Teresa swallowed something in her throat.
"I had a heart, but I thought it dead--and you say you can see it in my eyes. How can I help you? I act for others."
"I am rich, Teresa, you can have anything you wish for. Let me write a letter to my friends. Think of their anxiety. Here," and the girl tore at the bosom of her blouse, snapping a thin ribbon that passed round her neck, "take this now--it's valuable, Teresa, very valuable. See, they are diamonds, and that big red stone is a ru----"
Galva broke off and gazed in wonderment at the old woman. At sight of the glittering object which the girl with trembling hands held out, a sudden change had come into the wrinkled face. She seized on the large marquise ring and looked at it intently, searchingly, but there was no cupidity in her glance, only a great dawning wonderment. She turned roughly on the bewildered girl, bringing her old eyes within a foot of her face.
"Who are you?" she asked, her voice a hoarse whisper. "For God's sake--tell me--who are you?"
"I am Miss Galva Baxendale, that is, I--I---- Oh, I see that you know. I can tell by your face that you do."
"I do now. I know that you are the Princess Miranda. I suspected before, and my suspicion has grown every time I saw your eyes. But I told myself that I was getting old and that I saw things that did not exist--only in my brain."
Teresa was on her knees, pressing Galva's hand to her cold lips.
"It was this ring--the sainted Queen who wore it. Oh, how can I tell you----"
The old woman was crying softly now, and she had not cried for nearly twenty years. In a little while she grew more composed and went to the landing and listened.
"They are at their cards," she said, when she returned, "and Pieto is drunk; they will not disturb us," and then Teresa told her story.
"You said to-night that you saw the heart that died--for my heart died seventeen years ago when I buried my José. He was only five, but he never walked. He would just lie in the sun in his little wheeled cradle and look up at the sky and smile at me with his deep eyes and ask me things I could not tell him. Pieto, too, in those days was a good father and loved his little crippled son almost as much as I did. And then one day there was a jingling of harness and Queen Elene drove past our little house, that lay up on the cliff road towards Logillo. She ordered her postilions to stop and called me to the side of the carriage. She had the sweetest smile that ever told of a perfect soul, and tender eyes into which came a mist when I answered her questions about little José.