“I was so far from knowing it that I bring her magnificent offers from Havana. What does she do?”
“Now, when she can no longer sing,” replied the general, “she will follow without doubt the counsels of the ant: she will learn to dance.”
“But where is she?” repeated Raphael, insisting; “I have a letter to deliver to her from her husband.”
“From her husband!” cried at once the marchioness, the countess, and the general.
“Have you seen him?” demanded the marchioness, with interest.
“He embarked in the same vessel with us for Havana. How he was changed! how sad he was! you would not have recognized him. A little time after our arrival he died of yellow fever.”
“He died! poor Stein!” said the countess.
“The death of this good man,” said the general, “will fall entirely on the conscience of this accursed singer.”
“I, who believe myself invulnerable,” replied Raphael, “and without ever having had the epidemic, I went to see him so soon as I learned he was ill. The attack was so violent that I found him almost at his last extremity; always calm, always filled with serene goodness, he thanked me for my visit, and said to me that he was happy in seeing, before he died, a loved face. He asked me for paper and a pen, and, almost dying, he traced some lines which he asked me, as the last request of a dying man, to convey to his wife. The vomiting soon followed, and he died with one hand clasped in those of the priest, the other in mine. I confide to you this letter, my dear Gracia; send it by a trusty man to Villamar, where, I suppose, Marisalada will have retired near to her father. Here is this letter, which I have often read, as one reads a holy hymn.”
The countess opened the paper, and read—