“I did not utter a word; my tongue seemed glued to my mouth, and refused to move.  Had she died because nothing could save her, or because I had dropped double the number of drops?  The fatal vial still stood on the table by the bed where I had placed it.  I feared to touch it again; but Jonathan took it up, and, looking at it, said casually:  ’Did you give her from it twice?  I see there are more than fifteen drops gone.’  I nodded my head.  ‘After two hours?’ he asked again, and put the vial in his pocket.  I again nodded affirmatively.  He examined the dead woman again, felt her skin, and raised her eyelids.  ‘Strange,’ he said.  ’You gave her the first dose about twelve o’clock, and the second at two; it is now only three o’clock, and this corpse has been cold for several hours.  Your wife must have died at least two hours ago; how is that?’ He looked at me in perplexity, and I felt myself grow pale under his inquiring glance; my limbs refused to support me, and I sank fainting on the floor.

“The funeral was over; I had suffered with another attack of fever, and was restored to my usual health, when one day a hasty messenger summoned me to go at once to Don Manuel, who needed my presence.  He had been thrown from his horse, and was suffering intensely from internal injuries, which threatened to terminate fatally at any moment.  I was conducted to his bedside, at which Inez knelt, her face buried on her father’s pillow.  At the foot of the bed stood the physician, Brother Jonathan.

“Don Manuel motioned me to his side.  ‘Don Mauer,’ he said in a faint voice, ’I must die; but, before I leave this world, I would like to provide for the future of my child, who, as you know, has no mother.  You have saved her life in the storm, and she has confessed to me that she loves you, and hopes you return her affection.  Therefore I ask you now, while death is hastening on, can you love her?  And will you take her to your heart, to love and cherish her as your wife?  She has always been a good daughter to me; she will be a true and faithful wife to you.’

“Inez raised her lovely head, and her dark eyes, which, in their innocence did not know how to veil her sentiments, looked pleadingly at me.  I laid one hand on the graceful, girlish head, and the other in that of the dying man.

“‘I will vow to honor and cherish her as my most precious treasure,’ I said solemnly, ‘for I love her above everything on earth.’

“Inez sank into my arms, and the weak voice of her dying father pronounced a blessing on us.  He begged that a priest might be quickly brought, to unite us by his death-bed, so that he would know Inez was safely provided for.

“Scarcely was the ceremony over, when he drew his last breath.

“The surprise, the overwhelming emotion, caused by this event, impressed me so powerfully that I could think of nothing but the one fact—­’Inez is mine!’ When I left the house, after handing the weeping girl over into the hands of her faithful nurse.  Brother Jonathan rode along with me.