The “blue-eyed colleen” of Castle Ballagh must have been a myth—having existence only in the erratic fancy of Phelim. Or it may have been the bud of a young love, blighted ere it reached blooming—by absence, oft fatal to such tender plants of passion?
Whether or no, Louise Poindexter—Lady Gerald she must now be called—during her sojourn in the Emerald Isle saw nothing to excite her to jealousy.
Only once again did this fell passion take possession of her spirit; and then only in the shape of a shadow soon to pass away.
It was one day when her husband came home to the hacienda—bearing in his arms the body of a beautiful woman!
Not yet dead; though the blood streaming from a wound in her bared bosom showed she had not long to live.
To the question, “Who has done this?” she was only able to answer, “Diaz—Diaz!”
It was the last utterance of Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos!
As the spirit of the unhappy señorita passed into eternity, along with it went all rancour from that of her more fortunate rival. There can be no jealousy of the dead. That of Lady Gerald was at rest, and for ever.
It was succeeded by a strong sympathy for the ill-fated Isidora; whose story she now better comprehended. She even assisted her lord in the saddling of his red-bay steed, and encouraged him in the pursuit of the assassin.
She joyed to see the latter led back at the end of a lazo—held in the hand of her husband; and refused to interfere, when a band of Regulators, called hastily together, dealt out summary chastisement—by hanging him to a tree!