At that instant the slide was drawn and the white face and eager eyes of the nun disappeared.
Chata turned to look behind her where the nun had apparently directed her gaze. A woman was crouching on the door-sill. She was not old, though over her wonderful Spanish beauty some power of devastation seemed to have swept. She was carelessly but richly dressed, the disorder of her person seemingly according with that of her manner,—perhaps of her intellect; for though evidently a lady by birth, she lay in the sun, her head uncovered, her shawl thrown back from her shoulders, her hair, which was of a peculiar reddish brown, half uncoiled, twining like little serpents around her throat.
She glanced carelessly up as Doña Rita and the young girls passed her. Chata saw with surprise that one side of her face was bruised, and there was a deep scratch on her arm. Where had she seen before the glint of that shining hair? It flashed over her in a moment. This was the woman who had thrown herself upon Ramirez!
Chata involuntarily paused, but Doña Rita caught her hand and drew her away. She had motioned Rosario on before. Her very garments had rustled with disdain as she passed the prostrate woman.
“Such as these one can at least be certain of,” she said sententiously. It was not a pleasant thing to own one’s self mistaken. Chata detected chagrin in the tone of her voice: was she piqued that she had misjudged Sister Veronica? Then she remembered with a start what the new interest of the moment had driven from her mind,—the name by which her mother had addressed the nun: it was of the Señorita Herlinda that her mother had asked pardon!
A feeling of awe crept over her. She had seen Doña Isabel’s beautiful and sainted daughter, around whose name hung so much romance and mystery. And oh the sadness of that face! the wistfulness of those eyes! the appealing agony of that voice!
When they reached the house the door was ajar; there was a mild excitement within. A familiar voice saluted their ears. Doña Rita clutched Chata’s arm and whispered, “Not a word, I command thee!” and with a glance of mingled entreaty and menace followed Rosario to greet Don Rafael with exclamations of welcome and delight.
Chata took with icy fingers the hand he extended at sight of her and bent over it with tears and kisses. “My father, my own father!” she whispered. Even had she been at liberty to do so, she would not for the world have broken the spell of those words.
“My patron saint!” cried Don Rafael, regarding her with puzzled fondness, “what has come to the child?” He caught her on his arm and held her from him. Her eyelids lowered, her color rose beneath his gaze. Presently he released her and turned away. He had not kissed her. Had he forgotten? Had some new, deep feeling withheld him? Chata felt cold and faint; he too had muttered under his breath, “That face! that face!” and he had spoken those words of her.