Tia Teresa, too, had arisen.
“God grant it may be so,” she fervently exclaimed. “But somehow my mind misgives me. Today I am softened as I have never been before. Even for the sake of our dear Rosetta in Heaven I feel inclined to plead with you to let Thurston go his way and the vendetta be forgotten.” And she clung to his arm imploringly.
“Never!” cried Don Manuel, putting her gently but resolutely aside. “That can never be, Tia Teresa. You know it. A vow sworn over my wronged and murdered sister’s grave, over the graves of my parents as well, must be fulfilled. To break it at the very moment when it is in my power to give it fulfillment would be the act of a coward—a sacrilege that could never be atoned. No more words like that. I must not even listen.”
She was sobbing as she dropped back into her chair. Her silence was the confession that she was powerless to argue against the unwritten law of the vendetta.
“So I kiss you good-bye for the present, Tia Teresa.” He suited the action to the word, and, stooping, saluted her first on one cheek, then on the other. “Be your old brave and resolute self again. Where shall I find Mrs. Darlington?”
“Alone in her boudoir. This is her day for correspondence,” replied the duenna, resolutely striving to repress her tears.
“Then I’ll leave you here. Let your best wishes go with me.”
Almost lightly he touched her hand and was gone, disappearing among the roses.
Tia Teresa bowed her head across her folded arms. She was thinking not of the past now, but solely of the future.
“How would it all end?”