“What a strange child it is.” she murmured, “Ah, I should have loved her if—” She glanced at a note she had just written. It was addressed to Vicente Gonzales, and promised him a thousand mounted soldiers.
Doña Isabel made no idle promises, and she had counted well the cost when she had thus irrevocably committed herself to the cause of the Liberals. She had watched for years the course of events, and none saw more clearly than she that the time for passiveness had gone. On every hand there must necessarily be sacrifice. “That which goes not in sighs, must in tears,” she said sententiously. “I like not the Indian Juarez, yet his policy promises deliverance from the vampire that for generations has grown strong and ever stronger, as it has drained the very life of the nation.”
The knowledge that Gonzales was in El Toro enjoying the prestige of an accidental victory, but with a force entirely insufficient to meet that which Ramirez might at any day bring against him, had been the immediate cause of her action. To reward Pedro with a service which should at once remove him from her sight and fill his mind with new and absorbing interests, were the reasons why he had been chosen to ride from rancho to rancho secretly inciting the men to join the standard, which was to be raised upon the morrow.
“Ah, this Ruiz is a poor tool!” muttered Doña Isabel, “yet for that reason may be the more readily bought. He loves the daughter of my administrador, and will do much to gain my good word. Rafael says he is a brave soldier, if a false one; and there will be those with him who will guard against treachery. He shall fulfil his empty offer to lead a thousand men to Gonzales, and claim of Rafael the reward he sighs for. Ah, there is the child’s laugh again,—I could almost fancy it in mockery of me! Ah, this of patriot is a new rôle for me, and tries my nerves. Well, Chinita shall laugh while she can: if it is for long, it will prove her none of the blood of Garcia. Was there ever a happy woman among them?”
While Doña Isabel pondered thus, Chata in deep indignation had turned from her whilom friend. She had been brought up among a people who in matters of love held man excused and woman guilty in all cases of inconstancy. “Farewell!” she exclaimed, “I will come no more to you who are so cruel. Doña Isabel was right to part us; she has changed your heart as she has your fortune. Ah!” she added bitterly, “all the world is changed to me, and why not you?”
The grieved and imbittered girl went out so quickly that Chinita’s answer did not reach her. As she passed through the corridor Chata glanced down. The young officer stood there, as Chinita had described. He would catch the first glimpse of her as she left her room. Chata flushed in anger, yet tears of pity rose to her eyes. She was still a child, yet her heart foretold what might be the agony of woman’s slighted love.
Even so soon Chinita was laughing no longer; she had crouched forward and sat with her face bent almost to her knees. “What have I done?” she asked herself. “It is early morning still, and I have told a secret to a fool, and offended her I should have trusted!”
She had eaten nothing; the excitement under which she had acted suddenly expired, and she burst into sobs and tears. Doña Feliz coming in a few minutes later, found her on her knees before the little image of her patron saint, passionately vowing the gift of a silver Christo in return for the boon she craved.
“Go to the corridor, my child,” said Feliz pityingly. The girl was a problem to her, which every day seemed more difficult of solution. “You look weary and ill; but console yourself,—Pedro is safe. You will see the good foster-father again, be assured.”
Chinita looked at her in astonishment. She had for the time forgotten Pedro’s very existence. Doña Feliz discerned at once that she had credited the girl with a sensibility to which she was a stranger. Five minutes later she was quite certain of it, as Chinita sat on the corridor, apparently equally unconscious of the impassioned glances of Ruiz, or those of the invisible but infuriate Rosario, drawing the threads of some dainty linen and singing,—