"He ruined my life, made me the wreck that I am—I, who was called one of the greatest beauties of my day. I was never happy for a single moment after I became his wife; but that is only what I might have expected from the curse that rests upon me."
"The curse that rests upon you?" returned Carlita, looking at her mother for the first time with a dawning interest. "Why, what curse rests upon you?"
"It is that about which I wanted to talk to you, that about which I wanted to tell you. My poor child, when you go into the world, at my death, you will go with the same curse upon you that has spoiled my life, and that must wreck yours."
"Mother, what do you mean?" asked Carlita.
"It is a curse of Pocahontas, child—the curse that falls, from generation to generation, upon one girl child who shows the trace of the Indian, and you are that one! I was the one of my generation, you of yours."
"Mother, you are jesting."
"I am in most deadly earnest, Carlita. You know that we are descendants of Pocahontas. She married a white man—John Rolf, if you remember—and died a broken-hearted woman. She left one son, and upon her death-bed she pronounced a curse—a curse that has never failed to fall. It was that one girl descendant of each generation should suffer, through her love, even as she had suffered. It was that she should know no happiness; that if she dared to love, the most bitter misery should fall upon her and the man of her choice. And the curse has never failed, Carlita. It has never failed and it never can fail. Think! You have heard the story of how, when your great-aunt and uncle were coming from their wedding, the skiff in which they were crossing the river capsized, and all within it were drowned—six of them! Your great-grandmother went mad, and died a raving maniac, when her husband was killed right before her eyes. Your grandmother died of a broken heart when her husband wandered away, and no one ever knew whether the Indians killed him, or he simply deserted her. He was never heard of afterward. Your mother's pitiful history you know well enough; it needs no repetition. I want you to know all this, and that the curse has descended to you, in order that you may escape the misery and heartache that has fallen upon the others of your race. If you would save yourself from suffering and death, you must never love!"
The girl sprang to her feet, the crimson color passionately staining her cheeks.
"Mother!" she cried, hotly, "what are you saying? Would you rob a young life of all that makes it worth the living? Would you make of me a hermit, shunning the whole world, and shunned in turn? Would you deprive me of that sentiment for which God created me woman?"
The invalid stretched out her hands again deprecatingly.