I sought in vain about the house and garden for Mariposilla.
The child had not been away from the ranch since the news of Sidney's
marriage, and her sudden absence alarmed me.
I remembered that it was Saturday. Perhaps Mariposilla had gone to the
old church for confession. Arturo had the pony, and for a moment I was
in despair.
Fortunately a neighbor arrived with a horse and buggy, which I borrowed.
I was determined not to alarm the Dona Maria, and drove away at once in
the direction of the Old Mission. The road, for the first time, seemed
long and uninteresting. The neighbor's horse was an ancient nag, who
discovered at once my impatience and inexperience. He absolutely refused
to accelerate his midsummer dog-trot. The persuasions of a stranger he
ignored.
Despairing, I submitted, while I vaguely questioned myself as to what I
should do, in case Mariposilla had not gone to the church.
When at last I caught sight of the long, gray outline, hiding among
cool, green peppers, my heart seemed to stand still.
As I turned into the main approach leading to the Mission, the old bells
broke suddenly the oppressive silence. Their melancholy strokes were for
the dead; perhaps for the Dona Maria's mother, I thought.
Mechanically I counted the tolls, until their number had reached
sixteen, then the old bells paused a moment before they again repeated
the years of the youthful dead.
Upon approaching nearer I perceived that a funeral procession had just
left the church. An assistant priest and a barefooted Mexican altar-boy
stood framed in the arch of the ancient portal.
The sad little procession was now entering the old graveyard at the rear
of the Mission. I could hear the sobs of the mourners, and my heart went
out to the poor mother, garbed in faded mourning, bowed with both grief
and labor.
The little coffin was borne on a bier by six swarthy young Mexicans,
possibly one of them the lover of the dead girl.
The sight was pathetic, and at this particular time I felt it to be
more than I could bear.
A moment later I peered into the old church--it was empty.
Where now could I go? To whom should I apply for help?
Father Ramirez was evidently not about; a strange priest had followed
the funeral procession, and doubtless the old friend of the Del Valles
had gone at once with Arturo.
I had probably missed passing them by taking a different road, having
endeavored to shorten the distance by a cut through a ranch.
Mechanically I climbed into the buggy, believing that there was no
course left but to return home for assistance, when in the distance I
saw, almost like a sign from on high, the deserted hotel of East San
Gabriel.
Without stopping to consider the probable absurdity of my surmise, I
started the old horse upon the maddest race of his life.
In my excitement the wielding of the whip was a nervous joy.
The old bones of the beast seemed almost to crack as he leaped along the
road.
All at once I seemed to be acting without reason, for when I at last
entered the grounds of the deserted caravansary, there were no evidences
to justify my suspicions.
The summer's silence was intense; not a human being was visible, and the
desolation pervading the deserted resort was sickening as well as
satisfying.
I felt that I had been absurd to believe for a moment that Mariposilla
could have wished to reenter the place, and I was also convinced that,
in her feeble condition, she could never have walked the distance from
the ranch.
The old horse was now resting in front of the silent hotel, and my very
inaction was unbearable. I racked my brain to the verge of despair,
before I again hit upon a possible explanation for Mariposilla's
disappearance.
Why had I not thought of it before? Why had I taken it for granted that
Arturo had gone alone for Father Ramirez? The priest drove always in his
own conveyance, and what could be more natural than to believe that
Arturo had induced Mariposilla to accompany him upon his errand? Was it
not reasonable to believe that the young people had laid aside their
personal feelings at such a time, desiring to perform together a last,
trifling duty to the dead grandmother?
True to the comforting inspiration, I had turned the reluctant horse to
leave the grounds, when, rushing joyfully in front of the astonished
brute, I beheld the hounds, Mariposilla's grayhounds, who knew where
their little mistress was hiding.
Hastily hitching the horse to the nearest tree I reconnoitered at once
the long veranda. Each door that I tried was locked; the windows were
fastened, and the inside blinds closed.
Close at my heels followed the dogs, now wildly excited.
As a last resort, I decided to urge them to lead me.
"Dear Pachita! dear Pancho!" I cried, patting encouragingly their long,
beautiful heads, while I entreated their almost human eyes to reply.
"Take me to Mariposilla."
"Where is Mariposilla?" I repeated, slowly, "your dear little mistress,
Mariposilla?"
For a moment, the poor brutes whined piteously; the next, they had
darted away to the rear of the hotel.
I followed hotly, and at the corner of the house I perceived them wild
with excitement at the foot of the escape ladder, leading from the
ground to the upper veranda.
I needed no more to convince me of the truth.
Mariposilla had ascended the ladder which the dogs had not been able to
scale. The half-frantic girl had sought to enter again the rooms once
occupied by the Sandersons.
I delayed no longer. In a moment I was above, trying in vain the doors.
As I approached the window of Sidney's now deserted bedroom, I perceived
instantly that its glass had been shattered, and knew at once that
Mariposilla was within.
For a moment, I stood rooted with apprehension; I dared not enter. A
horrible dread deprived me of strength, until from within a piteous
sobbing, more musical, more welcome than any sounds which I had ever
before heard, told me that the child I sought was safe.
"Thank God!" I cried, springing into the room.
There, upon Sidney's deserted bed, upon his pillow, lay Mariposilla.
For a moment I shrank away, for the child had not heard me enter. I
would willingly have allowed her the full extent of her strange, unusual
consolation. Now that she was safe, I would have stayed with her the
remainder of the afternoon, but the thought of the Dona Maria compelled
me to speak.
"Dear child," I said, approaching the bed; "you must come home. We are
in great distress. Your grandmother has just died."
"Just died?" she repeated, touchingly. "Why can I, too, not die? Indeed,
kind Senora, I am most tired of life; I would gladly go with my
grandmother."
"No, dear," I answered, "you must not want to die. It is wrong for you
to remain so miserable. You should remember your dear mother, and try to
recover your spirits, to be once more our good, happy child.
"Think no more of Sidney; dismiss now forever from your thoughts the
selfish man who has deceived you."
Like a young tigress wounded into fury, the girl sprang from the bed.
"I blame him not," she cried, passionately. "It is the wicked, wicked
Gladys who has stolen his love. I knew she would coax him from me when
she sent so often her beautiful face to his mother.
"She loved him much, I was sure, but he said always that he loved her
not in return; that she made him most tired, when he must listen to her
learning and long words.
"That he loved none but me--poor, little Mariposilla, who knew nothing
but to love him only."
"Yes, dear," I said; "you have loved as few ever love. I pity the man
who has thrown lightly away your warm, true heart; but I know that after
a time you will cease to pine. You will see that Sidney gave you up, not
because Miss Carpenter was more beautiful, or that he loved her more,
but because she had millions of dollars to make his life luxurious and
idle.
"Be a brave girl," I continued, noticing with pleasure that the child
had brightened visibly at my words. "Be good and brave for your own
sake, and for the sake of the dear Dona Maria.
"Come home before you are missed, or your mother will be greatly
distressed by your absence."
Obediently she followed me from the room, and down the ladder. As we
drove away from the grounds she threw her arms about my neck and sobbed
pitifully.
"Dear, kind Senora," she cried, "I will be good; indeed I will be good.
"If Sidney loves Gladys only for gold, he will yet come back! he will
yet be mine!"
It was impossible for me to misunderstand the girl's passionate meaning.
I trembled at the recollection of the opportunities and temptations of
the winter. For the first time a terrible realization of the child's
Spanish inheritances seized me. I felt that she would never acknowledge
moral barriers to be a final restraint to her denied destiny; never be
able to resist the undisciplined desires of her heart.
For the present I could not hope to unfold the immoral, or impossible
consequences of Sidney Sanderson's return. Nothing but time and angelic
patience would enable me to make plain to the ignorant girl the
arbitrary laws of fate.