“You have just said that you loved her.”
“But, your Excellency, you seem to forget that she is but a girl of the people. I have to remind you that I am of the Spanish nobility; that my ancestors—”
“Tush, tush! What have your ancestors to do here? You have ruined the girl, and you shall make amends, here and now.”
Miralda clasped her hands in a passion of entreaty, and her betrothed, the boatman, sank upon a bench, overcome with despair.
“I am sorry for you,” continued Tacon, “but there is no other way. Proceed with the ceremony.”
Knowing Tacon to be inflexible, and with a wholesome dread of punishment in case of refusal, the young rake finally expressed his willingness to yield to the command, and with a freckled trooper for bridesmaid, and another for groomsman, the marriage rites were said. While the priest was speaking Tacon had written a note which he gave to an orderly, instructing him to deliver it to the captain of the guard. After the nobleman, flushed and trembling with anger, and the half-fainting girl had been pronounced man and wife, the boatman meanwhile abandoning himself to a frenzy of tears, Tacon said to the count, “Your wife will remain here for the present. It is my order that you return to your country-house alone. You will depart at once.”
With blazing eye, widened nostril, and hard-set jaw, Count Almonte left the room without any recognition of his bride, without the usual acknowledgment of the governor-general’s presence. Tacon bade the young woman be seated, and told Mantanez also to remain, as he wished to speak with them after a time. Ten minutes passed. Some guns were heard at a distance. In ten minutes more an officer hastily entered the room. Tacon looked up from his writing. “Report, captain,” he commanded.
“I have to inform your Excellency that your orders have been obeyed. The Count Almonte lies dead with nine bullets in his body.”
The general arose, took the hand of the young woman and placed it in that of the boatman. “Countess,” he said, “you are the widow of a rich man. You are sole heir to the estate of the late Count Almonte. As to you, sir, I presume you have no objection to wedding a lady so well provided with this world’s goods. Adieu, Madame Countess, and may your second marriage be happier than your first.”