niece. Only
in a pause which she made after the comments on homicide, by violence
did she notice the groans of the sinner. Then her tone passed into the
sublime as she read the rest of the commandment in accents that she
tried to reader threatening, seeing that her niece was still weeping.

"Weep, daughter, weep!" she said, approaching the bed. "The more you
weep the sooner God will pardon you. Hold the sorrow of repentance as
better than that of mere penitence. Weep, daughter, weep! You don't
know how much I enjoy seeing you weep. Beat yourself on the breast
also, but not hard, for you're still sick."

But, as if her sorrow needed mystery and solitude to make it increase,
Maria Clara, on seeing herself observed, little by little stopped
sighing and dried her eyes without saying anything or answering her
aunt, who continued the reading. Since the wails of her audience had
ceased, however, she lost her enthusiasm, and the last commandments
made her so sleepy that she began to yawn, with great detriment to
her snuffling, which was thus interrupted.

"If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it,"
thought the good old lady afterwards. "This girl sins like a soldier
against the first five and from the sixth to the tenth not a venial
sin, just the opposite to us! How the world does move now!"

So she lighted a large candle to the Virgin of Antipolo and two other
smaller ones to Our Lady of the Rosary and Our Lady of the Pillar,
[123] taking care to put away in a corner a marble crucifix to make
it understand that the candles were not lighted for it. Nor did the
Virgin of Delaroche have any share; she was an unknown foreigner,
and Aunt Isabel had never heard of any miracle of hers.

We do not know what occurred during the confession that night and we
respect such secrets. But the confession was a long one and the aunt,
who stood watch over her niece at a distance, could note that the
curate, instead of turning his ear to hear the words of the sick girl,
rather had his face turned toward hers, and seemed only to be trying
to read, or divine, her thoughts by gazing into her beautiful eyes.

Pale and with contracted lips Padre Salvi left the chamber. Looking
at his forehead, which was gloomy and covered with perspiration,
one would have said that it was he who had confessed and had not
obtained absolution.

"_Jesus, Maria, y Jose!_" exclaimed Aunt Isabel, crossing herself to
dispel an evil thought,