Opening her dilated eyes, she murmured:
"Nothing, Don Fermin, nothing."
Standing on the table at the head of the bed was the glass; it contained no water, but the bottom and the sides of the vessel were coated with a white powder which had remained undissolved and which the schoolmistress, not wishing to leave it there, had scraped off in places with the spoon. It is proper to say, on this occasion also, that the illustrious Tropiezo made no mistake in the treatment of so simple a case. Tropiezo had already fought some battles with this common toxic substance and knew its tricks; he had recourse, without a moment's delay, to the use of powerful emetics and of oil. Only the poison, having gained the start of him, had already entered into the circulation and ran through the veins of the schoolmistress, chilling her blood. When the nausea and the vomiting ceased several little red spots—an eruption similar to that of scarlet-fever—made their appearance on Leocadia's pallid face. This symptom lasted until death came to set her sad spirit free and release it from its sufferings, which was toward daybreak. Shortly before her death, during an interval of freedom from pain, Leocadia, making a sign to Flores to come nearer, whispered in her ear: "Promise me—that the child shall not know it—by the soul of your mother—don't tell him—don't tell him the manner of my death."
A few days later Tropiezo was defending himself to the party at Agonde's who, for the pleasure of making him angry, were accusing him of being responsible for the death of the schoolmistress.
"For one thing, they called me too late, much too late," he said; "when the woman was almost in her death agony. For another, she had taken a quantity of arsenic which was not large enough to produce vomiting, but which was too small to cause merely a colic and be done with it. Where I made the mistake was in waiting so long before sending for the priest. I did it with the best intentions, so as not to frighten her and hoping we might yet pull her through. When extreme unction was administered she had no senses left to know what was going on."
"So that," said Agonde maliciously, "where you are called in, either the soul or the body is sure to meet with a trip."
The company applauded the joke, and there followed funereal jests mingled with expressions of pity. Clodio Genday, the creditor of the deceased, moved about uneasily in his chair. What stupid conversation, canario! Let them talk of more cheerful subjects!
And they talked of very cheerful and satisfactory subjects indeed. Señorito de Romero had promised to put a telegraph-office in Vilamorta; and the newspapers were saying that, owing to the increasing importance of the viticultural interests of the Border, a branch railroad was needed for which the engineers were soon coming to survey the ground.
THE END.