Farther on to her right, she could see the rough, frowning rocks in the mountain yonder, looking as though evil spirits had piled them there, in well-arranged confusion, to prevent the children of earth from taking possession of its steep heights, and its jealously-hidden treasures.
Grand, and lonely, and desolate looked the mountain, and lonely and desolate looked the plain, as Eva stood there, her hands folded and drooping, the light wind tossing her hair, and fluttering and playing in the folds of her dress. It was the picture of her own life unfolding before her: lone, and drear, and barren; without change or relief, without verdure, or blossom, or goodly springs of crystal water; the arid desert--her life, dragging its slow length along; the frowning mountain--her duties, and the unavoidable tasks that life imposed on her.
With a sigh she turned from both. Before her lay the cool valley, sheltered from careless eyes, and from the sand and dust of the road and the country beyond. Very small was the valley of the spring, with its laughing flowers and shady trees--like the one leaf from the volume of her memory that was tinted with the color of the rose and the sunbeam.
"And up the valley came the swell of music on the wind"--bringing back scenes on which the sun had thrown its glorious parting rays in times past, when life had seemed bright, and full of promise and inexhaustible joy. But she brought her face resolutely back to the desert and the mountain.
She walked on rapidly toward the spring where Marcelita had spread her _rebozo_ on the trunk of a fallen tree, before starting out to gather the flowers that grew in the valley.
Almost exhausted, Eva had seated herself on the improvised couch, but was startled by a step beside her. Was it a spirit conjured up by the flood of memories surging through her breast that stood before her?
"Charlie, oh, Charlie! have you come at last?" But already the spell was broken.
"I cannot think why Lieutenant Addison should wish to surprise me here. Would it not be more fitting to visit our quarters, if he felt constrained to comply with the etiquette of the garrison?"
"For God's sake, Eva," he cried, passionately, "listen to me one moment; grant that I may speak to you once more as Eva--not as the wife of Major Stanford. Let me hear the truth from your own lips. Eva, I have come here, to this horrible, horrible country, because I knew you were here. I came here to see you--to learn from you why you were false to me; why you spurned my love--the deepest and truest man ever felt for woman--and then to die."