Truth compels me to the sad, disgraceful confession: that I listened to the tale with a sort of satisfaction! Jealousy was still alive—anger not dead—within my heart!
Though remembered with reluctance, too keenly did I feel the slight that had been put upon me.
The ungentle thought did not for long control me. Soon was it succeeded by one purer and holier—sprung from such chivalry as I possessed. A weak woman in the power of wild, wanton men—two of them, for that matter; though I thought but of one—borne off by brigands to some hideous haunt—some scene of lascivious revel!
They were horrid fancies that came crowding upon me. They drove jealousy out of my heart, and along with it my senseless anger.
These gone, I became inspired by a slight, scarcely definable, pleasure—like the distant re-dawning of a hope that has been for a time extinguished.
What if I should be the means of rescuing Dolores Villa-Señor from the hands of her worse than savage captors—of saving her from a life-long shame?
Might not the gratitude, called forth by such a deed, become changed to that other feeling, I had once fondly fancied to have been entertained in my favour?
I could have risked everything—life itself—to bring about such a revolution!
After all, had I not been too precipitate in my conclusions? Was it certain she had surrendered her heart—her whole heart—to Francisco Moreno?
The episode in the Alameda—of which I had been a spectator—might it not have been but a bit of flirtation, deftly practised by Spanish dames, and oft without serious intent, or termination?