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s daughter. The rain had ceased and the storm had spent itself. It was a calm and beautiful night, the moon shining with tropic splendor through the open window dispensed with the necessity of lights. There was no one in the cabinet when he entered, and he felt at last able to give way to his emotion; Mercedes though she was not married was now lost to him beyond recourse. After the women withdrew from the hall with Donna Mercedes there was no restraint put upon the young nobles, and from the other side of the patio came the sound of uproarious revelry and feasting--his friends and comrades with generous cheer felicitating the happy bridegroom that was to be. Alvarado was alone, undisturbed, forgotten, and likely to remain so. He put his head upon his hands and groaned in anguish. "Why should it not have been I?" he murmured. "Is he stronger, braver, a better soldier? Does he love her more? O Mother of God! Riches? Can I not acquire them? Fame? Have I not a large measure? Birth? Ah, that is it! My father! my mother! If I could only know! How she looked at me! What piteous appeal in her eyes! What reproach when I stood passive cased in iron, with a breaking heart. O my God! My God! Mercedes! Mercedes!" In his anguish he called the name aloud. So absorbed and preoccupied in his grief had he been that he was not aware of a figure softly moving along the balcony in the shadow. He did not hear a footfall coming through the open window that gave into the room. He did not realize that he had an auditor to his words, a witness to his grief, until a touch soft as a snowflake fell upon his fair head and a voice for which he languished whispered in his ear: "You called me; I am come." "Senorita Mercedes!" he cried, lifting his head and gazing upon her in startled surprise. "How came you here?" he added brusquely, catching her hands with a fierce grasp in the intensity of his emotion as he spoke. "Is this my greeting?" she answered, surprised in turn that he had not instantly swept her to his heart. She strove to draw herself away, and when he perceived her intent he opened his hands and allowed her arms to fall by her side. "I have been mistaken," she went on piteously, "I am not wanted." She turned away and stood full in the silver bar of the moonlight streaming through the casement. Her white face shone in the light against the dark background of the huge empty room--that face with its aureole of soft dark hair
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