f; of energy and
determined will; of the power of thought, quick and versatile; but these
are not _moral_ qualities, they are not even _feminine_! True, she wept
over her slain steed. Humanity? I have knows a hardened _lorette_ weep
bitter tears for her tortoise-shell cat. She refused to take from me my
horse. Generosity? She had a thousand within sight. Alas! in thus
reviewing all that had passed between myself and the beautiful Isolina,
in search of her moral qualities, I met with but little success!

Mystery of our nature! I loved her not the less! And yet my passion
was pure, and I do not believe that my heart was wicked. Mystery of our
nature! He who reads all hearts alone can solve thee!

I loved without reason; but I loved now without hope. Hope I had before
that night. Her glance through the turrets--her note--its contents--a
word, a look at other times, had inspired me with hopes, however faint
they were. The incident of the ball-room had crushed them.

Ijurra's dark face kept lowering before me; even in my visions he was
always by her side. What was between the two? Perhaps a nearer
relationship than that of cousin? Perhaps they were affianced?
Married?

The thought maddened me.

I could rest upon my couch no longer. I rose and sought the open air; I
climbed to the azotea, and paced it to and fro, as the tiger walks his
cage. My thoughts were wild, and my movements without method.

To add to the bitterness of my reflections, I now discovered that I had
sustained a loss--not in property, but something that annoyed me still
more. I had lost the order and its enclosure--the note of Don Ramon. I
had dropped them on the day in which they were received, and I believed
in the patio of the hacienda, where they must have been picked up at
once. If by Don Ramon himself, then all was well; but if they had
fallen into the hands of some of the leather-clad herdsmen, ill affected
to Don Ramon, it might be an awkward affair for that gentleman--indeed
for myself. Such negligence would scarcely be overlooked at
head-quarters; and I had ill forebodings about the result. It was one
of my soul's darkest hours.

From its very darkness I might have known that light was near, for the
proverb is equally true in the moral as in the material world. Light
_was_ near.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

AN ODD EPISTLE.

Breakfast I hardly tasted. A _taso_ of chocolate and a small sugared
cake--the _desayuna_ of