"Pardon thou my offences."
"Pardon thou ... my offences."
"And save my soul."
"That'll do, that'll do!" said the dying woman, pushing her daughter away with her trembling hand. "No, I am not dying.... I am well.... Come here, Martita.... It isn't true ... that I am ... dying ... is it, daughter?"
"No, mamma," replied the girl, pressing her hands. "You are not dying, mamita; no.... You must get well soon, and we will go to drive in the carriage as we used ... now the weather is fine."
"Yes, loveliest, yes.... We will go ... wait ... lift me a little.... I am uncomfortable in this position."
Marta helped her to sit up; but as she did so her mother's eyes rested upon her, fixed, motionless, terrible. That look smote the poor girl to the depths of her heart, and uttering a frightful, piercing cry, she let her fall back on the pillow. The Señora de Elorza's head relaxed as though the neck were dislocated, with open mouth and rigid lips; and still from the pillow her great glassy eyes continued to follow her daughter with the same fixed and terrifying gaze.
"Mother of my heart!" cried the girl, instantly throwing her arms around her. "Do not look at me so, for God's sake! Mamita mia, do not look at me so. Ay! do not look at me so. Ay! how you terrify me!... Mamita! mamita!... Ay! O God, what is it?"
Don Mariano, who, on hearing the cry, had hurried into the bedchamber with anxious face, and hair standing on end, tried to draw his daughter from the corpse.
"Come away! my soul's daughter, now you have no longer a mother!"