[CHAPTER XXII.]
EXPLANATIONS.
We will now return to the chacra of Don Gregorio Peralta, to which Doña Rosario had been conducted after her miraculous deliverance. The first days that followed the departure of the two Frenchmen were sufficiently devoid of incident: Doña Rosario, shut up in her bedroom, remained almost continually alone. The poor girl, like all wounded spirits, sought to forget reality, by taking refuge in dreams, in order to collect and preserve piously in the depths of her heart the few happy remembrances which had so rarely gilded with a ray of sunshine the sadness of her existence. Don Tadeo, completely absorbed in his imperative political combinations, could only see her now and then, and but for a few minutes at a time. Before him, she endeavoured to appear cheerful, but she suffered the more from being obliged to conceal in her own bosom the sorrow which consumed her. She occasionally crept down into the garden; she stopped under the arbour in which her meeting with Louis had taken place, and remained hours together thinking of him she loved, and whom she had driven from her for ever.
This poor child, so beautiful, so mild, so pure, so worthy of being loved, was condemned by an implacable destiny continually to lead a life of suffering and isolation; without a relation, without a friend to whom she might impart the secret of her grief. She was little more than sixteen, and already her bruised heart shrank back upon itself; her colour faded, her step became languid, her large blue eyes, swimming in tears, were incessantly raised towards heaven, as the only refuge that remained for her; she appeared to hold to the earth only by a slight thread, which the least fresh shock of adversity would snap.
The maiden's story was a strange one. She had never known her parents; she had no remembrance of the kisses of her mother—those warm caresses of childhood, which make even mature age tremble with joy. From her earliest days, she could only remember being alone, always alone, in the hands of the mercenary and indifferent. The innocent joys of childhood remained unknown to her; she had known nothing of them but their weariness and sadness, and had ever been deprived of those friendships of early youth which, by insensibly preparing the mind for affectionate expansion, give birth to smiles in the midst of tears, and console with a kiss.
Don Tadeo was the only person who was attached to her; he had never abandoned her, but watched with the greatest care over her material well-being, smiled upon her, and ever gave her good and pleasant counsels: but Don Tadeo was much too serious a man to comprehend the thousand little cares which the education of a young girl requires. She could only entertain for him that profound, yet respectful friendship which forbids those ingenuous confidences which can only be made to a mother, or to a companion of the same age. The visits of Don Tadeo were surrounded by an incomprehensible mystery; sometimes, without apparent cause, he made her suddenly quit people to whom he had confided her, and took her away with him, after ordering her to change her name, upon long tours. It was thus she had been to France: then, he quite as unexpectedly brought her back to Chili, sometimes to one city, sometimes to another, without ever condescending to explain to her the reasons for her leading such a wandering life.
Constrained by her isolation to depend only upon herself, forced to reflect as soon as the first rays of reason enlightened her brain, the maiden, though so delicate and fragile in appearance, was endowed with an energy and firmness of character of which she was ignorant, but which supported her unconsciously; and if the hour of danger arrived, would be of infinite use to her. She had often, urged by the instinct of curiosity so natural to her age in the exceptional position in which she was placed, sought by adroit questions to seize the thread that might guide her in this labyrinth; but all had proved useless—Don Tadeo remained mute. One day only, after having for a long time contemplated her with an expression of sadness, he had pressed her to his heart, and said in a trembling voice,—
"Poor child! I will protect you against your enemies!"
Who could those formidable enemies be? Why were they so inveterate against a girl of sixteen, who knew nothing of the world, and had never injured a human being? These questions, which Doña Rosario was continually asking herself, always remained unanswered. She only caught a glimpse in her life, of one of those terrible mysteries which bring death to the imprudent who persist in endeavouring to discover them; her days, therefore, were passed in continual fears, engendered by her imagination.
One evening, when, sad and thoughtful as usual, and buried in the depths of an easy chair, in her bedchamber, she was turning over the leaves of a book which she was not reading, Don Tadeo entered the room. He saluted her, as he always did, by a kiss on her brow, took a seat, placed himself in front of her, and after looking at her for a moment with a melancholy smile, said quietly,—