every mood and complete it; who would so understand that I could be man and woman and friend to you.  A delusion?  But so long as I shall never know, let me believe.  An extraordinary tumultuous desire that rose in me like a wave and shook me often at first, had, in those last sad weeks, less part in my musings.  It seemed to me that that was the expression, the poignant essence, of love; but there was so much else!  I do not understand that, however, and never shall.  But I wanted to tell you all.  I could not rest until you knew me as I am and as you had made me.  And I will tell you this too,” she cried, breaking suddenly, “I wanted you so!  Oh, I needed you so!  It was not I, only, who could give.  And it is so terrible for a woman to stand alone!”

He made no reply for a moment.  But he forgot every other interest and scheme and idea stored in his impatient brain.  He was thrilled to his soul, and filled with the exultant sense that he was about to take to his heart the woman compounded for him out of his own elements.

“Speak to me,” she said.

“My love, I have so much to say to you that it will take all the years we shall spend together to say it in.”

“No, no!  Do not speak of that.  There I am firm.  Although the misery of the past months were to be multiplied ten hundred times in the future, I would not marry you.”

Estenega, knowing that their hour of destiny was come, and that upon him alone depended its issues, was not the man to hesitate between such happiness as this woman alone could give him, and the gray existence which she in her blindness would have meted to both:  his bold will had already taken the future in its relentless grasp.  But, knowing the mental habit of women, he thought it best to let Chonita free her mind, that there might be the less in it to protest for hearing while his heart and passion spoke to hers.

“It seems absurd to argue the matter,” he said, “but tell me the reasons again, if you choose, and we will dispose of them once for all.  Do not think for a moment, my darling, that I do not respect your reasons; but I respect them only because they are yours; in themselves they are not worthy of consideration.”

“Ay, but they are.  It has been an unwritten law for four generations that an Estenega and an Iturbi y Moncada should not marry; the enmity began, as you should know, when a member of each family was an officer in a detachment of troops sent to protect the Missions in their building.  And my father—­he told me lately—­loved your father’s sister for many years,—­that was the reason he married so late in life,—­and would not ask her because of her blood and of cruel wrongs her father had done his.  Shall his daughter be weak where he was strong?  You cast aside traditions as if they were the seeds of an apple; but remember that they are blood of my blood.  And the vow I made,—­do you forget that?  And the words of it?  The Church stands between us.  I will tell you all:  the priest has forbidden me to marry you; he forbade it every time I confessed; not only because of my vow, but because you had aroused in me a love so terrible that I almost took the life of another woman.  Could I bring you back to the Church it might be different; but you rule others; no one could remould you.  You see it is hopeless.  It is no use to argue.”