ng to pull the wool over my eyes and
then run off with that woman to God knows where. I've found you and I'm
not going to let you go. I want you to know the truth. Your mother is
sick abed; she tipped me off and I caught the first train to get here.
The whole house is upside down! At first it was thought a robbery had
been committed. By this time the whole city must be agog about you. Come
now!... What do you say to that? Do you want to kill your mother? Well,
you're going about it right! Good God! And this is what they call a 'boy
of talent,' a 'young man of promise'! How much better it would have been
if you were a dunce like me or your father--but a dunce at least who
knows how to get a woman if he has to, without making a public ass of
himself!"

Then he went into detail. Rafael's mother had gone to the old chest to
get some money for one of her laborers. Her cry of horror and alarm had
thrown the whole house into an uproar. Don Andres had been hastily
summoned. Suspicions against the servants, a "third degree" for the
whole lot, all of them protesting and weeping, in outrage! Until finally
dona Bernarda sank to a chair in a swoon, whispering into her adviser's
ear:

"Rafael is not in the house. He has gone ... perhaps never to return. I
am sure of it--he took the money!"

While the others were getting the sobbing mother to bed, and sending for
the doctor, don Andres had made for the station to catch the express. He
could tell from the way people looked at him that everybody knew what
had been going on. Gossip had already connected the excitement in the
Brull mansion with Rafael's taking the early train! He had been seen by
several persons, in spite of his precautions.

"Well, is the Hon. don Rafael Brull, member from Alcira, satisfied with
his morning's work? Don't you think the laugh your enemies have raised
deserves an _encore_!"

For all his bitter sarcasm the old man spoke in a faltering voice, and
seemed on the verge of tears. The labor of his entire life, the great
victories won with don Ramon, that political power which had been so
carefully built up and sustained over decades, was about to crumble to
ruins; all because of a light-headed, erratic boy who had handed to the
first skirt who came along everything that belonged to him and
everything that belonged to his friends as well.

Rafael had gone into the interview in an aggressive mood, ready to
answer with plain talk if that sodden idiot should go