Rosarita paused in her prayer.
“Tiburcio Arellanos will be here to-night.”
This time the young girl no longer prayed. It was Tiburcio and not Fabian, Count of Mediana. Tiburcio, poor, and unknown, for whom she had wept. At the sound of this name, she listened. Honours, titles, wealth. What were they to her? Fabian lived, and loved her still, what more could she desire?
“If you will come to the breach in the wall, where, full of despair, he parted from you, you will find him there this very evening. Do you remember the place?”
“Oh! my God!” she murmured, softly, “do I not visit it every evening?”
And once more bending before the image of the Virgin, Rosarita resumed her interrupted prayer.
The adventurer contemplated for some instants this enthusiastic and beautiful creature, her scarf partly concealing her figure, her nude shoulders caressed by the long tresses of her dark hair, which fell in soft rings upon their surface; then without interrupting her devotion, he rose from his seat and silently fitted the chamber.