A FEW weeks after this excursion, DoÑa Carmen's disease suddenly grew much worse. The physicians, indeed, had no doubt that her end was drawing near. She was in a state of complete prostration. Her face was so thin, that there seemed to be nothing left but the skin, and the large, sad, kind eyes, which rested with strange intensity on all who came near her, as if trying to read in theirs the terrible secret of death. And in view of her death, a thousand sordid feelings surged up in the minds of those who ought most to have sorrowed over it. Salabert reflected with indignation on the inheritance which was to pass to his daughter. He made fresh efforts to induce his wife to revoke her will, but without success. For the first time in her life, DoÑa Carmen showed great firmness of character. Though she was incapable of a revengeful sentiment, she perhaps felt bound by her desire to close her existence by an act of justice. A life of abject submission, during which she had never opposed the smallest obstacle to her husband's will, to his money-making schemes, or his illicit passions, had surely earned her the privilege of asserting her rights on her death-bed, and gratifying the impulses of her heart.

Osorio kept silent watch, with concealed greed, over the progress of her malady, looking to its termination as the end of his own difficulties. DoÑa Carmen would be released from her earthly husk, and he from his creditors. Clementina herself, the object of the tender soul's devoted affection, could not help rejoicing over the prospect of so many millions which were to drop into her hands. She did her best to silence her desires, and subdue her impatience; but, in spite of herself, a tempting fiend made her heart give a little leap of gladness, every time the anticipation flashed through her brain.

It was with infernal astuteness that Salabert set to work to infuse distrust into his wife's mind. Sometimes by insinuation, and sometimes by brutally broad hints, he poured the poison of suspicion into her soul. Clementina and Osorio were looking for her death, as for flowers in May. What airs they would give themselves when they had paid all their debts! And then they would live and enjoy themselves on her money.

The poor woman said nothing, indignant at these base innuendoes. But, nevertheless, in her soul, broken and saddened by suffering, the keen point of this envenomed dart festered deeply, though she strove to conceal her anguish. Every time Clementina came to see her—and towards the end this was twice a day—her stepmother's eyes would rest on hers in mute interrogation, trying to read in them the thoughts in the brain behind. This intent gaze embarrassed the younger woman, making her feel a perturbation, which, though slight, occasionally betrayed itself.

As her malady increased, this anxiety on DoÑa Carmen's part became almost a mania. In the isolation of soul in which she lived, Clementina represented the one link of affection which bound her to life. It was because her stepdaughter had always been cold and haughty to every one else, that she had never doubted the sincerity of her love for her, and it had made her happy and proud. It had sufficed to indemnify her for the scornful indifference with which every one else had treated her. Now, the horrible doubt which had been forced upon her, filled her heart with bitterness. Such a spirit of goodness and love as her own craved to believe in goodness and love. The uprooting of this last belief made her heart bleed with anguish.

One evening they were alone together; DoÑa Carmen, motionless in her deep arm-chair, with her head thrown back on the pillows, was listening to Clementina, who was reading aloud the pious history of the apparition of the Virgin of la Salette. Her thoughts wandered from the narrative; they were disturbed as usual by the fatal doubt, which tortured her more than even her acute physical sufferings. She could not take her eyes off Clementina's fair head, with the fixed look of divination peculiar to dying persons, as though she could read what was passing within, but without gaining the certainty she longed for. More than once, when the reader glanced up, she met that dull, grief-stricken gaze, and hastily looked down again with a sudden sense of uneasiness. A desire, a whim, had blazed up in the sick woman's mind, a feverish yearning such as dying creatures feel. She longed to hear her stepdaughter quench, by some gentle word, the fearful pain of that burning doubt. Again and again the question hovered on her lips; invincible shame kept her from uttering it.

"Lay down the book, child, you are tired," she said at last. And her voice came trembling from her throat, as though she had said something very serious.

"You are, perhaps, of listening. I am not. I have a strong throat."

"God preserve it to you, my child," replied DoÑa Carmen tenderly, as she looked at her.

There was a brief silence.

"Do you know what I have been told?" she asked finally, with an effort, and her voice was so low that the last syllables were scarcely audible.

Clementina, who was about to read again, raised her head. The few drops of blood left in DoÑa Carmen's emaciated body suddenly rushed to her face and tinged it with a faint flush.

"I was told—that you wish for my death."

Clementina's rich blood now mounted in a tide to her cheeks and dyed them crimson. The two women looked at each other for a moment in confusion. At last it was the younger who exclaimed, with a dark frown:

"I know who told you that!"

And as she spoke the blood faded from her face again like a sudden fall of the tide. Her stepmother's retreated to her weary heart. She bent her head with its white hairs, and said:

"If you know, do not utter his name."

"Why not?" cried her wrathful stepdaughter. "When a father, with no motive whatever, solely for the sake of a few dollars, can insult his daughter and make a martyr of his wife, he has no right to claim either affection or respect. I say it, and I do not care who hears me. It is an infamous calumny! My father is a man who knows no God, no love but money. I knew that your will had alienated his love for me—if indeed he ever had any."

"Oh!"

"Yes, I knew it perfectly. But I never could have believed that it would lead him to do anything so vile as to calumniate me so cruelly. I confess to you that I have always loved you the most—oh, yes, much, much the most! I have no hesitation in saying so. Nay, I will say more: I have never really loved any one but you and my children. If this will is the cause of your doubting my love for you, destroy it, undo it, revoke it. Your love and your peace of mind are far dearer to me than your money."

Her voice thrilled with indignation. Her eyes were sternly fixed on vacancy, as though she could evoke the figure of her father and crush him to powder. At the moment she was ardently sincere. DoÑa Carmen's dim eyes grew bright with contentment as her daughter spoke. At last they glittered through tears as she exclaimed:

"I trust you, my child—I believe you! Ah, you cannot think what good you have done me!"

She seized her hands and kissed them fondly. Clementina exclaimed, as if ashamed:

"No, no, mamma! It is I who——" And she threw her arms round her neck.

They held each other in a warm embrace, shedding silent tears. It was one of the few occasions in her life when Clementina wept from tender feeling, and not from vexation of spirit.

But during the remaining days, though the memory of this scene was lively with them both, so, too, was that of the suspicion which had led to it. Clementina felt herself humbled in her stepmother's presence. Her attentions and endearments were now and then a little forced; she tried to efface the impression she still read in DoÑa Carmen's eyes. Then, again, fearing this might lead her to doubt her sincerity, she would suddenly cut them short, and assume a cold indifference. In short, a current of disquietude flowed between the two women, and caused them both much suffering, though in different ways, whenever they were together.

At last DoÑa Carmen took to her bed, never again to rise. Clementina spent the whole day by her side. The terrible end was near. One morning, between two and three, two of the Duke's servants gave the alarm to the Osorios. The Duchess was dying, and asked repeatedly for her daughter. Clementina hastily dressed and flew to the Requena Palace as fast as her horses could carry her. Osorio went with her. As they alighted they met the Duke, with an expression of scornful gloom.

"You are in time—oh, you are in time!" he growled, and he turned away without another word.

Clementina fancied the words were spoken with a malevolent sneer, and bit her lips with rage. The pitiable scene that met her eyes as she approached DoÑa Carmen's bedside pacified her for the moment. The poor woman's face was stamped by the hand of death; pale as a corpse, the nose pinched and white, the eyes glassy and sunk in a livid circle. Standing by her side was a priest, exhorting her to repentance. Of what? Her faithful maid, Marcella, stood at the foot of the bed crying bitterly, her face hidden in her handkerchief; and two other maids in the background looked on at the pathetic picture, frightened rather than sorrowful. The physician was writing a prescription at a table in the corner.

On seeing her daughter the Duchess turned to look in her face with an anxious expression, and held out a hand to her.

"Come close, child," she said, in a fairly strong voice. And she took Clementina's right hand in her own thin, waxen hands, and said, with a fearful fixity of gaze:

"I am dying, my child, dying. Do you not see it? Only so long as you are not glad of it."

"Mamma, dear mamma!"

"Say that you are not glad," she earnestly insisted, without ceasing to look in her daughter's eyes.

"Mamma, mamma, for God's sake!" cried Clementina, both bewildered and alarmed.

"Say that you are not glad!" she repeated, with increased energy, even raising her head with a great effort, and looking sternly at her.

"No, my beloved mother, no. If I could save your life at the cost of my own I swear to you I would do so."

The dying woman's dim eyes softened; she laid her head on the pillow, and, after a short silence, she said, in a weak, quavering voice:

"You would be very ungrateful—very ungrateful. Your poor mother has loved you dearly. Kiss me, do not cry. I am not sorry to leave this world. What hurt me was the thought that you, child of my heart—you—oh, horrible to think of! How it has tortured me!"

The priest here interposed, desiring her to turn her mind from worldly thoughts. The sick woman listened with humility, and devoutly echoed the prayers he spoke in a loud voice. The doctor and the Duke came close to the bed, but, seeing that DoÑa Carmen was breathing her last, the physician took Requena by the arm to lead him out of the room. DoÑa Carmen's glazing eye wandered round the little group till it rested on Clementina, to whom she signed to come closer.

"God bless you, my child," she said, with a gaze fixed on the ceiling. "You are right to be glad at my death."

"Mamma, mamma, what are you saying?" cried Clementina, in horror.

"I am glad, too, glad that my death should be an advantage to you. If I could have given you all while I lived, I would have done it. It is sad, is it not, that I should have to die to make you happy? I should have liked to see you happy. Good-by; good-by. Think sometimes of your poor mamma."

"Mother, dearest mother!" sobbed the younger woman, dropping on her knees with a burst of tears. "I do not want you to die, no, no. I have been very wicked, but I have always loved you, have always respected you."

"Do not be foolish," said the dying woman, smiling with an effort, and laying her hand on the fair head. "I am not sorry if you are glad. And what does it matter? I die content to know that you will owe some happiness to me. Remember my old women in the asylum, be kind to them, and to Marcella, my good Marcella. Farewell, all of you. Forgive me any faults——"

Her voice failed, her breathing was hard and painful. The sobs of Clementina and Marcella were the only other sound. The Duke, trembling and shocked, was at last persuaded to leave the room.

DoÑa Carmen spoke no more. Her eyes closed, her lips parted, she lay quite still. Now and then she half raised her eyelids and looked fondly at her step-daughter who remained kneeling. The priest read on in a quavering nasal voice prayer after prayer.

Thus died the Duchess de Requena. Let her depart in peace.

For some days after, Clementina and her husband, in spite of their inextinguishable aversion, held long and repeated conferences. The great question of the inheritance united their interests for a while. Clementina went every morning and evening to see her father, and Osorio too was a frequent visitor; they both were lavish of attentions to the old man, took pity on his loneliness, and made much of him. There was an affectionate familiarity in their demeanour which was highly becoming in a son and daughter who make it their duty to cherish a venerable parent in his old age. The Duke, on his part, accepted their care, watching them with an expression which was ironical rather than grateful. When their backs were turned to leave him, he gazed after them, slowly closing his eyes, and turned his cigar-stump between his teeth, while his lips sketched a sarcastic smile, which did not die away for some few seconds.

But everything went on as before. Although the Duchess's will was incontrovertible, Salabert never said a word on money matters. He continued to manage the whole of the fortune, and engaged in various concerns with calm despotism. But his daughter and son-in-law were not so calm. They began, on the contrary, to be greatly disturbed, to express their opinions to each other with crude vehemence, and to lay plots to provoke an explanation. Clementina thought that Osorio should speak to her father. He considered it her part to apply to him in dutiful terms for an explanation, before formulating a complaint. After some days of hesitation the wife finally made up her mind to say a few words to her father, though not without some embarrassment, since she knew his temper and her own too.

"Well, papa," said she, with affected lightness, finding him alone in his room, "when are you going to talk over money matters with me?"

"Money matters? Why should I?" he replied in a tone of surprise, and looking at her with such an air of innocence that she longed to slap his face.

"Why should you? Because it will have to be done, to put me in possession of my property. Am I not mamma's sole legatee?" she answered in the same cheerful tone, but there was a very perceptible quaver in her voice.

"Ah, to be sure!" exclaimed the Duke, with a flourish of the hand to dismiss the subject. "We will talk of that later—much later."

Clementina turned pale. Her blood seemed to curdle with rage. Her lips quivered, and she was on the point of saying something violent.

"Still, it would be as well that we should come to an understanding," she murmured in a low voice.

"Not at all, not at all. I cannot discuss it now. When I have time and am in the humour I will think about it."

He spoke with such decision and indifference that his daughter had no choice but either to give the reins to her tongue and quarrel violently with her father, or to go. After a moment's hesitation she went. She turned on her heel, and, without a word of leave-taking, she quitted the room and went off in her carriage, in such a state of excitement that she was trembling from head to foot.

As soon as she reached home she shut herself up in her own room and gave vent to her fury. She wept, she stamped, she tore her clothes, and broke various articles of crockery. Osorio too flew into a rage, and declared he would bring Salabert to book. But nothing came of it all, excepting a letter, in which respectfully enough, he required his father-in-law to give him an account of the state of his business, that the preliminaries of an estimate might be arrived at. Salabert simply did not answer. They wrote another; again no reply. They ceased going to the house. Clementina would not go for fear of a scandal. Osorio, on his part, considering the relations that subsisted between him and his wife, did not feel that he had the moral position which would entitle him to lay formal claim to her fortune.

In this predicament they consulted certain persons of weight, friends of the Duke, and requested them to mediate. This was done; they had various interviews with the old man, and after much consultation a friendly meeting was agreed on, to avoid bringing the matter into a court of law. The meeting was held, after some objections on Clementina's part, at her father's house. Besides the interested parties, there were present Father Ortega, the Conde de Cotorraso, CalderÓn, and Jimenez Arbos.

The proceedings were opened by Arbos—no longer in the Ministry, but a member of the Opposition—who made a speech in a conciliatory key, urging them to agree rather than present to the public the spectacle of a quarrel on money matters between a father and daughter—a spectacle which, in view of the position they held, must be both painful and discreditable. The next to speak was Father Ortega, who, in the unctuous and persuasive accents which characterised him, first bestowed on both parties a plentiful lather of preposterous encomiums, and then appealed to their Christian feelings, representing how bad an example they would set, and painting the sweets of loving-kindness and self-sacrifice, ending by promises of eternal life and glory.

Clementina replied. She had no wish but to continue in the same friendly relations with her father as had hitherto subsisted, and to achieve that end she was prepared to do all in her power. The curt, dry tone in which she spoke, and the scowl which accompanied her words, gave no strong evidence of sincerity. However, the Duke seemed greatly moved.

"Arbos," he began, "Father, my friends, and my children; you all know me well. To me, without domestic life, there is no possibility of happiness. After the terrible blow I have so lately suffered, my daughter is all that is left to me. On her centre all my hopes, my affections, and my pride. For her I have toiled, have struggled indefatigably, have accumulated the capital I possess. I may say that I have never cared for money but for the sake of my wife, now in glory, and my daughter—to see them living in comfort and luxury. As you know, I could always have lived on a few coppers a day. And now that I am old, all the more so. What can I want with millions? Ere long, I too must take the train for the other side—Eh, Julian? And you too.—Who then can suppose that I should ever quarrel over a handful of dollars with my dear and only daughter? The whole thing has been a mistake. I wanted time to put my affairs in order; that was all. And if you, my child, ever could imagine anything else, I can only tell you this: everything in this house is yours, and always has been. Take it whenever you choose. Take it, my child, take it. I can do with nothing."

As he pronounced the last words with visible emotion, they all were able to shed a tear. Every one was deeply moved and eager with conciliatory exhortation. Father Ortega gently pushed Clementina into her father's arms; and though she was the least agitated of the party, she allowed him to embrace her.

He clasped her to his heart for some minutes, and when he released her dropped into his arm-chair, with his handkerchief to his eyes, quite overcome by so much emotion.

After so pathetic a scene no one could allude to money. The meeting broke up with fervid hand-pressing and warm mutual congratulations on the happy issue of their diplomacy. But Osorio and his wife got into their carriage, grave and sullen, and exchanged not a single word on the drive home. Only as they reached their own door, Clementina said:

"Well, we shall see how the farce ends."

Osorio shrugged his shoulders.

"We have seen the end, I suspect."

And he was right.

The Duke never paid them a cent., and never again spoke of his daughter's fortune. He was very affectionate, and constantly had them to dine with him, complaining of his loneliness. Now and then he spoke of transactions he was engaged in, but not a word of paying them their share. Clementina was at last so much provoked that she suddenly ceased going to the house. They then took to exchanging notes. Nothing was to be got out of her father but ambiguous replies and vague hopes. Finally they decided on taking legal steps, and a lawsuit began, which was a source of endless satisfaction to the faculty.

This was an end of all joy or comfort for Clementina. She lived in a state of perpetual ferment, watching the progress of the litigation with anxious interest, communicating with the lawyers, and trying to exert some influence which might counterbalance the Duke's. He, on his part, took the matter much more calmly, conducted it with maddening acumen, taking advantage of her displays of violence to represent her in the eyes of the world as a greedy and unnatural daughter. At the same time, among his intimate acquaintances, he would now and then give utterance to some sarcastic or cynical speech which, when it reached her ears, made her wild with rage. The struggle became more desperate every day, while, on the other hand, Osorio's creditors, deceived in their hopes, began to press him very hard, and threatened to bring him to ruin. The torments, the tempers, the wretched state of things in the Osorio household may be easily imagined.

This discomfort, and it might be called misery, extended to the hapless Raimundo. Clementina, torn soul and body by a tumult of other passions, found no leisure for the blandishments of love. The minutes she could spare for them were every day briefer and less calm. The gay tÊte-À-tÊtes and merry devices of a former time were over for ever. The lady no longer found any amusement in laughing at her boyish lover. She did not seem even to remember the childish pleasures in which they had delighted. She could talk of nothing now but the lawsuit. Her nerves were in such a state of tension that an inadvertent word might put her into a furious rage. And, besides all this, in her vehement desire for triumph over her father, she flirted more than ever with Escosura, who had just come into office; and this, as may be supposed, was what most distressed the young naturalist.

One day, when she was rather more fond than usual, she said in loving accents:

"You are still jealous of Escosura, Raimundo? But it is quite a mistake. I do not care a straw for the man."

"Yes, so you have often told me, and yet——"

"There is no 'and yet' in the case, fastidious youth!" she interrupted, gently pulling his ear. "I never loved, and never could love any one but you. But—here comes the but—you alas! are not in power, though you deserve to be more than any one I know. My fortune, as you know, is at the mercy of the law, and I may be told any day that I am a beggar. Accustomed as I am to comfort and luxury, you may imagine how much I should relish this. And my pride, too, would suffer, for I am the object of much invidious feeling; people hate me without knowing why. In short, I should be laughed at, and that I could not endure. My father has a great many supporters. Men count on him for services, though he is utterly incapable of a kindness, and they are afraid of him too. Now I, though on intimate terms with all the official circle of Madrid, have not one true friend to take a real interest in my affairs, or dare to show a bold front to my father. And so, you see, I must try to make one. Now imagine this friend to be Escosura, and imagine me to break with you before the eyes of the world, though still you are the one and only man I can ever love. What do you think of the arrangement? Can you regard it as acceptable?"

Raimundo coloured crimson at this strange and humiliating proposition. For a minute or two he made no reply, but at last he said, between anger and contempt:

"It strikes me as simply infamous and indecent."

The furrow, the fateful furrow, which appeared on Clementina's brow whenever passion stirred her stormy soul, was ominously deep. She abruptly rose, and after looking at him hard, with an expression of scornful rage, she said in icy tones:

"You are right. Such an arrangement could not meet your views! We had better part, once for all." And she turned to go.

Raimundo was confounded.

"Clementina!" he cried as she reached the door.

"What is it?" said she, as coldly as before, and looking round.

"Listen, one moment, for God's sake! I spoke under an impulse of jealousy, not meaning to wound you. How could I ever mean to hurt you when I love you, adore you as a creature of another sphere?" and he poured out words of tenderness and worship.

Clementina listened without moving from her attitude of haughty indifference, and would not melt till she saw him utterly humbled, on his knees before her, beseeching for the scheme he had stigmatised as infamous and indecent as a favour to himself.

At this time Clementina received a blow which almost made her ill. Her father brought the audacious woman to whom he had given a card for his ball to live in the palace, and this extraordinary proceeding became the talk of all Madrid. Every one believed that Salabert was out of his mind. And then a rumour got afloat that he was about to marry Amparo, and amazement and indignation filled the soul of Society.

But an unforeseen accident interfered with this alliance. At a meeting of the shareholders of the Riosa mines it was the Duke's part, as chairman, to give an account of his management, and propose certain measures for the advantage of the company. He usually fulfilled such functions with great brevity and lucidity; he was, above all else, a man of business, and had no fancy for rambling speeches or more words than were absolutely necessary. But now, to the surprise of his audience, among whom there were many bankers and official personages, he began a rambling address quite foreign to the matter.

He wandered from his subject and began giving explanations of his conduct as a public character, sketched a complete biography of himself, dwelling on a thousand insignificant details; sang his own praises in the most barefaced way, putting himself forward as the model of a logical politician, and of disinterested self-sacrifice; spoke of his services to the nation by his loans to the Government in the hour of need, and to the cause of humanity by his co-operation in the founding of hospitals, schools, and asylums; finally having the audacity to assert that the Home for Old Women was his work.

The shareholders looked at one another in bewilderment, muttering not very complimentary comments on the orator's condition of mind. When he had finished the catalogue of his own merits and proclaimed himself, urbi et orbi, the greatest man in Spain, he began an invective against his enemies, describing himself as the victim of persistent and deliberate persecution, of a thousand intrigues plotted to discredit him, and in which various political and financial magnates were implicated. In confirmation of this statement he read, in loud, fierce tones, certain articles from a paper published in the district where the Riosa mines were situated, and which, according to him, constituted a gross and shameful attack. What they actually said amounted to this: That Salabert was not a man of such mark as to be worthy to have a statue.

His hearers, more and more wearied and indignant, now said, though still in under-tone: "The man is crazy! The man is mad!"

As he read on, his face grew purple; it was usually pale, it now looked as if he were being strangled. Suddenly, before he had finished, he fell back senseless in his chair.