Don Roberto translated the verdict to his wife. She turned very gray, and her thin lips pressed each other. But she bent her head. "So be it," she said; "I cannot do murder. Send for Dario Castañares."
"And tell him to take her to perdition," roared the old man. "Never let me see her again."
He went down the stair, filled a small bag with gold, and gave it to the doctor. He found Joaquin and bade him go for Dario, then shut himself in a remote room, and did not emerge until late that day.
Doña Jacoba sent for the maid, Malia.
"Bring me one of your frocks," she said, "a set of your undergarments, a pair of your shoes and stockings." She walked about the room until the girl's return, her face terrible in its repressed wrath, its gray consciousness of defeat. When Malia came with the garments she told her to follow, and went into Elena's room and stood beside the bed.
"Get up," she said. "Dress thyself in thy bridal clothes. Thou art going to marry Dario Castañares to-day."
The girl looked up incredulously, then closed her eyes wearily.
"Get up," said her mother. "The doctor has said that we must let our daughter marry the half-breed or answer to God for her murder." She turned to the maid: "Malia, go downstairs and make a cup of chocolate and bring it up. Bring, too, a glass of angelica."
But Elena needed neither. She forgot her desire for death, her misgivings of the future; she slipped out of bed, and would have taken a pair of silk stockings from the chest, but her mother stopped her with an imperious gesture, and handed her the coarse shoes and stockings the maid had brought. Elena raised her eyes wonderingly, but drew them on her tender feet without complaint. Then her mother gave her the shapeless undergarments, the gaudy calico frock, and she put them on. When the maid returned with the chocolate and wine, she drank both. They gave her colour and strength; and as she stood up and faced her mother, she had never looked more beautiful nor more stately in the silken gowns that were hers no longer.
[Illustration: "HE BENT DOWN AND CAUGHT HER IN HIS ARMS.">[