ou not feel reproached?" I said.

"Why? Must we give our love to whoever loves us? A fine parcel of
paupers we should all be, wasting our inheritance in pitiful small
change! Shall I give a thousand beggars a half hour's happiness, or
shall I make one soul rich his whole life long?"

"The latter," remarked Edward, who had come up unobserved.

They gazed at each other unflinchingly. They had come to open battle
during those last days, and I knew that the end was near. Their words
had been cold as ice, cutting as steel, and I said to myself, "At any
moment." There would be a deadly struggle, and then Christine would
yield. Even I comprehended something of what that yielding would be.

"Why do they hate each other so?" Felipa said to me sadly.

"Do they hate each other?"

"Yes, for I feel it here," she answered, touching her breast with a
dramatic little gesture.

"Nonsense! Go and play with your doll, child." For I had made her a
respectable, orderly doll to take the place of the ungainly fetich out
on the barren.

Felipa gave me a look and walked away. A moment afterward she brought
the doll out of the house before my very eyes, and, going down to the
end of the dock, deliberately threw it into the water; the tide was
flowing out, and away went my toy-woman out of sight, out to sea.

"Well!" I said to myself. "What next?"

I had not told Felipa we were going; I thought it best to let it take
her by surprise. I had various small articles of finery ready as
farewell gifts, which should act as sponges to absorb her tears. But
Fate took the whole matter out of my hands. This is how it happened: One
evening in the jasmine arbor, in the fragrant darkness of the warm
spring night, the end came; Christine was won. She glided in like a
wraith, and I, divining at once what had happened, followed her into her
little room, where I found her lying on her bed, her hands clasped on
her breast, her eyes open and veiled in soft shadows, her white robe
drenched with dew. I kissed her fondly--I never could help loving her
then or now--and next I went out to find Edward. He had been kind to me
all my poor gray life; should I not go to him now? He was still in the
arbor, and I sat down by his side quietly; I knew that the words would
come in time. They came; what a flood! English was not enough for him.
He poured forth his love in the rich-voweled Spanish tongue also; it has
sounded doubly sweet to me ever since.

"Have you