Yielding to a touch of the spur, his horse launched himself out into the road; and was pulled up close to the _carretela_--through the opened window of which a white arm was at the same time protruded. I saw the flashing of a jewelled wrist, with a _billetita_ held at the tips of tapering fingers! Stodare could not have taken that note more adroitly, or concealed it with quicker sleight, than did my friend Francisco Moreno--_never more to be friend of mine_! CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. HER NAME IS DOLORES. There is one subject upon which there can be no question--nothing to admit of discussion. It is, that jealousy is the most painful thought that can torture the soul of man. In painfulness it has its degrees--greater or less, according to its kind: for of this dread passion, conceit, or whatever you may call it, there is more than one _species_. There is the jealousy that springs after possession; and that which arises from anticipation. Mine, of course, belonged to the latter. I shall not stay to inquire which is the more disagreeable of the two-- as a general rule. I can only say, that, standing there under the Peruvian pepper-trees, I felt as if the shades of death and the furies of hell were above and around me. I was angry at the man who had made me feel so;--but mad--absolutely mad--with the woman! What could she have meant in leading me such a measure? What profit did she expect by practising upon me such a damnable delusion? "_En la Alameda--a seis Horas_!" I was there, true to the time,--and she, too. Six o'clock could be heard striking from a score of church towers--every stroke as if the hammer were driving a nail into my heart! For some seconds I listened to the tolling--tolling--tolling. Were they funeral bells? Oh! what a woman--in beauty an angel--in behaviour a devil! I had no longer a doubt that such was a true description of Mercedes Villa-Senor. To excuse my thus quickly coming to conclusions, you should know something of Mexican society--its highest and best. But it is not for me to expose it. My _souvenirs_ are too sweet to permit of my turning traitor. That was one of the most bitter--although it was also one of the most transient. Perhaps I should not say transient; since, after a very short interval of relief, it came back bitter as before--with a bitterness long, long, to continue. The illusion was due to a process of reasoning that passed through my mind as I stood looking after the _carretela_, after the incident described. I had conceived a half hope. Mercedes might be only a messenger? The note might have been from Dolores--the guarded Dolores, who dared not go out alone? The sisters might be _confidantes_--a thing not uncommon in Mexico, or even in England? Dolores, threatened with a cloister, might have no other means of corresponding with her "querido Francisco?" This view of the case was more pleasing than probable.