ed off the
mirrors. "They will certainly annul the excommunication; they will
write the Pope.... We will make a large donation.... Father Damaso
had nothing more than a fainting spell.... He is not dead."

"Don't cry," said Andeng to her, in a low voice. "I will certainly
arrange it so that you can speak to him. What are the confessionals
made for, if we are not expected to sin? Everything is pardoned when
one has told it to the curate."

Finally, Captain Tiago arrived. They scanned his face for an answer
to their many questions, but his expression announced too plainly
his dismay. The poor man was sweating, and passing his hand over his
forehead. He seemed unable to utter a word.

"How is it, Santiago?" asked Aunt Isabel, anxiously.

He answered her with a sigh and dried away a tear.

"For God's sake, speak! What has happened?"

"What I had already feared!" he broke out finally half crying. "All is
lost! Father Damaso orders that the engagement be broken. If it is not
broken off, I am condemned in this life and in the next. They all tell
me the same thing, even Father Sibyla! I ought to shut the doors of
my house and ... I owe him more than fifty thousand pesos. I told the
Fathers so, but they would take no notice of it. 'Which do you prefer
to lose,' they said to me, 'fifty thousand pesos, or your life and your
soul?' Alas! Ay! San Antonio! If I had known it, if I had known it!"

Maria Clara was sobbing.

"Do not cry, my daughter," he added, turning to her. "You are not
like your mother. She never cried ... she never cried except when she
was whimsical just before your birth.... Father Damaso tells me that
a relative of his has just arrived from Spain ... and that he wants
him to be your fiance."...

Maria Clara stopped up her ears.

"But, Santiago, are you out of your head?" cried Aunt Isabel. "Speak
to her now of another fiance! Do you think that your daughter can
change lovers as easily as she changes her dress?"

"I was thinking the same thing, Isabel. Don Crisostomo is rich.... The
Spaniards only marry for love of money.... But what would you have
me do? They have threatened me with excommunication. They say that
I am in great peril: not only my soul, but also my body ... my body,
do you hear? My body!"

"But you only give sorrow to your daughter. Are you not a friend of
the Archbishop? Why don't you write him?"

"The Archbishop is also a friar. The Archbishop does only what the
friars say. But,