In the three zones

by Frederic Jesup Stimson

But, had he known it, he never opened a door that she had not vanished through it. He never touched a flower she had not placed for him. He never looked in a mirror her gray eyes had not just left. He never touched a wine-glass to his lips that her lips had not kissed it. The very missal that he read from had been warmed within her bosom.

O, ghosts, and mediums, and vulgar spirits of air! and stupid tables, mirrors that are flattered with tales of second sight! Why did you not hold a look of hers one moment longer? why did not the roses keep a second longer her lips’ breath for him? Poor fables of visions in the air, that could not draw the image of her eyes to his as he rode up the street scarce a hundred mortal bodies’ breadths away! But they never did; he never saw her, she saw him only as he rode away upon his horse; and so for many—nay, not many (such poor slight power has heaven)—not for many, years. And as his horse bore him away, she came to the tower-window and watched him go—and there she sat weeks, months, until the pennons flashed or the trumpet’s note announced to her, waiting, that he was come again. For he always came in such guise, announced with ceremony. And he did not dream her eyes had been at the tower-window ever since. For their eyes never met.

But the people knew, and so they called her “Our Lady of the Tower.” And Nuestra Doña del Torre is she called there still. And thus they lived there alone within that great house, each for pity of the other in courage, each for awe of love in silence; each so loving, so brave, so silent, that the other never knew.

XIV.

“Nuestra Doña del Torre”—by that title, I fancy, she is known in heaven. For in that city all the good that was worked was hers; after the earthquake, then through siege and civil war, her heart directed her handmaidens, ladies loving her did her soft work. Her own life was but a gentle message. For she never but for the convent left her tower-room. Thither, however, poor old men, children, troubled girls, would come to see her.

All this time Bolivar was battling with the might of Spain, and del Torre (del Torre y Luna now he always called himself, liking, at least, to link his name with hers; but she had dropped her own name and called herself del Torre alone—Maria Dolores del Torre) was Bolivar’s captain. Years the war lasted. Once our General was captured in the city; he came to Carácas at a time of war, when it was legal for the Governor to capture him; he had heard some rumor that his wife was ill. He would have been shot but that he escaped from gaol, and this so easily that the prison doors seemed to turn of themselves. No youth, or woman, or child in all Carácas but would have turned a traitor for our lady.

Del Torre’s face looked old—Dolores knew it not. She never saw him—except, perhaps, a distant figure on a horse. When he was out, she roamed the house; when he came back she shut herself within her apartments. He never returned, from the shortest absences, a walk or a mass, without making formal announcement. He wondered only at the flowers; the perfections of his banquets, the splendor of his household, were for his guest and as it should be. At first del Torre had hoped to see at least a handkerchief fly from her window, a greeting or a wave of the hand, on his return. But it was always black and blank when he saw it. At first, this cost him tears: a greeting seemed so little—only courtesy! But afterward he only sighed; no man should repine that events fulfil his expectations rather than his hopes.

Their money grew apace. With part of hers Dolores built a church at Los Teques, a property that had been her mother’s, not far from the city. Half her time she spent there; and it stands there still, and is called after the Vergen de las Mercedes—Our Lady of Pity—to whom alone Dolores dared to pray. But the Church took her treasure and it kept her secret. Sometimes, in God’s providence, even pity is withheld.

One’s heart beats quick to think what might have happened had she ventured to confession—the priest who married them still was with her, in the household, an honest priest, who loved del Torre, too. But Rome, which knows how to be gentle as a mother, can also be as cruel as the grave. So Dolores went on in building churches, and Don Sebastian offered his brave heart wherever he saw a bullet fly for liberty. The best work of the world is done by broken hearts.

One time that he came home, he found a medallion by his plate. It was set with pearls, in tricolor enamel. He opened it, and it was a miniature of her. Then once a rush of human blood bore all his barriers of honor, duty, resolves of conduct, far away. He hastened through the house to the tower, where she lived. He hastened—crying Dolores, Dolores, as he had cried in his delirium. Her maid opened—not Jacinta, but Jacinta’s daughter, now a woman. My Lady Marquesa had gone to the convent at Los Teques for some weeks’ prayer.