“Intrigante,” muttered Doña Isabel, bitterly.
“You,” continued the governess, piqued and emboldened by the adjective, “angered by the sight of him as you passed the reduction-works, had yourself invented a pretext for sending him to San Marcos. You could not well dismiss him altogether from a position he filled so well. He might, you thought, reveal the reason.”
“Deal not with my motives,” interrupted the lady haughtily. “It is true I sent him to San Marcos. And what then?”
“Then, by chance, he learned what here no servant had dared to tell him,—the name of the village to which Herlinda had been sent, so near your own hacienda, too, that he had never once suspected it. And there he met a countryman. These English, Irish, Americans,—they are all bound together by a common language; and he, this poor priest, entirely ignorant of Spanish, coldly received even by his clerical brethren, was glad to spend a few days in a trip with Ashley; and as they rode together over the thirty leagues of mountain and valley between San Marcos and Las Parras, he formed a great liking for the pleasant youth, and beyond gently rallying him, made no opposition to staying over a night in the village, and joining him in holy matrimony to the woman of his choice, whom he imagined to be a poor but pretty peasant, so modest were our surroundings.”
Doña Isabel’s face darkened. “Hasten! hasten!” she muttered. “I see it all; deluded, unhappy girl.”
“Unhappy, yes!” cried the governess. “Prophetic were the tears that coursed over her cheeks, as she went with me to the chapel in the early morning, and there in the presence of a few peasants who had never seen her before, or failed to recognize her under the dingy reboso she wore, was married to the young American.”
“Ignorant imbeciles!” ejaculated Doña Isabel, but so low that no one distinctly caught her words. “And this marriage as you call it, in what language was it performed?”
“Oh, in English,” answered Mademoiselle La Croix, readily. “The priest knew no other. Immediately after the ceremony the bell sounded, the groom and bride separated, the people streamed in, and Holy Mass was celebrated, thus consecrating the marriage. Reassure yourself, Doña Isabel, all was right; the good priest gave a certificate in due form, which doubtless will be found among John Ashley’s papers.”
In spite of the stony yet furious gaze with which Doña Isabel had listened to these particulars, the governess had gathered confidence as she proceeded, and ended with a feeling that the most jealous doubter must be convinced, the most inveterate opponent silenced.
But far otherwise was the effect of her narrative upon Doña Isabel; she had been deceived by her own daughter, befooled by her hirelings. Her keen intelligence declared to her at once the fatal irregularity of the ceremony. It indeed vindicated the purity of Herlinda, but could it save her from dishonor? Thoughts of vague yet terrible meaning tormented her. The horrors of a past day returned with fresh complications to menace and torture her; and even had it been possible at that moment for her by one word to prove her daughter the honorable widow of John Ashley, it would have caused her a thousand pangs to have uttered it; and could one single word have brought him to life, she would have condemned herself to perpetual dumbness. A frenzy of shame and baffled intents possessed her. But her thoughts were not of these. She knew that this marriage as it stood was void; it met the requirements of neither Church nor State. Yet—yet—yet—there were possibilities: her family were powerful, her wealth was great.