Ashley Ward, with other officers and gentlemen, had busied himself in bestowing the poor ladies as rapidly and commodiously as possible in the carriages, and as the last one turned the corner of the great building, the soldiers fell into line at the word of command; and in a few moments he found himself alone. He discovered this when he turned to speak to Gonzales. He was nowhere to be seen, and Ashley remembered that when he had last seen him it was at the chapel door, watching with pale and anxious countenance the exit of the nuns.
Gonzales had been suffering from a recent wound. Had the fatigue and exposure, and that deadly sickness of crushed and dying hope overcome him? Ashley caught up a torch, which was sputtering and about to expire on the dripping pave, fanned for a moment its flame, and then made his way back into the forsaken building.
He found Gonzales standing on the spot where he had parted from him, and before him stood a man with a flickering torch. Both were in an attitude of extreme dejection; both started as Ashley’s footsteps broke the stillness. Pedro—for the second man was he—led the way into the outer darkness, and Gonzales, having in his hand the heavy key which had been delivered by the abbess, turned to lock the abandoned house. He paused and looked to the right and left. The street was utterly forsaken; the rain came in gusts, and it was with much ado that Pedro, turning hither and thither, kept alive the flame of the torch.
Once as he turned, the light fell full upon the face and figure of Ward; and at the instant an exclamation of incredulous joy, followed by a groan, fell upon their ears. Gonzales dropped the key, and it rang sharply upon the stones at his feet.
“There is a woman here!” he ejaculated breathlessly. Something in the tones had drawn the blood from his heart. “Here! here! a light, Pedro, in God’s name!”
The senses of Pedro were even more acute than those of Gonzales and Ward. Not only had he heard the voice, but he knew whose it was, and whence it had come. His torch flashed upon an alcove of the deep wall; and there ensconced they saw the sombre and meanly clad figure of a nun. She had covered her face; her form shook violently.
“Señorita,” said Gonzales, recovering himself and respectfully approaching the woman, “forgive us that you are left behind. We thought all had been provided for—all.”
“It is I who would have it so,—I who promised myself I would escape,” answered the nun, brokenly, yet with an almost fierce intensity. “Have I not prayed and wept for this hour? Could I let it pass? No, no! I lingered—I fled—I could not, would not, go with them. They would have dragged me with them across the seas—away—away from her,—my child! my child!”
She uttered the last words almost in a scream, yet her gaze followed Ward. “Who is he? who is he?” she asked in a feverish whisper. “It is not my murdered angel,—my love, my husband,—it is not he; and yet so like! Oh my God, is it because thou hast forgiven me that thou bringest this vision before me?”
Gonzales started back; gazed eagerly, rapturously at the nun; then rushed to clasp the coarse folds of her drapery. Pedro dropped at her feet. Ward alone uttered her name,—“Herlinda!”