He was beside himself with joy.
"You would not say that if you did not think you could be my
wife," he cried. "Only give yourself to me, my love, I care not
whether you call yourself dead or alive!"
Ramona stood quietly in his arms. Ah, well for Felipe that he did
not know, never could know, the Ramona that Alessandro had
known. This gentle, faithful, grateful Ramona, asking herself
fervently now if she would do her brother a wrong, yielding up to
him what seemed to her only the broken fragment of a life;
weighing his words, not in the light of passion, but of calmest,
most unselfish action,-- ah, how unlike was she to that Ramona
who flung herself on Alessandro's breast, crying, "Take me with
you! I would rather die than have you leave me!"
Ramona had spoken truth. Part of her was dead. But Ramona saw
now, with infallible intuition, that even as she had loved
Alessandro, so Felipe loved her. Could she refuse to give Felipe
happiness, when he had saved her, saved her child? What else now
remained for them, these words having been spoken? "I will be
your wife, dear Felipe," she said, speaking solemnly, slowly, "if
you are sure it will make you happy, and if you think it is right.
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