Page 41 - ramona-text

RAMON A 33
Angus Phail's face quivered. Feelings long dead within
him stirred in their graves. He gazed at the sad and altered
face, once so beautiful, so dear. "I should hardly have known
you, Senora!" burst from him involuntarily.
She smiled piteously, with no resentment. "That is not
strange. 1 hardly know myself," she whispered. "Life has
dealt very hardly with me. I should not have known you
either—Angus." She pronounced his name hesitatingly, half
appealingly. At the sound of the familiar syllables, so long
unheard, the man's heart broke down. He buried his face
in his hands, and sobbed out: "O Ramona, forgive me! I
brought the child here, not wholly in love; partly in ven-
geance. But I am melted now. Are you sure you wish to keep
her? I will take her away if you are not."
"Never, so long as I live, Angus," replied Senora Ortegna.
"Already 1 feel that she is a mercy from the Lord. If my
husband sees no offence in her presence, she will be a joy
in my life. Has she been christened?"
Angus cast his eyes down. A sudden fear smote him. "Be-
fore I had thought of bringing her to you," he stammered,
"at first I had only the thought of giving her to the Church.
I had had her christened by"—the words refused to leave
—
his lips "the name— Can you not guess, Senora, what
name she bears?"
The Senora knew. "My own?" she said.
Angus bowed his head. "The only woman's name that
my lips ever spoke with love," he said, reassured, "was the
name my daughter should bear."
"It is well," replied the Sefiora. Then a great silence fell
between them. Each studied the other's face, tenderly, be-
wilderedly. Then by a simultaneous impulse they drew
nearer. Angus stretched out both his arms with a gesture
of infinite love and despair, bent down and kissed the hands
which lovingly held his sleeping child.
"God bless you, Ramona! Farewell! You will never see
me more," he cried, and was gone.
In a moment more he reappeared on the threshold of the
door, but only to say in a low tone, "There is no need to be
alarmed if the child does not wake for some hours yet. She