In the three zones

by Frederic Jesup Stimson

The Archbishop, too, had seen his gray hairs; yet he thought that it was best? He had said so. Perhaps he wanted her possessions for the Church. His nephew Don Ramon cursed the Archbishop for sitting there that night, and saying to her—what? Novitiate and convent, perhaps, or his own sins. For the lady Dolores was devout as only girls can be who have warm hearts and noble souls, and are brought up in cloisters.

Del Torre stood on the other side of the Calvary hill, where the sunset lay, and looked at it, dimly—for his heart was breaking; the Archbishop kept close his converse with Dolores; perhaps he saw her fiery younger lover lurking in the branches. She rose—she and Jacinta—and the priest walked home with them. He talked to her of nephew Ramon and his crimes—not his sins with women, for the priest, too, was a crafty man, and did her sex no honor—but of his gambling, his brawling, his unsaintliness. He said Ramon was a coward; and when Dolores’ pale cheek reddened, he marked it again; and when she broke at this, he told her a trumped-up story of his last battle under his grave uncle. For Dolores, noble maiden, had not yet confessed her life’s love to herself—how then to her confessor?

The Archbishop walked slowly home with her, Jacinta just behind, and left her under that old stone scutcheon on the door. Del Torre and Don Ramon lingered behind; and when they had passed her window, she was sitting there, looking weary. The old General passed by, sweeping off his hat, his eyes on the ground. He had been talking to the youth of all the duties of his life and love; but Ramon was inattentive, watching for her. As they passed her window Ramon lingered, daring a word to Dolores through the iron bars. He asked her for a rose she wore. She looked at him a moment, then gave it to him, with a message. The Marquis saw her give the rose; he did not hear the message. Don Ramon did; and his face turned the color of a winter leaf. As he walked on, he crushed the rose, then threw it in the gutter. For the girl, womanlike, had told the rival first.

That night Ramon intoxicated himself in some tavern brawl. He had a companion with him, not of his own sex; and when another officer reproached him with it, for his cousin, he swore that he would marry her, and that she had been—— Then they fought a duel, and both were wounded.

VII.

The General heard of it the next morning, and it was even the Archbishop brought him the news. The priest besought del Torre to marry his ward, but he was obdurate; the crafty priest wrestled with the soldier’s will all through that day, and neither conquered. But the General’s face looked worn; he argued, only sadly, of the hot blood of youth, of the hope in her love for the nephew, and of his bravery. Then late in the day came the young officer, wounded, the bandage on his breast half stanching the heart’s blood he had shed for her, and besought the general not to give her to Don Ramon. Del Torre stood as if at bay. “You love her too?” he cried.

“Ay, and would save her,” said the young man, faintly.

“You must protect her from this libertine,” then said the priest. For he wished her to marry the one he thought she loved not.

“She loves him!” sighed the General.

“You must save her——”