"'Speak, my child.'
"'Has my father sent you to me?'
"'No,' she answered, sorrowfully.
"'But, at any rate, you believe that he approves the step you are now taking?'
"'I do not believe—' she said, with even greater sorrow than before, for she foresaw what was about to happen.
"'Well, my mother,' I answered, 'God will judge me. My father has denied me, he has abandoned me in the desert. I no longer exist for him, as he himself told me—and I am dead to all the world. I will never set foot in the hacienda again, unless God and my father forgive my crime—and I am able to forgive myself. A new existence commences for me from today. Who can say whether the Deity, in permitting this great expiation, may not have secret designs with me? His will be done,—my resolution is immoveable.'
"My mother looked at me fixedly for a moment; she knew that once I had categorically expressed my will, I never recalled my words. Two tears silently coursed down her pale cheeks. 'The will of God be done,' she said; 'we will remain, then, in the desert.'
"'What!' I exclaimed, with joyous surprise, 'Do you consent to remain with me?'
"'Am I not thy mother?' she said, with an accent of ineffable kindness, as she pressed me madly to her heart."