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She awaited him, but how! Little did he imagine the sort of reception which he
was to have, as he hastened, with a buoyant heart, to the spot where she had
pledged herself to meet him. Little did he dream that all the toils which he had
undergone, and all the sacrifices which he had made, for the single object of his
devotion, were undergone and performed without avail. He was now to experience
the just reward of his narrow selfishness. Heedless of what was due to his
people, to justice, to freedom, and to his father's memory, he had been meanly
solicitous of his own enjoyment, without any of the cares of life; and to secure this
object, he had basely shuffled off all the solemn responsibilities of his birth, as a
prince and citizen, alike. He was now about to be taught the noble truth that the
cause of liberty is the common cause of man; and that no station can be secure,
whether high or humble—no happiness certain, whether lofty or unpretending, in
any land where injustice remains unpunished, and where tyranny is suffered to
obtain a foothold.

With the last lingering look upon her lover, as he left her to seek the courier
who was to convey the letter to her father, the unhappy Cava had addressed herself
to prayer. That parting with Egiza was the last—such was her resolve; and,
strive as she might, she felt that she could not pray. A dark shadow waved its
arms constantly between her eyes and the image of the Virgin. The features
seemed to contract, and the brow to frown upon her. The benevolence which had
looked forth upon her from the maternal eyes had departed, and she felt that she
had sinned in her resolve, and was about to do a farther and a greater sin in its
execution. The tears ran down her cheeks as she prayed for mercy—for indulgence;
but the frown passed not away from the features to which she looked, and
the dark shadow waved its arms more frequently before her eyes, and finally shut
out the blessed image entirely from her sight.

“Oh, mother! desert me not,” she cried; “desert me not! Thou knowest that I
have not sinned in this dreadful suffering; that I strove against the sin; that I
called upon thee all the while. I called upon thee, mother, but thou didst not come.”

Once more her eyes caught a glimpse of the blessed features, and they seemed to
smile upon her; but the prayer of her lips, the next moment, again brought with it
a blindness of the sight, as it denoted a greater blindness of the spirit.

“Take pity on me, Mother of God!—pity on the poor handmaiden, who kneels
to thee. Be thou before me, oh blessed Mary!—be thou before me at the Burning
Throne; soften the eyes that look upon me—plead for me, and win the grace for
me in mercy, which, through the intercession of thy son Jesus, thou canst well
command. Thou knowest that I cannot live; I cannot live for the scorn of those I
love—for those that should have loved me. I cannot meet their eyes. I dare not
look upon them. I must die!”

The once gentle features scowled upon her, and a voice at her very heart appeared
to say:

“And art thou more bold to meet God, whom thou now seekest willingly to
offend? Art thou less ready to look upon man than upon God? Is the Eternal
Love nothing to thee; and is the mortal love everything? Foolish and sinful that
thou art, seest thou not that what is pure and worthy in the love of earth, is a part of
God's love which He resumes at death, and which lives for thee evermore hereafter?

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Be not blind to offend God. Live for prayer—live for His love and mercy, if not for
the mercy and the love of man.”

“Would I could!” exclaimed the desperate woman, as if in reply to this exhortation.
“Would I could dare to live, to meet his face, to serve his bidding, to be in
his presence ever. But I am not strong enough.”

A voice at her ear seemed to her to say:

“Thou art not!” and the shadow swelled and distended as she listened, until her
eyes swam in the increasing darkness, and her extended hands grasped the wall below
the image of the Virgin, to whom she vainly stretched them for support. The
evil prompter had triumphed. The soft features of the Mother of Grief no longer
looked forth upon her, or looked forth only in rebuke. She rose from her knees.
She hurried to the recess in which she had hidden the letter to Egiza. This she
grasped in her hands, as she hurried to the lofty window. She climbed—she stood
upon the ledge, another step and she was upon the balustrade, and nothing now
remained, but God, between her and the awful precipice. She turned her eyes once
more within the room in search of the Virgin, but she saw not even the picture.
A hand seemed to grasp her throat. She strove for breath—she was choking with
her terrors, but she suppressed them:

“Let me not feel it, mother—my flesh shivers—I would not feel the pain. I am
dizzy—I—ah! I reel—I fall—Mother of God—Blessed Mary, help me—stay me—
keep me back—I would not perish now—I would live!”

These were her last words as she disappeared from the window. She had
repented of her resolve; but too late. Her head was dizzy with her elevation—her
knees gave way beneath her—and her last appeal, her last resolution to live, came
from the first physical consciousness of her inability any longer to maintain her
perilous position. Yet, as if the reluctant repentance was still in season, the cruel
pain of the death which she had chosen, was spared her. Ere yet she reached the
end of that fearful flight—ere yet her delicate limbs came in contact with the unyielding
and cold earth, all consciousness had departed, and she felt nothing after.
One part of her prayer seemed to have been heard by the Blessed Spirit to whom
she addressed it, and permitted by the indulgent God. She had been spared the
pang from which her flesh had shrunk in apprehension, and the earth seemed to
have received her as gently as it does the traveller who sinks into a passing slumber
by the wayside.