Luis might have found some messenger to bring
her a word of his love and life. What was love worth that did
not annihilate impossibilities! However, it consoled her a
little to carry Jack's letter to his mother. The Senora had
taken her morning chocolate and fallen asleep. When Isabel
awakened her, she opened her eyes with a sigh, and a look of
hopeless misery. These pallid depressions attacked her most
cruelly in the morning, when the room, shabby and unfamiliar,
gave both her memory, and anticipation a shock.
But the sight of the letter flushed her face with expectation.
She took it with smiles. She covered it with kisses. When
she opened it, a curl from Jack's head fell on to her lap.
She pressed it to her heart, and then rose and laid it at the
feet of her Madonna. "She must share my joy," she said with
a pathetic childishness; "she will understand it." Then, with
her arm around Isabel, and the girl's head on his shoulder,
they read together Jack's loving words:
"Mi madre, mi madre, you have Juan's heart in your heart.
Believe me, that in all this trouble I sorrow only for you.
When victory is won I shall fly to you. Other young men have
other loves; I have only you, sweet mother. There is always
the cry in my heart for the kiss I missed when I left you. If
I could hold your hand to-night, if I could hear your voice,
if I could lay my head on your breast, I would say that the
Holy One had given me the best blessings He had in heaven.
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