e smiled bitterly.

"Ah! you doubt me! you doubt your childhood's friend, who has never
hidden a single thought from you! When you know my history, the sad
story that was told me in my illness, you will pity me; you will no
longer wear that smile. Why did they not let me die in the hands of
my ignorant doctor! You and I should both have been happier!"

She stopped a moment, then went on:

"You force me to this, by your doubts; may my mother forgive me! In
one of the most painful of my nights of suffering, a man revealed
to me the name of my real father. If he had not been my father,
this man said, he might have pardoned the injury you had done him."

Crisostomo looked at Maria in amazement.

"What was I to do?" she went on. "Ought I to sacrifice to my love
the memory of my mother, the honor of him who was supposed to be my
father, and the good name of him who is? And could I have done this
without bringing dishonor upon you too?"

"But the proof--have you had proof? There must be proof!" said
Crisostomo, staggered.

Maria drew from her breast two papers.

"Here are two letters of my mother's," she said, "written in her
remorse. Take them! Read them! My father left them in the house
where he lived so many years. This man found them and kept them, and
only gave them up to me in exchange for your letter, as assurance,
he said, that I would not marry you without my father's consent. I
sacrificed my love! Who would not for a mother dead and two fathers
living? Could I foresee what use they would make of your letter? Could
I know I was sacrificing you too?"

Ibarra was speechless. Maria went on:

"What remained for me to do? Could I tell you who my father was? Could
I bid you ask his pardon, when he had so made your father suffer? Could
I say to my father, who perhaps would have pardoned you--could I say I
was his daughter? Nothing remained but to suffer, to guard my secret,
and die suffering! Now, my friend, now that you know the sad story
of your poor Maria, have you still for her that disdainful smile?"

"Maria, you are a saint!"

"I am blessed, because you believe in me----"

"And yet," said Crisostomo, remembering, "I heard you were to
marry----"

"Yes," sobbed the poor child, "my father demands this sacrifice; he
has loved me, nourished me, and it did not belong to him to do it. I
shall pay him my debt of gratitude by assuring him peace through this
new connection, but----"

"But?"

"I shall not fo