y they're transferring him to?" Linares asked the
curate.

"To the province of Tayabas," replied the curate negligently.

"One who will be greatly affected by it is Maria Clara, when she
learns of it," said Capitan Tiago. "She loves him like a father."

Fray Salvi looked at him askance.

"I believe, Padre," continued Capitan Tiago, "that all her illness
is the result of the trouble on the last day of the fiesta."

"I'm of the same opinion, and think that you've done well not to let
Senor Ibarra see her. She would have got worse.

"If it wasn't for us," put in Dona Victorina, "Clarita would already
be in heaven singing praises to God."

"Amen!" Capitan Tiago thought it his duty to exclaim. "It's lucky
for you that my husband didn't have any patient of greater quality,
for then you'd have had to call in another, and all those here are
ignoramuses. My husband--"

"Just as I was saying," the curate in turn interrupted, "I think that
the confession that Maria Clara made brought on the favorable crisis
which has saved her life. A clean conscience is worth more than a lot
of medicine. Don't think that I deny the power of science, above all,
that of surgery, but a clean conscience! Read the pious books and
you'll see how many cures are effected merely by a clean confession."

"Pardon me," objected the piqued Dona Victorina, "this power of the
confessional--cure the alferez's woman with a confession!"

"A wound, madam, is not a form of illness which the conscience
can affect," replied Padre Salvi severely. "Nevertheless, a clean
confession will preserve her from receiving in the future such blows
as she got this morning."

"She deserves them!" went on Dona Victorina as if she had not heard
what Padre Salvi said. "That woman is so insolent! In the church she
did nothing but stare at me. You can see that she's a nobody. Sunday
I was going to ask her if she saw anything funny about my face,
but who would lower oneself to speak to people that are not of rank?"

The curate, on his part, continued just as though he had not heard
this tirade. "Believe me, Don Santiago, to complete your daughter's
recovery it's necessary that she take communion tomorrow. I'll bring
the viaticum over here. I don't think she has anything to confess,
but yet, if she wants to confess herself tonight--"

"I don't know," Dona Victorina instantly took advantage of a slight
hesitation on Padre Salvi's part to add, "I don't understand how
there c