Mary arose without reply, and took the seat offered her by the duenna.  She was very pale, and her eyes were swollen from weeping.

The duenna looked upon her with an eye of pity; she took her hand, and said, gently: 

“Mary, my child, you cannot continue this; such an excess of sorrow would shorten your days.  And what pain to the poor Geronimo on his return, to find you condemned to a short and suffering life!  Through love for him, I beg you to control yourself.”

“On his return?” repeated Mary, raising her tearful eyes to heaven.

“Why not?” replied the duenna.  “Why despair before being certain of the evil you dread?  More extraordinary things have happened.”

“Already five days—­five centuries of suspense and fear!  Ah!  Petronilla, what a frightful night I passed!  I saw Geronimo extended on the ground, the pallor of death on his face, a large wound was in his breast, and his lifeless eyes were fixed on me as if with his last breath he had bade me adieu.”

“These are illusions caused by grief, Mary.”

“More than twenty times I saw him thus; in vain I strove to shut out the horrible vision; day alone brought me relief.”

The duenna took her hand, and said, tenderly: 

“You are wrong, Mary, to cherish your grief in this manner.  Your dreams at night were but the reflection of your thoughts by day.  I, too, saw Geronimo in sleep more than once.”

“You, too, Petronilla, you saw Geronimo?” exclaimed the young girl, with emotion, as though she feared the confirmation of her own terrific dream.

“Why not, Mary; do I think of him less than you?”

“You saw him dying, did you not?”

“On the contrary, I saw him return joyfully and cast himself into the arms of his uncle and embrace your father.  And you, my child, I saw you kneeling on this same prie-Dieu, thanking God that your dreams were false and deceiving.”

Mary smiled as she listened to the duenna’s consoling words, but scarcely had Petronilla ceased speaking than she suspected the artifice.

“You deceive me through friendship and compassion,” she said, sadly.  “I am grateful to you, my good Petronilla; but tell me to what cause you can attribute Geronimo’s absence.  Come, call upon your imagination; find a possible, probable explanation.”

Disconcerted by this direct interrogation, the duenna shook her head.

“There is no plausible reason,” said Mary.

The old Petronilla, in the greatest embarrassment, stammered out a few words as to an unexpected journey, secrets he might be unable to divulge; she even suggested that his friends might have prevailed upon him to join in a party of pleasure; but all these were such vague suppositions that Mary plainly saw in them an acknowledgment that she could find no reasonable explanation of Geronimo’s absence.

Mary’s tears flowed faster.