"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.
"Oh, Petronilla!" she exclaimed, in heart-rending tones; "the light of my
life is forever extinguished. Geronimo, so young, so good, so noble, so
gifted, the unfortunate victim of a mysterious murderer! Frightful
thought! and no room for hope! Mercy, my God, mercy! My heart is breaking;
never more will I see him in this world."
And uttering a cry of anguish, she covered her face with her hands.
"I acknowledge, Mary," said the duenna, dejectedly, "that Geronimo's
absence is inexplicable; but why look on the worst side and accept it as
truth? You know that during the last four days every possible effort has
been made to discover Geronimo. Mr. Van Schoonhoven, the bailiff, has
pledged his honor to find him dead, or alive."