r
and her daughters! It was all that Senor Houston's doing. She had an
assurance of that." She invoked a thousand maledictions on him. She
recalled, with passionate reproaches, Jack's infidelity to her and
his God and his country. Her anger passed from one subject to another
constantly, finding in all, even in the lukewarmness of Antonia and
Isabel, and in their affection for lovers, who were also rebels, an
accumulating reason for a stupendous reproach against herself, her
husband, her children, and her unhappy fate. Her whole nature was in
revolt--in that complete mental and moral anarchy from which springs
tragedy and murder.

Isabel wept so violently that she angered still further the tearless
suffering of her mother. "God and the saints!" she cried. "What are you
weeping for? Will tears do any good? Do I weep? God has forbidden me
to weep for the wicked. Yet how I suffer! Mary, mother of sorrows, pity
me!"

She sent Isabel away. Her sobs were not to be borne. And very soon
she felt Antonia's white face and silent companionship to be just as
unendurable. She would be alone. Not even Rachela would she have near
her. She put out all the lights but the taper above a large crucifix,
and at its foot she sat down in tearless abandon, alone with her
reproaches and her remorse.

Antonia watched with her mother, though shut out from her presence.
She feared for a state of mind so barren of affection, so unsoftened
by tears. Besides, it was the climax of a condition which had continued
ever since she had sent her boy away without a word of love. In the
dim corridor outside she sat still, listening for any noise or movement
which might demand help or sympathy. It was not nine o'clock; but the
time lengthened itself out beyond endurance. Even yet she had hope of
some word from her father. Surely, they would let him send some word to
them!

She heard the murmur of voices downstairs, and she thought angrily of
Rachela, and Molly, and Manuel, "making a little confidence together"
over their trouble, and spicing their evening gossip with the strange
thing that had happened to the Senor Doctor. She knew that Rachela and
Manuel would call him heretic and Americano, and, by authority of these
two words, accuse him of every crime.

Thinking with a swelling heart of these things, she heard the door open,
and a step slowly and heavily ascend the stairs. Ere she had time to
wonder at it, her father came in sight. There was a shocki