Most of the men drew back for the moment convinced. Not so Ramirez. “It is false!” he cried. “I have your own maudlin hint, and your wife’s positive confession, that the girl is neither hers nor yours.”
Don Rafael grew pale again. There was that in his face which would have augured ill to Doña Rita had she seen it; but he said with an effort, “I will not give my wife the lie. The child is neither mine nor hers!”
“Then whose—whose but mine?” demanded Ramirez fiercely.
Don Rafael paused a moment as before. In an instant he had recalled the circumstances that had attended the adoption of the child. Rita had been young, placable, easily pleased with a gift: the fewer confidants the better; it was ever the duty of a Mexican wife to obey unquestioningly,—she had been obedient then; it had not been necessary that she should know more than it had been wise to tell. Don Rafael drew a deep breath of relief. Ramirez and the group around him watched him narrowly.
“Declare then!” queried Ramirez at last, “whose daughter is she if not mine?”
“I will not say,” answered Don Rafael; “but I do swear she is not yours. Stay,” he added, struck with an idea. “What reason have you for thinking she is yours?”
“Reason!” echoed Ramirez scornfully; “because fifteen years ago, more or less,—perhaps you have reason here to remember well that year,—I sent my child here, to Doña Isabel: it was a whim of mine that she should have tender nurture and decent training. I was a fool to trust a woman’s love. Of course Isabel remembered her own bantling, though I had even some foolish thought that the little one I sent might console her,—most women have hearts for baby wants and fancies that sicken men. Of course for her it was a chance for revenge too good to be lost. I have been in two minds ever since I knew how she scorned my trust whether to be angry or pleased with you for aiding her purpose. But let it pass; yield the child and the money quietly and”—he looked over his shoulder with an impatient frown—“that infernal tumult and destruction shall cease. If not—”
“I will yield neither the girl nor the money;” replied Don Rafael. “They are neither of them mine nor yours; but I have possession of both, and will keep them.—Surely Rita has both girls in the secret recess, as we have always planned in such a case as this,” he thought, with a qualm at the remembrance of his wife’s treason, as revealed by Ramirez. “Surely at such a time she will protect a young damsel, even though she be not her own child.”
Ramirez looked at him with a lowering brow, repeating again, “If not mine, whose child is she? By Heaven, I know she is mine! There could not be on all the earth a creature in whom Doña Isabel or Feliz or yourself could have so deep an interest as to trouble yourself for life with his child. It is incredible, impossible. Unless she is—” He paused on the name, looked round him, clinched his hands, advanced to Don Rafael, and gazed searchingly into his face.
Don Rafael did not flinch. Ramirez burst into a laugh. “I would have killed you had you dared even to have looked askance,” he said. “Caramba! the women of the Garcias may be fools or devils,—they have shown the spirit of both; but if a man should ever kill another because of one of them, it would be for his daring, not in revenge of his triumph.”