[Illustration: “Rogelio, putting his arm around the girl’s neck.”]
“Suriña, silly girl, don’t be like that,” he began. “See, I have been thinking a great deal; this has troubled me more than you. Nothing would be gained by opposing mamma now. We should afflict her greatly. She might even become ill on account of it, but she would not change her resolution. Have patience. Within three months, or even less, we shall be back here again, and we shall see each other, for you will enjoy a great deal more liberty at Señor Febrero’s than here. You know already that I shall always love you, foolish girl. Don’t desert me for the tender Nuño Rasura. There, silly girl, there, my dove, don’t look like that. If you do, you will make me very unhappy.”
Esclavita only answered by shaking her head with persistent melancholy. After a while she responded in a tolerably firm voice;
“Gay I cannot be; but I am not sad, either. Don’t be troubled on my account. Only my head is--as if there was something wrong going on inside.”
“It is as I say. I am here, eh? I am listening to you? I answer you? Well, it is as if I were listening to some person--far away, from the other world, talking to me.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed the student shuddering. “I would rather see you cry. If you cried you would not have such wild notions, Sura. Cry and give way to your grief; but don’t say those dreadful things.”
“I cry inwardly, not with my eyes. I cannot shed a tear. I was the same way once before, when my father died,” responded the girl quietly, without either of them taking notice of the word _father_, which, perhaps, for the first time in her life, Esclavita uttered without mystery or circumlocution.
“Child, you seem to me to be ill. Ah! you have fever. Promise me that you will go to-morrow to see Sanchez del Abrojo.”
“No, it isn’t sickness. I was never better in my life. It is a _warning_.”
“Sura, be silent, for Heaven’s sake! You are talking wildly----”
He bent toward the girl and kissed her cold cheek; she made no resistance. She seemed to be more resigned, and it was in a tone that was natural and almost confidential that she uttered the following extravagances:
“Rogelio, there are certain things that the dead warn the living about; don’t doubt it. Three days before my father’s death I saw a large black bird at the foot of my bed. Yesterday I saw the same bird again. He flew so fast that I couldn’t see where he disappeared to, but I saw him as surely as that we are here now. I shall never go home again, never. Time will show, and then you will see that what I tell you is true and you will say, ‘Esclavita was right.’ If I was as sure of having a million ounces I should be considering now where to hide them so that they should not be stolen from me. Last night----”