you crying?" he said, greatly disturbed. "Rosario, you are
killing me with your absurd doubts. Do I believe in God? Do you doubt
it?"

"I do not doubt it; but they all say that you are an atheist."

"You would suffer in my estimation, you would lose your aureole of
purity--your charm--if you gave credit to such nonsense."

"When I heard them accuse you of being an atheist, although I could
bring no proof to the contrary, I protested from the depths of my soul
against such a calumny. You cannot be an atheist. I have within me as
strong and deep a conviction of your faith as of my own."

"How wisely you speak! Why, then, do you ask me if I believe in God?"

"Because I wanted to hear it from your own lips, and rejoice in hearing
you say it. It is so long since I have heard the sound of your voice!
What greater happiness than to hear it again, saying: 'I believe in
God?'"

"Rosario, even the wicked believe in him. If there be atheists, which I
doubt, they are the calumniators, the intriguers with whom the world is
infested. For my part, intrigues and calumnies matter little to me; and
if you rise superior to them and close your heart against the discord
which a perfidious hand would sow in it, nothing shall interfere with
our happiness."

"But what is going on around us? Pepe, dear Pepe, do you believe in the
devil?"

The engineer was silent. The darkness of the chapel prevented Rosario
from seeing the smile with which her cousin received this strange
question.

"We must believe in him," he said at last.

"What is going on? Mamma forbids me to see you; but, except in regard
to the atheism, she does not say any thing against you. She tells me to
wait, that you will decide; that you are going away, that you are coming
back----Speak to me with frankness--have you formed a bad opinion of my
mother?"

"Not at all," replied Rey, urged by a feeling of delicacy.

"Do you not believe, as I do, that she loves us both, that she desires
only our good, and that we shall in the end obtain her consent to our
wishes?"

"If you believe it, I do too. Your mama adores us both. But, dear
Rosario, it must be confessed that the devil has entered this house."

"Don't jest!" she said affectionately. "Ah! Mamma is very good. She has
not once said to me that you were unworthy to be my husband. All she
insists upon is the atheism. They say, besides, that I have manias, and
that I have the mania now of loving you with all my soul. In