come to Ramona. In this supreme
moment of Felipe's abandonment of all disguises, she saw his whole
past life in a new light. Remorse smote her. "Dear Felipe," she said,
clasping her hands, "I have been very selfish. I did not know--"

"Of course you did not, love," said Felipe. "How could you? But I have
never loved any one else. I have always loved you. Can you not learn to
love me? I did not mean to tell you for a long time yet. But now I have
spoken; I cannot hide it any more."

Ramona drew nearer to him, still with her hands clasped. "I have always
loved you," she said. "I love no other living man; but, Felipe,"--her
voice sank to a solemn whisper,--"do you not know, Felipe, that part of
me is dead,--dead? can never live again? You could not want me for your
wife, Felipe, when part of me is dead!"

Felipe threw his arms around her. He was beside himself with joy. "You
would not say that if you did not think you could be my wife," he cried.
"Only give yourself to me, my love, I care not whether you call yourself
dead or alive!"

Ramona stood quietly in his arms. Ah, well for Felipe that he did not
know, never could know, the Ramona that Alessandro had known. This
gentle, faithful, grateful Ramona, asking herself fervently now if she
would do her brother a wrong, yielding up to him what seemed to her only
the broken fragment of a life; weighing his words, not in the light of
passion, but of calmest, most unselfish action,--ah, how unlike was she
to that Ramona who flung herself on Alessandro's breast, crying, "Take
me with you! I would rather die than have you leave me!"

Ramona had spoken truth. Part of her was dead. But Ramona saw now, with
infallible intuition, that even as she had loved Alessandro, so Felipe
loved her. Could she refuse to give Felipe happiness, when he had saved
her, saved her child? What else now remained for them, these words
having been spoken? "I will be your wife, dear Felipe," she said,
speaking solemnly, slowly, "if you are sure it will make you happy, and
if you think it is right."

"Right!" ejaculated Felipe, mad with the joy unlooked for so soon.
"Nothing else would be right! My Ramona, I will love you so, you will
forget you ever said that part of you was dead!"

A strange look which startled Felipe swept across Ramona's face; it
might have been a moonbeam. It passed. Felipe never saw it again.

General Moreno's name was still held in warm remembrance in the city of
Mexico, an