the governor general seated in
this very place."

"What! His Excellency was here? And at your house? Impossible!"

"I repeat that he was seated exactly here. If you had come two days
ago----"

"Ah! What a pity Clarita did not fall ill sooner!" she cried. "You
hear, cousin! His Excellency was here! You know, Don Santiago, that
at Madrid our cousin was the friend of ministers and dukes, and that
he dined with the Count del Campanario."

"The Duke de la Torre, Victorina," suggested her husband.

"It is the same thing!"

"Shall I find Father Damaso at his pueblo to-day?" Linares asked
Brother Salvi.

"Father Damaso is here, and may be with us at any moment."

"I'm very glad! I have a letter for him, and if a happy chance had
not brought me here, I should have come expressly to see him."

Meanwhile the "happy chance," that is to say, poor Maria Clara,
had awakened.

"Come, de Espadana, come, see Clarita," said Dona Victorina. "It
is for you he does this," she went on, turning to Captain Tiago;
"my husband attends only people of quality."

The sick-room was almost in obscurity, the windows closed, for fear
of draughts; two candles, burning before an image of the Virgin of
Antipolo, sent out feeble glimmers.

Enveloped in multiple folds of white, the lovely figure of Maria lay
on her bed of kamagon, behind curtains of jusi and pina. Her abundant
hair about her face increased its transparent pallor, as did the
radiance of her great, sad eyes. Beside her were her two friends,
and Andeng holding a lily branch.

De Espadana felt her pulse, examined her tongue, asked a question or
two, and nodded his head.

"Sh--she is s--sick, but she can be c--cured."

Dona Victorina looked proudly at their audience.

"Lichen with m--m--milk, for the m--m--morning, syrup of
m--m--marshmallow, and two tablets of cynoglossum."

"Take courage, Clarita," said Dona Victorina, approaching the bed,
"we have come to cure you. I'm going to present to you our cousin."

Linares, absorbed, was gazing at those eloquent eyes, which seemed
to be searching for some one; he did not hear Dona Victorina.

"Senor Linares," said the curate, drawing him out of his abstraction,
"here is Father Damaso."

It was indeed he; but it was not the Father Damaso of heretofore,
so vigorous and alert. He walked uncertainly, and he was pale and sad.

XXXVI.

PROJECTS.

With no word for any one else, Father Damaso went straight to Maria's