“I will be responsible for this gentleman's appearance,” said Cashel, addressing the commissary. “There is no need to subject him to the insult of an arrest.”
“He can only be liberated by a bail bond in the presence of the judge, sir. You can accompany me to the court, and enter into the recognizances, if you will.”
“Be it so,” said Cashel, bowing.
Rica made a sign for Roland to approach him. He tried to speak, but his voice was inarticulate from faint-ness, and the only audible sound was the one word “Maritaña.”
“Where?” said Cashel, eagerly.
Rica nodded in the direction of a small door that led from the chamber, and Cashel made a gesture of assent in answer.
With headlong speed Roland traversed the corridor, and entered the antechamber at the end of it. One glance showed him that the room was empty, and he passed on into the chamber where so lately Linton had spoken with Maritaña. This, too, was deserted, as was the bedroom which opened into it. Hastening from place to place, he called her name aloud, but no answer came. Terrified by a hundred fears, for he well knew the rash, impetuous nature of the girl, Roland entreated, in tones of wildest passion, “that she might come forth,—that her friends were all around her, and nothing more to fear.” But no voice replied, and when the sound of his own died away, all was silent. The window of the dressing-room was open, and as Roland looked from it into the street beneath, his eye caught the fragment of a dress adhering to the hook of the “jalousie.” It was plain now she had made her escape in this manner, and that she was gone.
Too true! Overcome by terror—her mind distracted by fears of Linton—without one to succor or protect her, she had yielded to the impulse of her dread, and leaped from the window! That small rag of fluttering gauze was all that remained of Maritaña.
Rica was to hear these sad tidings as he was led away by the commissary, but he listened to them like one whose mind was stunned by calamity. A few low murmuring words alone escaped him, and they indicated that he felt everything which was happening as a judgment upon him for his own crimes.
Even in his examination before the judge, these half-uttered self-accusings broke forth, and he seemed utterly indifferent as to what fate awaited him. By Cashel's intervention, and the deposit of a large sum as bail for Rica's future appearance, his liberation was effected, and he was led away from the spot unconscious of all around him.