im into the gulf below. A hundred times, in
the silence of the night, I recalled that suppliant voice, and asked
myself in anguish, What did he then hear? I ask it of you this evening,
Rosarita."

"Once, once only, did my lips betray the secret of my heart. It was
here, in this very spot, when you had quitted our dwelling. I will
repeat to you what I then said."

The girl seemed to be collecting all her strength, before she dared tell
the young man that she loved him, and that openly and passionately;
then--her pure countenance shining with virgin innocence, which fears
not, because it knows no ill, she turned towards Tiburcio.

"I have suffered too much," she said, "from one mistake, to allow of any
other; it is thus, then, with my hands in yours, and my eyes meeting
yours, that I repeat to you what I then said. You had fled from me,
Tiburcio. I knew you were far away, and I thought God alone heard me
when I cried: `_Come back, Tiburcio, come back! I love only you_!'"

Fabian, trembling with love and happiness, knelt humbly at the feet of
this pure young girl, as he might have done before a Madonna, who had
descended from her pedestal.

At this moment he was lost to all the world,--Bois-Rose, the past, the
future--all were forgotten like a dream on awaking, and he cried in a
broken voice:

"Rosarita! I am yours forever! I dedicate my future life to you only."

Rosarita uttered a faint cry. Fabian turned, and remained mute with
astonishment.

Leaning quietly upon his long carbine, stood Bois-Rose, a few paces from
them, contemplating, with a look of deep tenderness the two lovers.

It was the realisation of his dream in the isle of Rio Gila.

"Oh, my father!" cried Fabian sadly; "do you forgive me for suffering
myself to be vanquished?"

"Who would not have been, in your place, my beloved Fabian?" said the
Canadian, smiling.

"I have broken my oath, my father!" continued Fabian; "I had promised
never to love any other but you. Pardon! pardon!"

"Child, who implores pardon, when it is I who should ask it?" said
Bois-Rose; "you were more generous than I, Fabian. Never did a lioness
snatch her cub from the hands of the hunters, and carry it to her den,
with a more savage love than I dragged you from the habitations of men
to hide you in the desert. I was happy, because all my affections were
centred in you; and I believed that you might also be so. You did not
murmur; you sacrificed, unhesitat