For a moment, I stood rooted with apprehension; I dared not enter. A horrible dread deprived me of strength, until from within a piteous sobbing, more musical, more welcome than any sounds which I had ever before heard, told me that the child I sought was safe.
"Thank God!" I cried, springing into the room.
There, upon Sidney's deserted bed, upon his pillow, lay Mariposilla.
For a moment I shrank away, for the child had not heard me enter. I would willingly have allowed her the full extent of her strange, unusual consolation. Now that she was safe, I would have stayed with her the remainder of the afternoon, but the thought of the Doña Maria compelled me to speak.
"Dear child," I said, approaching the bed; "you must come home. We are in great distress. Your grandmother has just died."
"Just died?" she repeated, touchingly. "Why can I, too, not die? Indeed, kind Señora, I am most tired of life; I would gladly go with my grandmother."
"No, dear," I answered, "you must not want to die. It is wrong for you to remain so miserable. You should remember your dear mother, and try to recover your spirits, to be once more our good, happy child.
"Think no more of Sidney; dismiss now forever from your thoughts the selfish man who has deceived you."
Like a young tigress wounded into fury, the girl sprang from the bed.