In the early part of the preceding year Don Mariano de Silva had passed three months in the Mexican metropolis. He had been accompanied by his daughter Gertrudis--Marianita remaining in Oajaca with a near relative of the family. In the _tertulias_ of the gay capital the fair _Oajaquena_ had met the dashing captain of dragoons, and a romantic attachment had sprung up between them, mutual as sincere. To this there could be no objection by the parents on either side: since there was between the two lovers a complete conformity in age, social position, and fortune. In all likelihood the romance of courtship would soon have ended in the more prosaic reality of marriage; but just at that time the young officer was ordered upon some military service; and Don Mariano was also suddenly called away from the capital. The marriage ceremony, therefore, that might otherwise have been expected to take place, thus remained unconsummated. It is true that up to this time Don Rafael had not formally declared his passion to the young Creole; but it is probable that she knew it without any verbal avowal; and still more that she fully reciprocated it. Neither had Don Mariano been spoken to upon the matter: the captain of dragoons not deeming it proper to confer with him till after he had obtained the consent of Gertrudis. After the separation of the two lovers, by little and little Don Rafael began to doubt whether his passion had been really returned by the fair Oajaquena. Time and absence, while they rendered more feeble the remembrance of those little incidents that had appeared favourable to him, increased in an inverse ratio the impression of the young Creole's charms--that in fancy now appeared to him only the more glowing and seductive. So much did this impression become augmented, that the young officer began to think he had been too presumptuous in aspiring to the possession of such incomparable loveliness. His cruel doubts soon passed into a more cruel certainty; and he no longer believed that his love had been returned. In this state of mind he endeavoured to drive the thoughts of Gertrudis out of his head: by saying to himself that he had never loved her! But this attempt at indifference only proved how strongly the sentiment influenced him; and the result was to force him into a melancholy, habitual and profound.