" said the
Senora, gently, "for I feel that I owe your life to him, my Felipe; and
he is not to blame for Ramona's conduct. You need not fear her dying,
She may be ill; but people do not die of love like hers for Alessandro."

"Of what kind do they die, mother?" asked Felipe, impatiently.

The Senora looked reproachfully at him. "Not often of any," she said;
"but certainly not of a sudden passion for a person in every way beneath
them, in position, in education, in all points which are essential to
congeniality of tastes or association of life."

The Senora spoke calmly, with no excitement, as if she were discussing
an abstract case. Sometimes, when she spoke like this, Felipe for
the moment felt as if she were entirely right, as if it were really a
disgraceful thing in Ramona to have thus loved Alessandro. It could not
be gainsaid that there was this gulf, of which she spoke. Alessandro was
undeniably Ramona's inferior in position, education, in all the external
matters of life; but in nature, in true nobility of soul, no! Alessandro
was no man's inferior in these; and in capacity to love,--Felipe
sometimes wondered whether he had ever known Alessandro's equal in that.
This thought had occurred to him more than once, as from his sick-bed he
had, unobserved, studied the expression with which Alessandro gazed at
Ramona. But all this made no difference in the perplexity of the present
dilemma, in the embarrassment of his and his mother's position now. Send
a messenger to ask why Alessandro did not return! Not even if he had
been an accepted and publicly recognized lover, would Felipe do that!
Ramona ought to have more pride. She ought of herself to know that. And
when Felipe, later in the day, saw Ramona again, he said as much to her.
He said it as gently as he could; so gently that she did not at first
comprehend his idea. It was so foreign, so incompatible with her faith,
how could she?

When she did understand, she said slowly: "You mean that it will not do
to send to find out if Alessandro is dead, because it will look as if I
wished him to marry me whether he wished it or not?" and she fixed her
eyes on Felipe's, with an expression he could not fathom.

"Yes, dear," he answered, "something like that, though you put it
harshly."

"Is it not true," she persisted, "that is what you mean?"

Reluctantly Felipe admitted that it was.

Ramona was silent for some moments; then she said, speaking still
more slowly, "I