Doña Feliz watched her with deep, inquiring eyes. Her child stood there, a voiceless pleader, her utter abandonment of grief appealing to the heart of the mother; but between them was an impregnable wall of pride and a cloud of possibilities which confused and distracted her. She came to no determination, made no resolve, but clasping her hands over her eyes, stood as if a gulf had opened in her path,—from which she could not turn, and over which she dared not pass. Slowly, at last, she dropped her arms, resumed her usual aspect of composure, and passed from the room. For some moments the little group she had left remained motionless. A profound stillness reigned throughout the house. Time itself seemed arrested, and the one word breathed through the silence seemed to describe the whole world to those within the walls,—“dead! dead! dead!”
V.
As Doña Isabel Garcia turned from her daughter’s apartment, she stepped into a corridor flooded with the dazzling sunshine of a perfect morning, and as she passed on in her long black dress, the heavily beamed roof interposing between her uncovered head and the clear and shining blue of the sky, there was something almost terrible in the stony gaze with which she met the glance of the woman-servant who hurried after her to know if she would as usual break her fast in the little arbor near the fountain. It terrified the woman, who drew back with a muttered “Pardon, Señora!” as the lady swept by her, and entered her own chamber.
The volcano of feeling which surged within her burst forth, not in sobs and cries, not in passionate interjections, but in the tones of absolute horror in which she uttered the two names that had severally been to her the dearest upon earth,—“Leon!” and “Herlinda!” and which at that moment were equally synonymous of all most terrible, most dreaded, and were the most powerful factors amid the love, the honor, the pride, the passions and prejudices which controlled her being.
For a time she stood in the centre of her apartment, striking unconsciously with her clenched hand upon her breast blows that at another time would have been keenly felt, but the swelling emotions within rendered her insensible to mere bodily pain. Indeed, as the moments passed it brought a certain relief; and as her walking to and fro brought her at last in front of the window which opened upon the broad prospect to the west, she paused, and looked long and fixedly toward the reduction-works, as if her vision could penetrate the stone walls, and read the mind which had perished with the man who lay murdered within them.
As she stood thus, she presently became aware that a sound which she had heard without heeding,—as one ignores passing vibrations upon the air, that bring no special echo of the life of which we are active, conscious parts,—was persistently striving to make itself heard; and with an effort she turned to the door, upon which fell another timid knock, and bade the suppliant enter; for the very echo of his knocking proclaimed a suppliant. She started as her eyes fell upon the haggard face of Pedro the gate-keeper.
He entered almost stealthily, closing the door softly behind him. “Señora,” he whispered, coming up to her quite closely, extending his hands in a deprecating way, “Señora, by the golden keys of my patron, I swear to you I was powerless. Don Juan told me he had your Grace’s own authority; he told me they were married!”
Doña Isabel started. In the same sentence the man had so skilfully mingled truth and falsehood that even she was deceived. By representing to his mistress that Ashley had used her name to gain entrance to the hacienda, he had hoped to divert her anger from himself,—and what matter though it fell unjustly upon the dead man? But in fact the second phrase of the sentence, “He told me they were married,” was what struck most keenly upon the ear of Doña Isabel, and chilled her very blood. How much, then, did this servant know? How far was she in his power? Until that moment she had not known—had not suspected—that the murdered man and the murderer had been within the walls of the hacienda buildings. This knowledge but confirmed her intuitions! Partly to learn facts which might guide her, and partly to gain time, she looked with her coldest, most petrifying gaze upon the man, and asked him what he meant, and bade him tell her all, even as he would confess to the priest, for so only he might hope to escape her most severe displeasure.
As she spoke, she had glided behind him and slipped the bolt of the door, and stood before the solid slab of unpolished but time-darkened cedar, a very monument of wrath. Pedro trembled more than ever, but was not for that the less consistent in his tale of mingled truth and falsehood. He had begun it with the name “The Señorita Herlinda,” but Doña Isabel stopped him with a portentous frown.
“Her name,” she said, “my daughter’s name need not be mentioned. She knows nothing of the woman John Ashley came here to see, if there is one; the Señorita Herlinda has nothing to do with her, nor with your tale. Proceed.”