Here the woman grew so faint that she was obliged to stop speaking, and Catrina wept as though her heart would break.
Poor girl! she had been hardly used, but she knew no other fate; and though she did not love the step-mother as she did the little Gracia, it seemed very desolate to sit there by the dying woman who had given her a home, poor though it was. She pressed the cold hand to her lips, and buried her head in the bed-clothes.
“Oh! that child!” gasped the wretched woman. “Catrina, I have no time to lose. I see every thing so differently.
“I have been crazy, but all is clear now. Catrina, when you think of me remember me only as a poor suffering woman, and forgive me, as you hope for God’s mercy.
“But the child! in that trunk you will find her clothes and papers which will prove her birth. Her father is a good and true man, as I have learned this day. My life’s great wrong came from another’s hand.
“Promise me, Catrina, that you will never rest till you have restored her to her home, and the parents who love her.”
The step-mother’s words grew fainter, but her eyes, full of the brightness of expiring fires, were fixed upon Catrina, who reverently made the sign of the cross, and bowed her head in solemn acquiescence.
“Catrina,” she continued, “go up to the cañon, keeping to the right, then over the mountain path, till you come to the great wood.” A spasm of pain convulsed her, and she ceased speaking. In a few moments it passed away, and a calm happy smile settled upon her face.
“I repent of all my sins; I forgive even the murderer of him who was dearer than my life. Now, may God have mercy upon my soul.”
The husky voice was hushed, the clasped hands relaxed, and the suffering woman was dead!