A week passed—ten days—and still he did not return, and no tidings of him had reached his agonized wife.
PART IV.
Louis Castrani received, one day, an urgent summons to Boston. It was the very day following that on which he had been an unwilling listener to the difficulty between Mr. and Mrs. Trevlyn. He knew from whom the summons came. Once before he had been suddenly called in like manner.
A wretched woman she was now—but once the belle and beauty of the fair Cuban town where Castrani's childhood and youth had been spent. She had been a beautiful orphan, adopted by his parents, and brought up almost as his sister. Perhaps, in those days, when they played together under the soft Southern skies, he knew no difference.
Now she was dying. So said the message. Dying, and burdened with a secret which she could confess to no ears save his. Before, when he had gone to her, she had rallied after his arrival, and had declined making confession. She should never speak of it, she said, until her death was sure. But when she felt dissolution drawing nigh, she should send for him again. And the summons had come. He obeyed it in haste, and one night just before sunset, he stood by her bedside.
Once, she had been beautiful, with such beauty as a pure complexion, black eyes, raven hair and perfect features confer; but now she was a wreck. The pure, transparent complexion was pale as marble—the brilliant eyes sunken—the magnificent hair bleached white as the wintry snow.
She welcomed him brokenly, her eyes lighting up with the pleasure of seeing him—and then the light faded away, leaving her even more ghastly than before.
"They tell me I am dying," she said, hoarsely. "Do you think so?"
He smoothed back the hair on the forehead—damp already with the dews of death. His look assured her better than the words he could not bring himself to speak.