"There is a period during those days that is lost from my recollection; my senses were dulled as by an opiate, and I can remember only a bit here and there, as one remembers parts of a nightmare. The sickness came so suddenly that I had no time to send the little Paquita away; but by the mercy of the Holy Mother did she escape the terrible evil that had laid its hand so sorely upon her mother.
"But my sister, señores! Steadily she grew worse; steadily she sank lower and lower; and one day—the day she was at her lowest—I gave to the doctor the last gold-piece.
"He would come no more.
"So I sat by my sister. In her madness she talked, now of the times when we were happy together; now of the times when Alberto de Sanchez, el mas perfido, came into her life. More often it was of him.
"Asi, as I sat, I was myself stricken; my head suddenly became heavy, and a pain as from a knife thrust seized upon my loins. I was giddy and weak; but at that moment I rose up and passed out of our house.
"Señores, you will not believe it of me—a dying man; but, I swear by the Virgin of Guadalupe, that what I now tell you is true. I forgot everything—everything but my present distress; and I went to seek aid for my sister of los Señores de Sanchez and Westbrook, where they sat at ease in their banking-house. God, but I was desperate!
"I might have known how it would fall out. Had De Sanchez then shown a little tenderness, señores, a little compassion, a little remorse for the past, I might have forgiven him; but he merely stood silent, eyeing me sideways with an odd look.
"Of a sudden it came to an end. He grasped the Señor Westbrook's arm and drew him to the farthest corner of the room.
"'Back!' cried he, 'al instante—immediately; this fellow is in the delirium of smallpox.'
"How I was thrust forth into the street, how a great night of forgetfulness closed down upon me, how I awoke many days later in the pest-camp, is not to be told by me.