Perhaps I should not say transient; since, after a very short interval of relief, it came back bitter as before—with a bitterness long, long, to continue.
The illusion was due to a process of reasoning that passed through my mind as I stood looking after the carretela, after the incident described.
I had conceived a half hope.
Mercedes might be only a messenger? The note might have been from Dolores—the guarded Dolores, who dared not go out alone?
The sisters might be confidantes—a thing not uncommon in Mexico, or even in England? Dolores, threatened with a cloister, might have no other means of corresponding with her “querido Francisco?”
This view of the case was more pleasing than probable.
It might have been both, but for my knowledge of “society” as it exists in the City of the Angels. From the insight I had obtained, I could too readily believe, that the handsome Captain Moreno was playing false with a pair of sisters!
Only for an instant was I permitted to indulge in the unworthy suspicion.
But the certainty that succeeded it, was equally painful to reflect upon: for I left the Alameda with the knowledge that Francisco Moreno had one love; and she the lady who had driven past in her carretela!
I obtained the information through a dialogue heard accidentally behind me.