en I'll go to confession at once," murmured one of
the rustics in a low voice as he withdrew from the group.

CHAPTER XXXVI

The First Cloud

In Capitan Tiago's house reigned no less disorder than in the people's
imagination. Maria Clara did nothing but weep and would not listen to
the consoling words of her aunt and of Andeng, her foster-sister. Her
father had forbidden her to speak to Ibarra until the priests should
absolve him from the excommunication. Capitan Tiago himself, in the
midst of his preparations for receiving the Captain-General properly,
had been summoned to the convento.

"Don't cry, daughter," said Aunt Isabel, as she polished the bright
plates of the mirrors with a piece of chamois. "They'll withdraw the
excommunication, they'll write now to the Pope, and we'll make a big
poor-offering. Padre Damaso only fainted, he's not dead."

"Don't cry," whispered Andeng. "I'll manage it so that you may talk
with him. What are confessionals for if not that we may sin? Everything
is forgiven by telling it to the curate."

At length Capitan Tiago returned. They sought in his face the answer
to many questions, and it announced discouragement. The poor fellow
was perspiring; he rubbed his hand across his forehead, but was unable
to say a single word.

"What has happened, Santiago?" asked Aunt Isabel anxiously.

He answered by sighing and wiping away a tear.

"For God's sake, speak! What has happened?"

"Just what I feared," he broke out at last, half in tears. "All is
lost! Padre Damaso has ordered me to break the engagement, otherwise
he will damn me in this life and in the next. All of them told me
the same, even Padre Sibyla. I must close the doors of my house
against him, and I owe him over fifty thousand pesos! I told the
padres this, but they refused to take any notice of it. 'Which do
you prefer to lose,' they asked me, 'fifty thousand pesos or your
life and your soul?' Ay, St. Anthony, if I had only known, if I had
only known! Don't cry, daughter," he went on, turning to the sobbing
girl. "You're not like your mother, who never cried except just before
you were born. Padre Damaso told me that a relative of his has just
arrived from Spain and you are to marry him."

Maria Clara covered her ears, while Aunt Isabel screamed, "Santiago,
are you crazy? To talk to her of another sweetheart now! Do you think
that your daughter changes sweethearts as she does her camisa?"

"That's just the way