The form of the excited woman dilated as she spoke. Through the dim chapel her voice pealed with a ring of purity and truth, more clear than the tone of silver bells. There was a clamor of answering voices. Even the priest started forward, but Chata caught his flowing gown and whispered him in broken accents,—
“Oh, for the pity of God hide me. Let her not see me! Oh, this is too terrible, too terrible!” She shook with dread. “Madre Sanctissima, it will kill me if her eyes fall upon me! I am the daughter of the man she seeks. O Virgin of Succors, pity me!”
The burly person of the priest supported and sheltered the stricken and trembling girl. “Courage, courage!” he whispered. “Thou shalt plead for him. For thy sake she will forego the claims of justice,—she will forgive!” He naturally attributed her emotion to apprehensions for her father’s fate. “Yes, even I will plead with her.”
But in the brief space of this interference there had been a movement at the door, and a strange voice was heard. Gonzales—who throughout had stood just back of Herlinda, chafing that he was not at her side, for he would have championed her before the world—disappeared for a moment; then returning, strode forward to the fire and raised Doña Isabel with a not unkindly though imperious hand.
“Señora,” he said, “I have this moment heard news of Ramirez, brought by an escaped prisoner, one of your own men, Pepé Ortiz by name. As we suspected, the defeated and desperate chief is on his way to, perhaps has entered, Las Parras. There is no time to be lost. With him—accusing him, for such was her mad purpose—we may find your daughter’s child. Oh, would to God,” he added with fervor, “I had known this horrible blight upon Herlinda’s young life! I would have sheltered, I would have sustained her. I would have appealed to Rome.”
Doña Isabel looked at Gonzales in a dazed way, slightly swaying as she stood. “Thou wert ever noble, ever true,” she said dreamily. “Thou lovedst her. But Leon? She spoke of Leon. Then it is true! He did indeed murder the American. But he is dead; he is dead.”
The mind of the poor lady seemed wandering. She stood looking about her with an awful smile. Gonzales saw that she did not connect the name of Ramirez with her brother. Illness, exertion, and the intense emotions of that hour had made it impossible for her to receive any fresh impressions, or even to recall those that perhaps had once faintly suggested themselves and had faded. She was conscious of but one thought, one hope. “Herlinda’s child, Herlinda’s child!” she repeated again and again. “O God, to find, to give back the child!”
The agonized woman would have clasped the hand of Gonzales appealingly, but he had turned and led Herlinda from the place. Chata, gliding toward Doña Isabel, drew the arm of the suffering lady around her neck, and murmuring fond words, thus stood supporting her. And thus some moments later Ashley Ward found them. The young girl seemed in his eyes the very embodiment of Tenderness supporting Despair.
Ashley took her hand. “Oh, Chata!” he said, “what a fearful error this has been! And Chinita, where shall we find her? Poor girl, poor girl! God grant she has not found that man; the horrible fascination he held over her might prove more fatal than her newly-sworn hatred. Come, come, let us hasten. It is at least certain that Ramirez is at this moment in Las Parras.”
“Chinita!” cried Chata, her heart sickening. “What, is Chinita the child of Doña Herlinda? I love her, but oh she—the Señorita Herlinda! No, no, it cannot be!”