in the sick woman's mind, a feverish yearning such as dying creatures feel. She longed to hear her stepdaughter quench, by some gentle word, the fearful pain of that burning doubt. Again and again the question hovered on her lips; invincible shame kept her from uttering it.
"Lay down the book, child, you are tired," she said at last. And her voice came trembling from her throat, as though she had said something very serious.
"You are, perhaps, of listening. I am not. I have a strong throat."