ossible in my ordinary way, to disarm suspicion, and none
seemed to exist. The needed preparations went gayly forward. On the day
I mentioned, when I had ridden some distance from the house, a messenger
came post-haste after me. It was a boy who belonged specially to
Dolores. He gave me a little hurried note. I copy it:--

"Papa has found all out, and it is dreadful. No one else knows, and
he means to kill you when you come back. Do, if you love me, hurry
and get on board the ship. I shall never get over it, if evil comes
on you for my sake. I shall let them do what they please with me, if
God will only save _you_. I will try to be good. Perhaps if I bear
my trials well, he will let me die soon. That is all I ask. I love
you, and always shall, to death and after.

DOLORES."

There was the end of it all. I escaped on the ship. I read the marriage
in the paper. Incidentally I afterwards heard of her as living in Cuba,
but I never saw her again till I saw her in her coffin. Sorrow and
death had changed her so much that at first the sight of her awakened
only a vague, painful remembrance. The sight of the hair bracelet which
I had seen on her arm brought all back, and I felt sure that my poor
Dolores had strangely come to sleep her last sleep near me.

Immediately after I became satisfied who you were, I felt a painful
degree of responsibility for the knowledge. I wrote at once to a friend
of mine in the neighborhood of St. Augustine, to find out any
particulars of the Mendoza family. I learned that its history had been
like that of many others in that region. Don Jose had died in a bilious
fever, brought on by excessive dissipation, and at his death the estate
was found to be so incumbered that the whole was sold at auction. The
slaves were scattered hither and thither to different owners, and Madame
Mendoza, with her children and remains of fortune, had gone to live in
New Orleans.

Of Dolores he had heard but once since her marriage. A friend had
visited Don Guzman's estates in Cuba. He was living in great splendor,
but bore the character of a hard, cruel, tyrannical master, and an
overbearing man. His wife was spoken of as being in very delicate
health,--avoiding society and devoting herself to religion.

I would here take occasion to say that it was understood when I went
into the family of Don Jose, that I should not in any way interfere with
the religious faith of the children, t