The young woman shrugged her shoulders. Her impure eyes, of absinthe hue, were moistened by no tear. Candelas, on the other hand, was showing herself more human, far more a woman. Her eyes were drowned with grief.

Enrique continued speaking. His manner was grave. Quite suddenly the youth had become a man.

"I decided to win you back," said he, "to offer you the thing you wanted so much. Last night, when I went into that shop, I wasn't perfectly sure what I was going to do. Still, I went up to the counter, and told them I wanted to see the emerald necklace in the window. When they brought it, with some others, a kind of dizziness came over me. It veiled my eyes with dark, terrible shadows. I thrust out my hand, swiftly took one of the necklaces--I didn't know which, because they all looked green to me--and ran. But the proprietor must have been spying every movement of mine. He pulled a revolver, and fired. His aim was good. At that moment I felt nothing, and kept on running. Voices shouted after me: 'Stop thief! Stop thief!' I seemed to see revengeful hands, eager to catch me, opening and shutting like claws, behind me.

"When I came to my senses, I was in a deserted alleyway. My pursuers hadn't been able to catch me. Then I noticed my clothes were all soaked with blood, and my knees were shaking. What should I do? Night sheltered me. Slowly I came back here. To-day, I sent for you."

The ring-laden fingers of the girl twisted together with a twofold motion of interest and horror.

"And you haven't had any treatment?" asked she. "You haven't called a doctor?"

"No. I didn't want to do that. Because if anybody had seen me, they'd have suspected. And I preferred to die, Alicia, rather than to have them take away the necklace I stole for you."

Then, feeling that his last strength was running out, he added with a little gesture:

"There it is, on the bureau. Just raise up those papers--"

The scene was poignant, melodramatic with sad romanticism. At last the Magdalene's eyes grew wet.

"Boy, boy!" she sobbed. "What have you done?"

Darles only repeated:

"You'll find it there, on the bureau."

She did as the student bade her in his eagerness not to die before seeing his gift in the well-beloved's hands of snow and pearl. Under some papers her fingers came upon a black pearl necklace.

"Oh, how beautiful!" she cried, enchanted.

Without opening his eyes, and like a man talking in his sleep, Darles answered:

"It's not the one you wanted, I know. I found that out, afterward.

But--at that moment, they all looked green to me."

Thus befell one more event, one more caprice of the bitter and eternal irony of things. To give one's life for a necklace, an emerald necklace, and then to get the wrong one! The student murmured:

"Good-by!"

A long shudder trembled through his body. Suddenly the shadow of death gave his face a stern, manly severity. His lips twisted. Candelas, kneeling beside the bed, wept and prayed. Alicia, more violent in disposition, caught Enrique by the shoulder.

"Enrique!" she cried. "Enrique!"

And for a moment she looked at him with one of those tragic, pa.s.sionate expressions that sometimes explain the sacrifice of a life. The student could still whisper:

"Remember--!"

This was his final word. His eyes drooped shut. He died quietly, with no bleeding at the lips. A whitish aura spread over his face. Alicia exclaimed:

"Enrique! Can you hear me? Enrique!"

She felt of his forehead, his hands. He was dead.

"He's gone," said she.

This too, in her way of thinking, was admirable. Came a pause. Candelas had got up, and now the two friends questioned each other with their eyes. The same idea, the same terror had just struck them both.

Enrique's death would compromise them. The law would inst.i.tute researches, and the girls might easily be called upon to testify.

Instincts of self-preservation drove memories of the dead man from them.

"We're in a terrible position," said Alicia. "It's all your fault. I didn't want to come."

Angrily Candelas retorted:

"It's _your_ fault!"

"Mine?"

"Of course! Who made him steal, but you?"

"I did? _I_?"

"Yes, you idiot!"

In Candelas' voice quivered that envious anger felt by all women against any for whose sake a man has ruined himself. Then she added, more calmly:

"It's lucky, anyhow, the janitress didn't see us coming up here."

Alicia Pardo examined the necklace. Her egotistic soul, enamored of luxury, her little soul, that worshiped loot and gain, was now thinking of nothing but the beauty of the jewels. Standing in front of the looking-gla.s.s, she clasped the necklace round her throat and began to turn her head from side to side. The contrast made by the blackness of the pearls on the ermine whiteness of her throat gave her pleasure. And for a moment her eyes burned with the insolent strength of happiness.

What had happened was by no means causing her any remorse. Why should it? Was it her fault if Enrique had taken in earnest what she had asked him by way of jest? Philosophically she reflected that the history of every courtesan always contains at least one tragic chapter. Then her mind drifted toward a shade of irony. Poor Enrique! The unfortunate boy, she pondered, was one of those luckless ones who never realize their dream, even though they lay down their lives for it.

At last, moved more by a feeling of tenderness than by any artistic delicacy, she drew near the corpse, to say farewell with one last look.

At the door, Candelas summoned her:

"Let's be going! Come!"

Alicia Pardo turned. There was really nothing more for her to do there.

The thick air of that room, the tiled floor all covered with crimson blotches, stifled her. Out in the street she would breathe deeply again.

And she reflected that her necklace of black pearls would attract attention, that night, at the Teatro Real. She felt no sadness. As she pa.s.sed in front of the mirror, she cast a sidelong glance at herself.

"It's a pretty necklace, all right," thought she.

Then she added, with a vague regret:

"Still, I'd have liked the emeralds better----"