The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales | Page 4

intentions were honorable. After indulging your romantic spirit by a secret wooing, he would have openly claimed you of your father, and the old man would have been but too proud to give his consent. Now came the moment for revenge. I traduced you to your lover, making use of an agent who was wholly mine. Trifles produce conviction when once the faith of jealous man is shaken. A few toys--a turquoise bracelet, a lock of hair, a bunch of faded flowers--sufficed to turn the scale; and now, were an angel of heaven to pronounce you true, Don Julio would disbelieve the testimony. Ha, ha! am I not avenged?"
"And was it," said Magdalena, in a low, pathetic voice,--"was it for a few jests,--a little childish chafing against restraint, that you wrecked the happiness of a poor young girl,--blighted her hopes, and broke her heart? Woman--fiend! dare you tell me this?" she cried, kindling into passion with a sudden transition. "Avaunt! begone! Leave my sight, you hideous and evil thing! But take with you my bitter curse--no empty anathema! but one that will cling to you like the garment of flame that wraps the doomed heretic! Begone! accursed wretch--hideous in soul as you are abhorrent and repulsive in person."
Cowed, but muttering wrathful words, the stricken wretch hurried out of the apartment, into which Juanita instantly rushed.
"Magdalena, what means this?" she cried. "I heard you uttering fearful threats against old Margarita. Calm yourself; you are strangely excited."
"O Juanita, Juanita!" cried Magdalena, the tears starting from her eyes, and wringing her fair hands. "If you knew all--if you knew the wrong that woman has done me; but not now--not now; leave me, good cousin,--leave me!"
"You are not well, dearest," said Juanita; "take my advice, go to bed and repose. To-morrow you will be calm, and to-morrow you shall tell me all."
"To-morrow! to-morrow!" muttered Magdalena. "Well, well; to-morrow you will find me!"
"Yes; I will waken you, and sit at your bedside, and laugh your griefs away. Good night, Magdalena!"
"Farewell, dearest!" said the heart-stricken girl; and Juanita left the chamber.
Before a silver crucifix, Magdalena knelt in prayer.
"Father of mercies, blessed Virgin, absolve me of the sin--if sin it be to rush unbidden to the presence of my Judge! My burden is too great to bear!"
She rose from her knees, took from a cupboard a goblet of Venetian glass, and a flask of Xeres wine. Into the goblet she first dropped the contents of a paper she took from her bosom, and then filled it to the brim with wine. She had already stretched forth her hand to the fatal glass, when she heard her name called by her father.
"He would give me a good-night kiss," said the wretched girl. "I must receive it with pure lips. I come, dear father,--I come."
Scarcely had she left her chamber when the old duenna again stole into the room.
"If I could only find one of the gallant's letters," she muttered to herself, "I could arm her father's mind against her; and then if madam tried to get me turned away, she would have her labor for her pains. What have we here? A flask of Xeres, as I live! So ho, senorita! Is this the source of your inspiration when you berate your betters? I declare it smells good; the jade is no bad judge of wine!"
As she spoke, the old woman, who had no particular aversion to the juice of the grape, hurriedly drank off the contents of the goblet, and immediately filled it up again from the flask.
"There! she'll be no wiser," said she, with a cunning leer. "And now I must hurry off. I would not have the young baggage find me here for a month's wages!"
Margarita effected her retreat just in time. Magdalena returned, after having, as she supposed, seen her poor father for the last time.
Had not despair completely overmastered the reason of the poor girl, she would have shrunk from the idea of committing suicide. But misery had completely, though temporarily, wrecked her intellect. She felt no horror, no remorse at the deed she was about to commit. With a steady hand she raised the goblet to her lips, and then drank the fatal draught, as she supposed it, to the last dregs.
"I must sleep now," she said, with a deep sigh. "I shall never wake again." And throwing herself, dressed as she was, upon her couch, she soon fell into a deep slumber.
How long her senses were steeped in oblivion, she could not tell. But she was awakened by shrill screams, and started to her feet in terror.
"Where am I?" she exclaimed. "Are those the cries of the condemned? Am I indeed in another world?"
"But louder and louder came the shrieks, and now she recognized the tones as those of the old