Unlike me, he was not kept long in suspense. Ten o’clock had evidently been the hour of appointment. The cathedral was to give the time; and, as the tolling commenced, the cloaked cavalier had entered the street, and hastened forward to the place.
As the last strokes were reverberating upon the still night air, I saw the blind silently drawn aside; while a face—too often outlined in my dreams—now, in dim but dread reality, appeared within the embayment of the window.
The instant after, and a form, robed in dark habiliments, stepped silently out into the balcony; a white arm was stretched over the balusters; something still whiter, appearing at the tips of tapering fingers, fell noiselessly into the street, accompanied by the softly whispered words:
“Querido Francisco; va con Dios!” (God be with you, dear Francis!)
Before the billet-doux could be picked up from the pavement, the fair whisperer disappeared within the window; the jalousie was once more drawn: and both house and street relapsed into sombre silence.
No one passing the mansion of Don Eusebio Villa-Señor could have told, that his daughter had been committing an indiscretion. That secret was in the keeping of two individuals; one to whom it had, no doubt, imparted supreme happiness; the other to whom it had certainly given a moment of misery!