"You deceive me through friendship and compassion," she said, sadly. "I am grateful to you, my good Petronilla; but tell me to what cause you can attribute Geronimo's absence. Come, call upon your imagination; find a possible, probable explanation."
Disconcerted by this direct interrogation, the duenna shook her head.
"There is no plausible reason," said Mary.
The old Petronilla, in the greatest embarrassment, stammered out a few words as to an unexpected journey, secrets he might be unable to divulge; she even suggested that his friends might have prevailed upon him to join in a party of pleasure; but all these were such vague suppositions that Mary plainly saw in them an acknowledgment that she could find no reasonable explanation of Geronimo's absence.
Mary's tears flowed faster.
"Oh, Petronilla!" she exclaimed, in heart-rending tones; "the light of my life is forever extinguished. Geronimo, so young, so good, so noble, so gifted, the unfortunate victim of a mysterious murderer! Frightful thought! and no room for hope! Mercy, my God, mercy! My heart is breaking; never more will I see him in this world."
And uttering a cry of anguish, she covered her face with her hands.
"I acknowledge, Mary," said the duenna, dejectedly, "that Geronimo's absence is inexplicable; but why look on the worst side and accept it as truth? You know that during the last four days every possible effort has been made to discover Geronimo. Mr. Van Schoonhoven, the bailiff, has pledged his honor to find him dead, or alive."
Mary wept in silence, and heeded not the words of the duenna.
"Perhaps, my child," the old woman resumed, "this very day the doubt which has caused you so much suffering for five days may be cleared up. Do not close your heart against all hope. I remember that once an individual was sought for weeks, and found alive when there seemed almost a certainty of his death. The bailiff was speaking of it this morning to your father, and I recollect having heard my parents relate it. It happened to a banker, Liefmans, who was considered very wealthy."