.
Alessandro wished not to be found. I will not tell."

And thus vanished the last chance of succor for Ramona; vanished in a
moment; blown like a thistledown on a chance breath,--the breath of a
loyal, loving friend, speaking a lie to save her.

Distraught with grief, Felipe returned home. Ramona had been very
ill when she left home. Had she died, and been buried by the lonely,
sorrowing Alessandro? And was that the reason Alessandro was going away
to the North, never to return? Fool that he was, to have shrunk from
speaking Ramona's name to the Indians! He would return, and ask again.
As soon as he had seen his mother, he would set off again, and never
cease searching till he had found either Ramona or her grave. But when
Felipe entered his mother's presence, his first look in her face told
him that he would not leave her side again until he had laid her at rest
in the tomb.

"Thank God! you have come, Felipe," she said in a feeble voice. "I had
begun to fear you would not come in time to say farewell to me. I am
going to leave you, my son;" and the tears rolled down her cheeks.

Though she no longer wished to live, neither did she wish to die,--this
poor, proud, passionate, defeated, bereft Senora. All the consolations
of her religion seemed to fail her. She had prayed incessantly, but got
no peace. She fixed her imploring eyes on the Virgin's face and on the
saints; but all seemed to her to wear a forbidding look. "If Father
Salvierderra would only come!" she groaned. "He could give me peace. If
only I can live till he comes again!"

When Felipe told her of the old man's feeble state, and that he would
never again make the journey, she turned her face to the wall and wept.
Not only for her own soul's help did she wish to see him: she wished
to put into his hands the Ortegna jewels. What would become of them? To
whom should she transfer the charge? Was there a secular priest
within reach that she could trust? When her sister had said, in her
instructions, "the Church," she meant, as the Senora Moreno well knew,
the Franciscans. The Senora dared not consult Felipe; yet she must. Day
by day these fretting anxieties and perplexities wasted her strength,
and her fever grew higher and higher. She asked no questions as to the
result of Felipe's journey, and he dared not mention Ramona's name. At
last he could bear it no longer, and one day said, "Mother, I found no
trace of Ramona. I have not the least idea where she