A violent conflict appeared to arise in the breast of Rosarita. Her bosom swelled with conflicting emotions, as she fixed upon Tiburcio a glance of tender reproach, but she remained silent.
To a man of Tiburcio’s age the heart of a woman is a sealed book. Not till we have lost the attractions of youth—so powerful, despite its inexperience—are we able to penetrate the mysteries of the female heart—a sad compensation which God accords to the maturity of age. At thirty years Tiburcio would have remained. But he was yet only twenty-four; he had spent his whole life in the desert, and this was his first love.
“You will not say it? Adieu, then,” cried he, “I am no longer your guest,” and saying this, he leaped over the broken wall, before the young girl could offer any opposition to his departure.
Stupefied by this unexpected movement, she mounted upon the fragments that lay at the bottom of the wall, and stretching her arms toward the forest, she cried out—
“Tiburcio! Tiburcio! do not leave us so; do you wish to bring upon our house the malediction of heaven?”
But her voice was either lost to his ears, or he disdained to reply.
She listened a moment, she could hear the sound of his footsteps fast dying in the distance—until they could be heard no more.
“Oh! my God,” cried she, falling upon her knees in an attitude of prayer, “protect this young man from the dangers that threaten him. Oh God! watch over him, for alas! he carries with him my heart.”
Then forgetting in her grief her projects of ambition, the will of her father, all that deceptive confidence, which had kept silent the voice of a love, of the existence of which she was hitherto almost ignorant—the young girl rose hastily from her knees, once more mounted upon the wall, and in a heart-rending voice called out, “Come back! Tiburcio; come back! I love only you!”
But no answer was returned, and wrapping her face in her reboso, she sat down and wept.