her she put it aside, and lifted
her eyes to Antonia's face. They asked the question forever in her
heart, "Is Jack coming?" and Antonia pitifully shook her head.

Then the poor woman seemed to have reached the last pitch of endurance.
"Let me die!" she cried. "I can bear life no longer." To Mary and the
saints she appealed with a passionate grief that was distressing to
witness. All the efforts of her husband and her children failed to sooth
her; and, as often happens in a complication of troubles, she seized
upon the most trifling as the text of her complaint.

"I cannot eat corn bread; I have always detested it. I am hungry. I
am perishing for my chocolate. And I have no clothing. I am ashamed
of myself. I thank the saints I have no looking-glass. Oh, Roberto!
Roberto! What have you done to your Maria?"

"My dear wife! My dear, dear wife! Be patient a little longer. Think,
love, you are not alone. There are women here far more weary, far more
hungry; several who, in the confusion, have lost their little children;
others who are holding dying babes in their arms."

"Giver of all good! give me patience. I have to say to you that other
women's sorrows do not make me grateful for my own. And Santa Maria has
been cruel to me. Another more cruel, who can find? I have confessed to
her my heartache about Juan; entreated her to bring my boy to me. Has
she done it?"

"My darling Maria."

"Grace of God, Roberto! It is now the twenty-third of March; I have been
seventeen days wandering with my daughters like very beggars. If only I
had had the discretion to remain in my own house!"

"Maria, Lopez will tell you that Fray Ignatius and the brothers are in
possession of it. He saw them walking about the garden reading their
breviaries."

At this moment General Houston, in the opposite room was dictating:
"Before God, I have found the darkest hours of my life. For forty-eight
hours I have neither eaten an ounce of anything, nor have I slept." The
Senora's sobbing troubled him. He rose to close the door, and saw two
men entering. One leaned upon the other, and appeared to be at the point
of death.

"Where is there a doctor, General?"

"In that room, sir. Have you brought news of Fannin?"

"I have."

"Leave your comrade with the doctor, and report."

The entrance of the wounded man silenced the Senora. She turned her
face to the wall and refused to eat. Isabel sat by her side and held her
hand. The doctor glanced at i