ostensible support from all, especially Padre Damaso's successor,
a young and gloomy Franciscan named Padre Salvi, for whom Maria Clara
confesses to an instinctive dread.

At the laying of the corner-stone for the new schoolhouse a
suspicious accident, apparently aimed at Ibarra's life, occurs, but
the festivities proceed until the dinner, where Ibarra is grossly and
wantonly insulted over the memory of his father by Fray Damaso. The
young man loses control of himself and is about to kill the friar,
who is saved by the intervention of Maria Clara.

Ibarra is excommunicated, and Capitan Tiago, through his fear of the
friars, is forced to break the engagement and agree to the marriage of
Maria Clara with a young and inoffensive Spaniard provided by Padre
Damaso. Obedient to her reputed father's command and influenced
by her mysterious dread of Padre Salvi, Maria Clara consents to
this arrangement, but becomes seriously ill, only to be saved by
medicines sent secretly by Ibarra and clandestinely administered by
a girl friend.

Ibarra succeeds in having the excommunication removed, but before he
can explain matters an uprising against the Civil Guard is secretly
brought about through agents of Padre Salvi, and the leadership is
ascribed to Ibarra to ruin him. He is warned by a mysterious friend,
an outlaw called Elias, whose life he had accidentally saved; but
desiring first to see Maria Clara, he refuses to make his escape,
and when the outbreak occurs he is arrested as the instigator of it
and thrown into prison in Manila.

On the evening when Capitan Tiago gives a ball in his Manila house to