"And he must have opened the street door! The dog!" muttered the
landlady.

"No; the man came from this tenement."

"One of the students from upstairs," offered the Baroness.

"I'll tell a thing or two to the rascally fellow," replied Dona
Casiana.

"No. Take your time," answered the Biscayan. "We're going to give her
and her gallant a fright. If he comes tonight, while they're talking,
we'll tell the watchman to knock at the house door, and at the same
time we'll all come out of our rooms with lights, as if we were going
to the dining-room, and catch them."

While this plot was being hatched in the corridor, Petra was preparing
breakfast in the obscurity of the kitchen. There was very little to
prepare, for the meal invariably consisted of a fried egg, which never
by any accident was large, and a beefsteak, which, in memories
reverting to the remotest epoch, had not a single time by any
exception been soft.

At noon, the Biscayan, in tones of deep mystery, told Petra about the
conspiracy, but the maid-of-all-work was in no mood for jests that
day. She had just received a letter that filled her with worriment.
Her brother-in-law wrote her that Manuel, the eldest of Petra's
children, was being sent to Madrid. No lucid explanation of the reason
for this decision was given. The letter stated simply that back there
in the village the boy was only wasting his time, and that it would be