Part 30 (2/2)

But this thing I cannot do.”

”And wherefore not, Senor Don Juan?”

”Can you ask? I must hazard everything, spend everything, in the chance--if there be a chance--of saving him, or, at least, of softening his fate.”

”Then G.o.d help us both,” said Dona Beatriz.

”Amen! Pray to him day and night, senora. Perhaps he may have pity on us.”

”There is no chance of saving Don Carlos. Know you not that of all the prisoners the Holy House receives, scarce one in a thousand goes forth again to take his place in the world?”

Juan shook his head. He knew well that his task was almost hopeless; yet, even by Dona Beatriz, he was not to be moved from his determination.

But he thanked her in strong, pa.s.sionate words for her faith in him and her truth to him. ”No sorrow can divide us, my beloved,” he said, ”nor even what they call shame, falsely as they speak therein. You are my star, that s.h.i.+nes on me throughout the darkness.”

”I have promised.”

”My uncle's family may seek to divide us, and I think they will. But the lady of my heart will not heed their idle words?”

Dona Beatriz smiled. ”I am a Lavella,” she said. ”Do you not know our motto?--'True unto death.'”

”It is a glorious motto. May it be mine too.”

”Take heed what you do, Don Juan. If you love me, you will look well to your footsteps, since, wherever they lead, mine are bound to follow.”

Saying this, she rose, and stood gazing in his face with flushed cheek and kindling eyes.

The words were such as might thrill any lover's heart with joy and grat.i.tude. Yet there was something in the look which accompanied them that changed joy and grat.i.tude into vague fear and apprehension. The light in that dark eye seemed borrowed from the fire of some sublime but terrible resolve within. Juan's heart quailed, though he knew not why, as he said, ”My queen should never tread except through flowery paths.”

Dona Beatriz took up a little golden crucifiz that, attached to a rosary of coral beads, hung from her girdle. ”You see this cross, Don Juan?”

”Yes, senora mia.”

”On that horrible night when they dragged your brother to prison, I swore a sacred oath upon it. You esteemed me a child, Don Juan, when you read me chapters from your book, and talked freely to me about G.o.d, and faith, and the soul's salvation. Perchance I was a child in some things. For I supposed them good words; how could they be otherwise, since you spoke them? I listened and believed, after a fas.h.i.+on; half thinking all the time of the pretty fans and trinkets you brought me, or of the pattern of such and such an one's mantilla that I had seen at ma.s.s. But your brother tore the veil from my eyes at last, and made me understand that those specious words, with which a child played childishly, were the crime that finds no pardon here or hereafter. Of the hereafter I know not; of the here I know too much, G.o.d help me!

There be fair ladies, not more deeply involved than I, who have changed their gilded saloons for the dungeons of the Triana. But then it matters not so much about me. For I am not like other girls, who have fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers to care for them. Saving Don Carlos (who was good to me for your sake), no one ever gave me more than the half-sorrowful, half-pitying kindness one might give a pet parrot from the Indies. Therefore, thinking over all things, and knowing well your reckless nature, Senor Don Juan, I swore that night upon this holy cross, that if by evil hap _you_ were attainted for heresy, _I_ would go next day to the Triana and accuse myself of the same crime.”

Juan did not for a moment doubt that she would do it; and thus a chain, light as silk but strong as adamant, was flung around him.

”Dona Beatriz, for my sake--” he began to plead.

”For _my_ sake, Don Juan will take care of his life and liberty,” she interrupted, with a smile that, if it had a little sadness, had very far more of triumph in it. She knew the power her resolve gave her over him: she had bought it dearly, and she meant to use it. ”Is it _still_ your wish to remain here,” she continued; ”or will you go abroad, and wait for better times?”

Juan paused for a moment.

”No choice is left me while Carlos pines uncomforted in a dungeon,” he said at last, firmly, though very sorrowfully.

”Then you know what you risk, that is all,” answered the lady, whose will was a match for his.

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