nsensate passion. I sought to prevent this. One day, at the end of many
days during which he had stayed away, he came to see me, and found me
alone. When he gave me his hand, I wept; I could not speak, but hell
inspired me with an accursed, mute eloquence that told him of my grief
that he had scorned me, that he did not return my love, that he
preferred another love--a love without stain--to mine. Then he was
unable to resist the temptation, and he approached his lips to my face
to kiss away my tears. Our lips met. If God had not willed that you
should approach at that moment, what would have become of me?"

"How shameful! my child, how shameful!" said the reverend vicar.

Pepita covered her face with both hands and began to sob like a
Magdalen. Her hands were, in truth, beautiful, more beautiful even than
Don Luis had described them to be in his letters. Their whiteness, their
pure transparency, the tapering form of the fingers, the roseate hue,
the polish and the brilliancy of the pearl-like nails, all were such as
might turn the head of any man.

The virtuous vicar could understand, notwithstanding his eighty years,
the fall, or rather the slip, of Don Luis.

"Child!" he exclaimed, "don't cry so! It breaks my heart to see you.
Calm yourself; Don Luis has no doubt repented of his sin; do you repent
likewise, and nothing more need be said. God will pardon you both, and
make a couple of saints of you. Since Don Luis is going away the day
after to-morrow, it is a sure sign that virtue has triumphed in him, and
that he flies from you, as he should, that he may do penance for his
sin, fulfill his vow, and return to his vocation."

"That is all very well," replied Pepita; "fulfill his vow, return to his
vocation, after giving me my death-wound! Why did he love me, why did he
encourage me, why did he deceive me? His kiss was a brand, it was as a
hot iron with which he marked me and stamped me as his slave. Now that I
am marked and enslaved, he abandons and betrays and destroys me. A good
beginning to give to his missions, his preachings, and gospel triumphs!
It shall not be! By Heaven, it shall not be!"

This outbreak of anger and scorned love confounded the reverend vicar.

Pepita had risen. Her attitude, her gesture, had something in them of
tragic animation. Her eyes gleamed like daggers; they shone like two
suns. The vicar was silent, and regarded her almost with terror. She
paced with hasty steps up and down the a