property.

"Oh, Ysabelita! what will they do to us?" was the Dona Luisa's anxious
interrogatory, soon as they had got well inside their room. "Do you
think they'll put us in a prison?"

"Possibly they will. I wish there was nothing worse awaiting us."

"Worse! Do you mean they'd inflict punishment on us--that is, corporal
punishment? Surely they daren't?"

"Daren't! Santa Anna dare anything--at least, neither shame nor mercy
will restrain him. No more this other man, his minion, whom you know
better than I. But it isn't punishment of that kind I'm thinking of."

"What then, Ysabel? The loss of our property? It'll be all taken from
us, I suppose."

"In all likelihood it will," rejoined the Condesa, with as much
unconcern as though her estates, value far more than a million, were not
worth a thought.

"Oh! my father! This new misfortune, and all owing to me. 'Twill kill
him!"

"No, no, Luisita! Don't fear that. He will survive it, if aught
survives of our country's liberty. And it will, all of it, be restored
again. 'Tis something else I was thinking of."

Again the other asked "What?" her countenance showing increased anxiety.

"What we as women have more to fear than aught else. From the loss of
lands, houses, riches of any sort, one may recover--from the loss of
that, never!"

Enigmatic as were the words, Luisa Valverde needed no explanation of
them, nor pressed for it. She comprehended all now, and signified her
apprehension by exclaiming, with a shudder, "_Virgen Santissima_!"

"The prison they will take us to," pursued the Countess, "is a place--
that in the Plaza Grande. We shall be immured there, and at the mercy
of that man, that monster! O God!--O Mother of God, protect me!"

At which she dropped down upon a couch despairingly, with face buried in
her hands.

It was a rare thing for the Condesa Almonte to be so moved--rather, to
show despondence--and her friend was affected accordingly. For there
was another man at whose mercy she herself would be--one like a monster,
and as she well knew equally unmerciful--he who at that moment was under
the same roof with them--in her father's house, for the time its master.

"But, Ysabel," she said, hoping against hope, "surely they will not dare
to--"

She left the word unspoken, knowing it was not needed to make her
meaning understood.

"Not dare!" echoed the Countess, recovering nerve and again rising to
her feet. "As I've said,