Agueda had stood intrenched within a garden whose soil was virtue. She did not gaze with curiosity, nor did she care to look, over the palings into the lane which ran just outside. She stood tall and splendid as a young hollyhock, welcoming the sun and the dew that Heaven sent down upon her proud young head. But though fate had surrounded her with this environment, whose security she had never questioned, her inheritance had placed her near the palings. Those other great white flowers that stood in the middle of the garden could never come to disaster. But Agueda, unwittingly, had been thrust to the wall. Love's hand had pushed itself between the palings of the fence that surrounded her garden and had bent the proud stalk and drawn it through into the outer lane. While Beltran showed his love for her, she did not feel that she had escaped from her secure stand inside. Her roots were strong and embedded in the soil of virtue, and wanton love would never find a place within her thoughts or feelings. She did not realise the loss of dignity. "All for love," had been her text and creed. The remedy, if remedy were needed, had been close at hand. It had been offered her. She had only to stretch out her hand and take it, and draw back within her garden, showing no bruise or wound, but happy in that she could still rear herself straight and proud among the company of uninjured stalks. But though the remedy had been at hand, Agueda had not grasped it with due haste. Unmindful of self, she had allowed the opportunity to escape her, and now she could not spring back among those other blooms whose freshness had never been tarnished. Alas! She found herself still in the muddy lane. She had been plucked and worn and tossed down into the rut along the roadside, where she must forever lie, limp and faded.
What boots it to dwell upon the sufferings of a breaking heart? Hearts must ache and break, just as souls must be born and die, for thus fate plans, and the world goes on the same.
Things went on the same at the plantation of San Isidro. Don Noé made no motion to leave it, and Felisa was happier than she had ever been, and so for once was in accord with her father. Beltran dreaded from day to day the signal for their departure, but it did not come.