Agueda's position was made the more unstable by her skirt, which fluttered in the wind.
"I can hold it but a second more," she said. She was still stooping, holding the boat in as firm a grasp as her footing would allow.
Beltran stood irresolute, wavering.
"I cannot leave you here, Agueda, to die perhaps—for—her—for me."
"I died long weeks ago," she muttered, more to herself than to him, and motioned again with her head toward the boat.
The water was rushing past them. It was ankle-deep now. Agueda steadied herself more firmly against the chimney.
Felisa, shivering with fright, stretched out her arms appealingly to Beltran, her cheeks streaming with tears. Beltran glanced at Agueda, with a look that was half beseeching, half apologetic, as if to forestall the contempt which he knew that she must feel for him, and—stepped into the boat. His weight tore it from Agueda's grasp. It began to float away, but before it had passed a span from where Agueda stood alone, he turned and shouted, "Come! Agueda, come! Throw yourself in, I can save you!"
Ah! that was all that she cared to hear. It was the old voice. It sank into her heart and gave her peace. For in that flash of sudden and overwhelming remorse which is stronger than death, Beltran had seen that which he had not noticed before, the sad change in her girlish figure. Felisa clung to him, threatening to upset the skiff. He thrust her from him. "Come!" again he shouted, "Come!" He stretched out his arms to Agueda, but as the words left his lips he was whirled from her presence.
In that supreme moment Beltran caught the motion of her lips. "My love!" they seemed to say, and still holding to the staple with one hand, she raised the other toward him, in good-by perhaps—perhaps in blessing.
Agueda kept her gaze fixed upon the little speck, shrinking involuntarily when she saw some great trunk endanger its buoyancy.