The voice of Rosarita, in pronouncing these words, was soft as the breeze that sighed through the groves of oranges; and her hand, falling as if by chance into that of Tiburcio, did not appear to shun the pressure given to it.
At the sight of this, the hand of Don Estevan gradually relaxed its hold upon the arm of Cuchillo.
“Yes,” continued Tiburcio, “my mother died in poverty, though she has left me a valuable inheritance, and at the same time a legacy of vengeance. True, it is a dangerous secret of which I am the heir, for it has already been death to those who possessed it; nevertheless it will furnish the means to raise myself to an opulence like your own. The vengeance which I have sworn to accomplish must be delayed, but it shall not be forgotten. I shall yet seek the murderer of Arellanos.”
At these words Cuchillo turned pale, impatiently grinding his teeth. His arm was no longer restrained, Don Estevan grasped it no more, for he saw that the hand of Rosarita was still pressed by that of Tiburcio.
“Here me further!” continued the young man. “About sixty leagues from here, in the heart of the Indian country, there is a placer of gold of incalculable richness; it was discovered by my adopted father. My mother on her death-bed gave me full directions to find the place; and all this gold may be mine, Rosarita, if you will only love me. Without your love I care nothing for it. What should I do with such riches?”
Tiburcio awaited the answer of Rosarita. That answer fell upon his heart like the tolling of a funeral knell.
“I hope, Tiburcio,” said she, with a significant smile, “that this is only a ruse on your part to put me to the proof—I hope so, because I do not wish to believe that you have acted so vile a part as to make yourself master of a secret that belongs to another.”
“The secret of another!” cried the young man in a voice hoarse with astonishment.
“Yes, a secret which belongs only to Don Estevan. I know it—”
Tiburcio at once fell from the summit of his dreams. So his secret, too, was lost to him as well as her whom he loved, this secret upon which he had built his sweetest hopes; and to add to the bitterness of his disappointment, she too—for whose sake alone he had valued it—she to accuse him of treason!