er foot! Ah! it is easy to see that you
are a barbarian, a savage, a man who lives by violence."

"No, dear aunt; I am mild, upright, honorable, and an enemy to violence;
but between you and me--between you who are the law and I who am to
honor it--is a poor tormented creature, one of God's angels, subjected
to iniquitous tortures. The spectacle of this injustice, this unheard-of
violence, is what has converted my rectitude into barbarity; my reason
into brute force; my honor into violence, like an assassin's or a
thief's; this spectacle, senora, is what impels me to disregard your
law, what impels me to trample it under foot, braving every thing. This
which appears to you lawlessness is obedience to an unescapable law. I
do what society does when a brutal power, as illogical as irritating,
opposes its progress. It tramples it under foot and destroys it in an
outburst of frenzy. Such am I at this moment--I do not recognize myself.
I was reasonable, and now I am a brute; I was respectful, and now I am
insolent; I was civilized, and now I am a savage. You have brought me to
this horrible extremity; infuriating me and driving me from the path of
rectitude which I was tranquilly pursuing. Who is to blame--I or you?"

"You, you!"

"Neither you nor I can decide the question. I think we are both to
blame: you for your violence and injustice, I for my injustice and
violence. We have both become equally barbarous, and we struggle with
and wound each other without compassion. God has permitted that it
should be so; my blood will be upon your conscience, yours will be upon
mine. Enough now, senora. I do not wish to trouble you with useless
words. We will now proceed to acts."

"To acts, very well!" said Dona Perfecta, roaring rather than speaking.
"Don't suppose that in Orbajosa there is no civil guard!"

"Good-by, senora. I will now leave this house. I think we shall meet
again."

"Go, go! go now!" she cried, pointing with an energetic gesture to the
door.

Pepe Rey left the room. Dona Perfecta, after pronouncing a few
incoherent words, which were the clearest expression of her anger, sank
into a chair, with indications of fatigue, or of a coming attack of
nerves. The maids came running in.

"Go for Senor Don Inocencio!" she cried. "Instantly--hurry! Ask him to
come here!"

Then she tore her handkerchief with her teeth.

CHAPTER XX

RUMORS--FEARS

On the day following that of this lamentable quarrel, various r