Estrella was pleased and flattered by this attention from the lady of the mansion on the hill and entered the carriage to find Father Felix already there, for the carriage had been sent to the refectory before it came to her own home; she remembered the message little Tessa had sent to her so she asked old Mage to go to her dwelling for her, which was done, and completed the sad little group that rode directly behind the rude wagon which took the place of a hearse and which carried the body of Victorio Colenzo to its last earthly resting-place.
The grief of the young girl was very pitiful and, as they turned away from the narrow grave, old Mage felt moved to try to comfort her a little by distracting her attention from her sorrow; seeing Manuello lurking in the background as the funeral party were about to leave the cemetery, she said to Estrella:
"Will your brother ride home with us? I remember his face for he has brought fruit to our door and he told me, once, that you were his half-sister."
The poor girl stifled her sobs long enough to listen to the old woman's remark but made no other answer to it than to shake her head; little Tessa turned her face in the direction indicated by old Mage and saw Manuello with a look of diabolical triumph mingled with fear and hatred on his dark face so that, in spite of her love for him, his expression frightened her and made even her turn away from the sight of the great change in his countenance from what she had seen resting there only that morning.
Ruth Wakefield had spend the hour devoted to the funeral exercises of her own husband very quietly and in entire solitude; she was accustomed to the latter condition and there was no one among her acquaintances in whom she cared to confide except the good Priest who had done what he could to console and sustain her spirit through this trial that had been forced upon her by untoward circumstances and her own faith in humanity; she watched her own carriage descend the hill and pass into the little village ... she saw the small funeral procession as it wended its way along the palm-lined street ... she watched it enter the gate of the little cemetery and even saw poor Estrella as she alighted from the vehicle and leaned upon the arm of her small friend as she approached the open grave that was to contain the mortal remains of the man who had been, if only for a short space of time, her own husband ... and yet she did not faint ... she did not cry out ... she had had her fight with her own nature and she had won out after a hard struggle; all that was left of the love she had entertained for the handsome Cuban who had entered into her life so disastrously, was an open wound which time alone could ever heal.
When old Mage returned to the mansion on the hill she sought out her young lady and would have, in her usual garrulous manner, reported everything that she had noticed during her absence had she received encouragement to do so; on the contrary, she found Ruth, apparently, deeply interested in a large volume which she had placed on a table before her chair; she rested her head on her hands, from time to time, and only looked up to welcome her old nurse, then resumed the perusal of the page she happened to have open at the time of her entrance into the library.
Ruth Wakefield had always found her chief delight among her many good books; she browsed among them for mental sustenance and for spiritual solace and found rich pasturage; it had been said of her, while she was yet a small child, that, in case it ever became necessary to perform a surgical operation upon any part of her delicate body, an anæsthetic would not be essential, as all that she would need would be to have someone read aloud to her from some fine piece of literature.
So, in the terrible affliction that had so recently befallen her, it was as natural for her to go to her books for comfort as it would have been for another woman to go to some understanding friend, for that was what Ruth Wakefield found among her books ... understanding and safe friends who would never betray her secrets or her confidence in them ... who would never deceive and torture her and who represented to her the finest and best impulses in human nature as well as those higher sentiments to which she always clung and which, now, in this crisis of her life, carried her safely over what might have crazed a mind less well poised than hers.
The morning after the funeral exercises of Victorio Colenzo, Father Felix ascended the hill upon which Ruth Wakefield's home was located and sought her out, for the good Priest was much perturbed because of her present condition and went to see her with the intention of advising her to leave Cuba, at least for a time, as the situation with regard to her own country was almost certain to become acute, after the disaster of a few nights previous, and it seemed to him to be imprudent for a young woman to remain alone with only retainers about her among the wild people among whom he labored; for Father Felix knew far more of the nature of these people than many others possibly could and he realized that the wealth surrounding the Wakefield residence was in itself a menace to the fair owner of it; although he, himself, intended to remain among his parishioners under all circumstances, it did not seem to be a wise procedure for an unprotected woman to do so.
He had studied the situation over from many view-points and had settled on the best course, according to his judgment and knowledge of the situation, for her to pursue, and he, now, laid this course before her with the benevolent intention of assisting her to follow it in every way within his limited power: