staying here,--I believe I would go. Only I know it would do no good:
I should come back."

"No! no! I do not want you to go. I should feel--I will admit to
you--like a house without its foundation. And yet sometimes, I pray
that you will go. Ay! I do not like life. I used to have pride in my
intelligence. Where is my pride now? What good has the wisdom in my
books done me, when I confess my dependence upon a man, and that
man my enemy--and the acquaintance of a few weeks?" She was speaking
incoherently, and Estenega chafed at the restraint of the servants so
close behind them. "Tell me," she exclaimed, "what is it in you that I
want?--that I need? It is something that belongs to me. Give it to me,
and go away."

"Chonita, I give it to you gladly, God knows. But you must take me,
too. You want in me what is akin to you and what you will find nowhere
else. But I cannot tear my soul out of my body. You must take both or
neither."

"Ay! I cannot! You know that I cannot!

"I ignore your reasons."

"But I do not."

"You shall, my beloved. Or if you do not ignore you shall forget
them."

"When I am dead--would that I were!" She was excited and trembling.
The confession had been an ordeal, and Estenega was never