"But what is going on around us? Pepe, dear Pepe, do you believe in the
devil?"

The engineer was silent. The darkness of the chapel prevented Rosario
from seeing the smile with which her cousin received this strange
question.

"We must believe in him," he said at last.

"What is going on? Mamma forbids me to see you; but, except in regard
to the atheism, she does not say any thing against you. She tells me to
wait, that you will decide; that you are going away, that you are coming
back----Speak to me with frankness--have you formed a bad opinion of my
mother?"

"Not at all," replied Rey, urged by a feeling of delicacy.

"Do you not believe, as I do, that she loves us both, that she desires
only our good, and that we shall in the end obtain her consent to our
wishes?"

"If you believe it, I do too. Your mama adores us both. But, dear
Rosario, it must be confessed that the devil has entered this house."

"Don't jest!" she said affectionately. "Ah! Mamma is very good. She has
not once said to me that you were unworthy to be my husband. All she
insists upon is the atheism. They say, besides, that I have manias, and
that I have the mania now of loving you with all my soul. In our family
it is a rule not to oppose directly the manias that are hereditary in