“But?”
“I shall not forget my vows to you.”
“What is your thought?” asked Ibarra, trying to read in her clear eyes.
“The future is obscure. I do not know what I shall do; but I know this, that I can love but once, and that I shall not belong to one I do not love. And you? What will you do?”
“I am no longer anything but a fugitive—I shall fly, and my flight will soon be overtaken, Maria——”
Maria took his head in her hands, kissed his lips again and again, then pushed him away with all her strength.
“Fly, fly!” she said. “Adieu!”
Ibarra looked at her with shining eyes, but she made a sign, and he went, reeling for an instant like a drunken man. He leaped the wall again, and was back in the little bark. Maria Clara, leaning on the balustrade, watched till it disappeared in the distance.