"Could you, my friend, could any man, divine the nature of that dying
request Transita wished to make?
"Pointing to her child, she said, 'Do you not see that Margarita
inherits that fatal gift of beauty which won for me a life of splendour,
with extreme bitterness of heart and early death? Soon, before I die,
perhaps, there will not be wanting some new senora Romero to take
charge of her, who will at last sell her to some rich, cruel man, as
I was sold; for how can her beauty remain long concealed? It was with
very different views for her that I secretly left Paris and returned
here. During all the miserable years I spent there I thought more and
more of my childhood on that lonely coast, until, when I fell ill, I
resolved to go back there to spend my last days on that beloved spot
where I had been so happy. It was my intention to find some peasant
family there who would be willing to take Margarita and bring her up
as a peasant's child, with no knowledge of her father's position and
of the life men live in towns. The siege and my failing health made
it impossible for me to carry out that plan. I must die here, dear
friend, and never see that lonely coast where we have sat together so
often watching the waves. But I think only of poor little Margarita
now, who will soon be motherless: will you not help me to save her?
Promise me that you will take her away to some distant place, where
she will be brought up as a peasant's child, and where her father will
never find her.
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