The girl and the mistress of Tres Hermanos looked at each other searchingly; then Doña Isabel turned and led the way across the court. Chinita followed her with head erect and sparkling eyes. Pedro entered at the instant, but his foster daughter did not hear him; but Feliz, who gave way that the strangely associated lady and girl might pass, looked up, and her eyes met those of the gatekeeper. Pedro approached with his Indian, cat-like silence of movement, and found her standing as if in a dream. The eyes of the man filled with tears. He was too lowly to manifest resentment at the studied reserve he believed Doña Feliz had for years preserved toward him, while still she had made him her tool. He and such as he were made for use. Yet inferior as he was, they had been workers in a common cause, and their common purposes seemed now frustrated at a word.
He bent humbly and touched the fringe of her reboso.
“Have I done well, Doña Feliz?” he queried in a broken voice. “Alas! I can do no more. You see how blood flows to blood, as the brooks turn to the river.”
Feliz started. “Strange! strange!” she muttered. She turned upon Pedro a glance of mingled pity and deprecation. She seemed about to say more, but paused. “Thou art a good man, Pedro,” she presently whispered. “Thou hast done a greater work than thou guessest. Be content. Thou knowest the child’s nature,—Chinita will not suffer with Doña Isabel; but she who thrust from her bosom the dove will perchance warm the adder into life.”
“No, no!” cried the man, vehemently. “Cruel, bitter woman! Chinita hath been my child, and though she turn from me I will hear no evil of her. I will live or die for her!” The unwonted outburst ended in a sob, and before he could speak again, Doña Feliz had passed across the court, but—strange condescension!—she had seized his hand and pressed it to her lips, in irresistible homage to a devotion as pure and unselfish as that of the loftiest knight who ever drew sword in the cause of helpless innocence.
Pedro turned to his alcove dazed, stunned. To him it was as if a star should leave its place in heaven to touch the vilest clod upon the highway. A very miracle!
XXIII.
Although Doña Rita had left her home upon a sad errand, and her tears flowed fast when on embracing her mother she beheld upon her countenance the shadow of death, that first startling impression vanquished, she allowed herself to be deceived by the fitful brightness that hovers over the consumptive; and as days passed on she felt a pleased sense of freedom and relaxation, and her return to her early home, which had been undertaken as a pilgrimage, assumed much of the character of an ordinary visit of pleasure.
Doña Rita was a member of a large family, of whom most had married; so that her parents, relieved from cares that had long pressed upon them, were enabled to live in the little town of El Toro with an ease and comfort from which in their narrow circumstances they had necessarily been debarred while the children were dependent. They were, strictly speaking, people of the class known as medio pelo, or “the half-clothed order,” as far below the aristocrat as above the plebeian; and Rita Farias had been thought to have risen greatly in life when she became the wife of Rafael Sanchez, though he was then but a clerk, the son of the administrador of Tres Hermanos, with no prospect of succeeding soon to his honors. But as the pious neighbors said when they heard of the early death of the bridegroom’s father, “God blessed her with both hands,” of which one held marriage, and the other death; so Doña Rita was accustomed when she at rare intervals visited her parents to be looked upon with ever increasing respect. Such silken skirts and rebosos as she wore were seldom seen within the quiet precincts of El Toro.
Doña Rita herself was not quite clear upon the point as to whether or not her native place could be considered to rival “the City,” as Mexico was called par excellence, or even Guadalajara, which she had heard was a labyrinth of palaces; but Rosario who had seen El Toro declared to Chata that nothing could be finer, and Chata herself was quite convinced of that when opening her eyes suddenly upon the clear moonlight night on which the diligence stopped before the door of the inn, she first looked out upon the plaza.