The fainting girl was tenderly placed in her bed, and all the care that loving hearts could bestow was lavished on her. But nearly two hours elapsed before she returned to consciousness. Then, after looking vaguely about the room for some minutes, an expression of pain came over her face, and looking at her father, she asked for Clarence.
“Victoriano has gone to call him,” Don Mariano replied, hoping that this little fiction would come true, and believing it would if Victoriano could overtake the fugitive.
“I am so glad,” she said, and with a sigh closed her eyes, lying so calmly that it was difficult to see whether she had relapsed into a swoon, or lay so quiet from sheer exhaustion.
In the meantime, he for whose love all this misery was suffered—and who shared it fully—was flying onward as rapidly as a couple of fast thoroughbreds could take him. Victoriano followed at full gallop, confident of overtaking him, or if not, of being in town before the steamer left. But the fates decided it should not be as the heart of the anxious rider wished, and when he rode up to the wharf the steamer was leaving it. He could see its lights moving swiftly away, and hear the shaking and revolving of the wheels on the smooth bay, as the black, floating mass glided off, like a cruel monster swimming away with the happiness of so many loving hearts.
Victoriano stood looking at the steamer with a disappointment so keen that it seemed unbearable. He could have rebelled against any power. Then a sense of realization of the inevitable came like a revelation to him, and he felt overpowered, surrounded by dangers that he might not avoid, because they would come upon him unawares.
In this perturbed state of mind he was still looking at the steamer passing over the moonlit bay, when the freight agent for the steamer came to say that Mr. Darrell had left a note for him, and he would bring it if he waited. Victoriano not only would wait, but followed to the door of the freight office.
The agent said, as he handed the note, that Mr. Darrell had left orders at the stable to keep the two horses and phæton until Don Victoriano sent for them. Eagerly Victoriano read the note. It ran thus:
Dear Tano:
Forgive me for not waiting to bid you good-by. I feared to miss the boat; and since Doña Josefa desired to postpone the wedding, I thought it was best for me to be away, under present circumstances. It would be too unendurable in my painful humiliation to be constantly dreading some other unexpected outbreak from my father. My presence would be a source of irritation to him, which might lead to worse results.
Say to Don Mariano and Don Gabriel I will write to them as soon as I reach San Francisco, perhaps before. My love to all of you, my good and beloved friends. Heaven bless you all.
I don't ask you to think kindly of me, for I know you will. I feel sick in mind and body; and how I wish I could have slept under your hospitable roof.
Tell Retty to write or telegraph how Alice is. I was so disappointed not to find Miss Mercedes when I drove back. I had felt so sure I heard her voice calling me, that I was faint with disappointment and thoroughly heartsick.
Good-by, dear Tano, again. God bless you all.
Ever your true friend,
Clarence.
P. S.—I leave you my horses and phæton
Ever your true friend,
Clarence.
There was nothing for Victoriano to do now but return home. He went to the stable, ordered fresh horses put to the phæton, and leaving his own horse with the other two, said he would send for them when they were thoroughly rested. He went to see Clarence's horses himself to be sure that they were well groomed. Two men were rubbing them down, and he saw that neither of the two fine animals had been hurt by their furious drive. He patted them, and they turned their pretty heads and intelligent eyes, expanding their nostrils as they recognized him.