Page 322 - ramona-text

RAMONA
3l4
But the Senora's power was shaken now. More changed
than all else in the changed Moreno household, was the re-
lation between the Seiiora Moreno and her son Felipe. On
the morning after Ramona's disappearance, words had been
spoken by each which neither would ever forget. In fact, the
Seiiora believed that it was of them she was dying, and per-
haps that was not far from the truth; the reason that forces
could no longer rally in her to repel disease, lying no doubt
largely in the fact that to live seemed no longer to her desir-
able.
Felipe had found the note Ramona had laid on his bed.
Before it was yet dawn he had waked, and tossing uneasily
under the light covering had heard the rustle of the paper,
and knowing instinctively that it was from Ramona, had
risen instantly to make sure of it. Before his mother opened
her window, he had read it. He felt like one bereft of his
senses as he read. Gone! Gone with Alessandro! Stolen away
like a thief in the night, his dear, sweet little sister! Ah, what
a cruel shame! Scales seemed to drop from Felipe's eyes as
he lay motionless, thinking of it. A shame! a cruel shame!
And he and his mother were the ones who had brought it on
Ramona's head, and on the house of Moreno. Felipe felt as
—
if he had been under a spell all along, not to have realized
this. "That's what 1 told my mother!" he groaned, "that it
drove her to running away! Oh, my sweet Ramona! what
will become of her? I will go after them, and bring them
back;" and Felipe rose, and hastily dressing himself, ran
down the veranda steps, to gain a little more time to think.
He returned shortly, to meet his mother standing in the door-
way, with pale, affrighted face.
"Felipe!" she cried, "Ramona is not here."
"1 know it," he replied in an angry tone. "That is what 1
told you we should do,—drive her to running away with Ales-
sandro!"
—
"With Alessandro!" interrupted the Sefiora.
"Yes," continued Felipe, "with Alessandro, the Indian!
Perhaps you think it is less disgrace to the names of Ortegna
and Moreno to have her run away with him. than to be
married to him here under our roof! 1 do not! Curse the day,