It was clear enough that a whole life might slip over in this fashion without my ever seeing her. There was something in the difficulty that prompted a desire to overcome it; and so I set myself to plan the means by which I might make her acquaintance. Of the windows which looked towards the garden, the blinds were always closed; the single door that led into it as invariably locked; I bethought me of writing a humble and most petitionary epistle, setting forth my utter solitude and isolation; but where were pen and ink and paper to come from? These were luxuries the Gobernador himself alone possessed. My next thought was more practicable: it was to deposit each morning upon her basket of fruit a little bouquet of fresh flowers. But, then, would they ever reach her hands?—would not the servant purloin and intercept my offering?—ay, that was to be thought of.
By most assiduous watching, I at last discovered that her bedroom looked into the garden by a small grated window, almost hidden by the gnarled branches of a wild fig-tree. This at once afforded me the opportunity I desired, and up the branches of this I climbed each morning of my life, to fasten to the bars my little bouquet of flowers.
With what intense expectancy did I return home the first morning of my experiment! what vacillations of hope and fear agitated me as I came near the garden, and, looking up, saw, to my inexpressible delight, that the bouquet was gone! I could have cried for very joy! At last I was no longer an outcast, forgotten by my fellows. One, at least, knew of my existence, and possibly pitied and compassionated my desolation.
I needed no more than this to bind me again to the love of life; frail as was the link, it was enough whereupon to hang a thousand hopes and fancies, and it suggested matter for cheering thought, where, before, the wide waste of existence stretched pathless and purposeless before me. How I longed for that skill by which I might make the flowers the interpreters of my thoughts! I knew nothing of this, however; I could but form them into such combinations of color and order as should please the senses, but not appeal to the heart; and yet I did try to invent a language, forgetting the while that the key of the cipher must always remain with myself.
It chanced that one night, when on my rounds outside the village, I suddenly discovered that I had forgotten the caps for my rifle. I hastened homeward to fetch them, and entered the garden by a small door which I had myself made, and of which few were cognizant. It was a night of bright moonlight; but the wind was high, and drifted large masses of cloud across the sky, alternately hiding and displaying the moon. Tracking, with an instinct too well trained to become deceptive, the walks of the garden, while a dark mass shut out the “lamp of night,” I reached my hut, when suddenly, on a little stone bench beside the door, I beheld a female figure seated. She was scarcely four yards from where I stood, and in the full glare of the moonlight as palpable as at noonday. She was tall and elegantly formed; her air and carriage, even beneath the coarse folds of a common dress of black serge, such as bespoke condition; her hands, too, were white as marble, and finely and delicately formed; in one of them she held a velvet mask, and I watched with anxiety to see the face from which it had been removed, which was still averted from me. At last she turned slowly round, and I could perceive that her features, although worn by evident suffering and sorrow, had once been beautiful; the traits were in perfect symmetry; the mouth alone had a character of severity somewhat at variance with the rest, but its outline was faultless,—the expression only being unpleasing. The dark circles around the eyes attested the work of years of grief, bitter and corroding.
What should I do,—advance boldly, or retire noiselessly from the spot? If the first alternative presented perhaps the only chance of ever speaking to her, it might also prevent her ever again visiting the garden. This was a difficulty; and ere I had time to solve it, she arose to leave the spot. I coughed slightly: she halted and looked around, without any semblance of terror or even surprise, and so we stood face to face.
“You should have been on your rounds on this hour!” said she, with a manner of almost stern expression, and using the Spanish language.
“So I should, Señhora; but having forgot a part of my equipment, I returned to seek it.”
“They would punish you severely if it were known,” said she, in the same tone.
“I am aware of that,” replied I; “and yet I would incur the penalty twice over to have seen one of whom my thoughts for every hour these months past have been full.”