He stood like a stone
regarding Chonita, whose eyes, fixed upon him, were expanded with
horror. Between them lay the dead body of her brother.

He turned with a groan and sat down on a fallen log, supporting his
chin with his hand. His profile looked grim and worn and old. He
stared unseeingly at the ground. Chonita stood, still looking at him.
The last act of her brother's life had been to lay the foundation of
her lover's ruin; his death had completed it: all the South would
rise did the slayer of an Iturbi y Moncada seek to rule it. She felt
vaguely sorry for Reinaldo; but death was peace; this was hell
in living veins. The memory of the world beyond the forest grew
indistinct. She recalled her first dream and turned in loathing from
the bloodless selfishness of which it was the allegory. Superstition
and tradition slipped into some inner pocket of her memory, there to
rattle their dry bones together and fall to dust. She saw only the
figure, relaxed for the first time, the profile of a man with his
head on the block. She stepped across the body of her brother, and,
kneeling beside Estenega, drew his head to her breast.

THE END

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