I had not told Felipa we were going:  I thought it best to let it take her by surprise.  I had various small articles of finery ready as farewell gifts which should act as sponges to absorb her tears.  But Fate took the whole matter out of my hands.  This is how it happened.  One evening in the jessamine arbor, in the fragrant darkness of the warm spring night, the end came:  Christine was won.  She glided in like a wraith, and I, divining at once what had happened, followed her into her little room, where I found her lying on her bed, her hands clasped on her breast, her eyes open and veiled in soft shadows, her white robe drenched with dew.  I kissed her fondly—­I never could help loving her then or now—­and next I went out to find Edward.  He had been kind to me all my poor gray life:  should I not go to him now?  He was still in the arbor, and I sat down by his side quietly:  I knew that the words would come in time.  They came:  what a flood!  English was not enough for him.  He poured forth his love in the rich-voweled Spanish tongue also:  it has sounded doubly sweet to me ever since.

    “Have you felt the wool of the beaver? 
    Or swan’s down ever? 
    Or have smelt the bud o’ the brier? 
    Or the nard in the fire? 
    Or ha’ tasted the bag o’ the bee? 
    Oh so white, oh so soft, oh so sweet is she!”

said the young lover again and again; and I, listening there in the dark fragrant night, with the dew heavy upon me, felt glad that the old simple-hearted love was not entirely gone from our tired metallic world.

It was late when we returned to the house.  After reaching my room I found that I had left my cloak in the arbor.  It was a strong fabric:  the dew could not hurt it, but it could hurt my sketching materials and various trifles in the wide inside pockets—­objets de luxe to me, souvenirs of happy times, little artistic properties that I hang on the walls of my poor studio when in the city.  I went softly out into the darkness again and sought the arbor:  groping on the ground I found, not the cloak, but—­Felipa!  She was crouched under the foliage, face downward:  she would not move or answer.

“What is the matter, child?” I said, but she would not speak.  I tried to draw her from her lair, but she tangled herself stubbornly still farther among the thorny vines, and I could not move her.  I touched her neck:  it was cold.  Frightened, I ran back to the house for a candle.

“Go away,” she said in a low hoarse voice when I flashed the light over her.  “I know all, and I am going to die.  I have eaten the poison things in your box, and just now a snake came on my neck and I let him.  He has bitten me, I suppose, and I am glad.  Go away:  I am going to die.”

I looked around:  there was my color-case rifled and empty, and the other articles were scattered on the ground.  “Good Heavens, child!” I cried, “what have you eaten?”