that I determined to unmask him. I exposed his vices; I made manifest
his atheism; I laid bare to the view of all the rottenness of that
materialistic heart, and the senora was convinced that in giving her
daughter to him, she would be delivering her up to vice. Ah, what
anxieties I endured! The senora vacillated; I strengthened her wavering
mind; I advised her concerning the means she might lawfully employ to
send her nephew away without scandal. I suggested ingenious ideas to
her; and as she often spoke to me of the scruples that troubled her
tender conscience, I tranquillized her, pointing out to her how far
it was allowable for us to go in our fight against that lawless enemy.
Never did I counsel violent or sanguinary measures or base outrages, but
always subtle artifices, in which there was no sin. My mind is tranquil,
my dear niece. But you know that I struggled hard, that I worked like a
negro. Ah! when I used to come home every night and say, 'Mariquilla, we
are getting on well, we are getting on very well,' you used to be wild
with delight, and you would kiss my hands again and again, and say I was
the best man on earth. Why do you fly into a passion now, disfiguring
your noble character and peaceable disposition? Why do you scold me? Why
do you say that you are indignant, and tell me in plain terms that I am
nothing better than an idiot?"

"Because," said the woman, without any diminution of her rage, "because
you have grown faint-hearted all of a sudden."

"The thing is that every thing is going against us, woman. That
confounded engineer, protected as he is by the army, is resolved to dare
every thing. The girl loves him, the girl--I will say no more. It cannot
be; I tell you that it cannot be."

"The army! But do you believe, like Dona Perfecta, that there is