He took her hand, and she let him have it. What could it matter now what he had of hers? "Manuela," he said, "there is a way of freedom for you, if you will take it. A man loves you truly, and asks nothing better than to work for you. I know him; he's been a good friend to me. Will you let me pay you off my debt? His name is Gil Perez. You have seen him, I know. He's an honest man, my dear, and loves you to distraction. What are you going to say to him if he asks for you?"
She stood, handfasted to the man who had kissed her—and in kissing her had drawn out her soul through her lips; who now was pleading that another man might have her dead lips. The mockery of the thing might have made a worse woman laugh horribly; but this was a woman made pure by love. She saw no mockery, no discrepancy in what he asked her. She knew he was in earnest and wished her nothing but good.
And she could see, without knowing that she saw, how much he desired to be rid of his obligation to her. Therefore, she reasoned, she would be serving him again if she agreed to what he proposed. Here—if laughing had been her mood—was matter for laughter, that when he tried to pay her off he was really getting deeper into debt. Look at it in this way. You owe a fine sum, principal and interest, to a Jew; you go to him and propose to borrow again of him in order that you may pay off the first debt and be done with it. The Jew might laugh but he would lend; and Manuela, who hoarded love, hugged to her heart the new bond she was offered. The deeper he went into debt the more she must lend him! There was pleasure in this—shrill pleasure not far off from pain; but she was a child of pleasure, and must take what she could get.
Her grave eyes, uncurtained, searched his face. "Is this what you desire me to do? Is this what you ask of me?"
"My dear," said he, "I desire your freedom. I desire to see you happy and cared for. I must go away. I must go home. I shall go more willingly if I know that I have provided for my friend."
She urged a half-hearted plea. "I am very well here, Don Osmundo. The sisters are kind to me, the work is light. I might be happy here——"
"What!" he cried, "in prison!"
"It is what I deserve," she said; but he would not hear of it.
"You are here through my blunders," he insisted. "If I hadn't left you with that scoundrel in the wood this would never have happened. And there's another thing which I must say——" He grew very serious. "I'm ashamed of myself—but I must say it." She looked at her hands in her lap, knowing what was coming.
"They said, you know, that Estéban must have thought me your lover." She sat as still as death. "Well—I was."