Perico stops: "Father," he says, "it is she! it is Rita!"
"My son," replies the priest, "think only of God, in whose presence you are going to appear, contrite, reconciled, and happy, carrying with you your expiation."
"Father, if I could only see her before I die?"
"My son, think of the bitter punishment and of the glorious illumination you are going to receive from man, who is the instrument of God in your destiny." Perico wishes to turn "Forward!" orders the sergeant.
He mounts the scaffold and kneels to the spiritual father, who with a calm face, but a heart sorely oppressed, blesses him. He kisses the crucifix, that other scaffold, upon which the Man-God expiated the sins of others, still turning his eyes toward the place from which the voice sounded that pierced his heart; seats himself upon the bench; the executioner, who stands behind him, places the garrote around his neck; the priest intones the creed; the executioner turns the screw, and a simultaneous cry, "Ave Maria purissima!" sounds in the plaza. With this invocation to the Mother of God, humanity takes leave of the condemned at the moment that he is separated from it by the hand of the law.
The executioner covers the face of the victim with a black cloth, and the black shadow of the wings of death falls upon the hushed multitude.
Some compassionate persons carried Rita away senseless. Her situation was terrible beyond expression. The convulsions which shook her left her but few moments of consciousness, and in these moments she gave way to her despair in a way so frightful that they were obliged to hold her as if she had been mad. For some days it was impossible to move her. At length her relatives brought a cart to take her away. They laid her in it, upon a mattress, but not one of them would accompany her for shame. Maria went alone with her child, sustaining her head upon her lap. Rita's long black hair fell around her like a veil, covering her from the glances of the indiscreet and curious. "There goes," they said, as they saw her pass, "the wife of the criminal, who by her indiscretion sent him to the scaffold." But the oxen did not hasten their deliberate steps. It seemed as if they also had a mission to fulfil, in prolonging the punishment of reprobation to her who hid provoked it with so much audacity. Maria went like a resigned martyr. Her gentle heart had been made as it were elastic, in order to contain without bursting an immensity of suffering. From time to time Rita shuddered and broke into lamentations, pressing convulsively her mother's knees. The latter said nothing, for even she found no words of consolation for such grief.
They reached the village as night was coming on. The cart stopped before their house, and Rita was lifted out.
She sees a window wide open in her mother-in-law's house; through this window an unusual light is shining. She breaks away from the arms that sustain her and rushes to the grating. In the middle of the room which she inhabited in happy times, stands a bier. Four wax candles throw their solemn light upon the calm form of Elvira. She is as white as her shroud; her hands are crossed, and through her right arm passes a palm branch--emblem consecrated to virginity. Thus in simple grace, and in the attitude of prayer, lies the pious village maiden.