he could not guess who that woman was. What joke had his brother
prepared?

With a brutal impulse he tore the woman's hands from her face, looking
at her earnestly; even so he did not recognise her. In the midst of
a painful silence he stood a long while looking at her. Little by
little, in that face so altered by illness, he began to trace the
well-known features. In the tearful eyes devoid of eyelashes something
reminded him of the blue eyes of the lost daughter. The discoloured
lips, surrounded by deep lines, quivered painfully, murmuring always
the same word:

"Pardon! pardon!"

At the sight of such a wreck the father felt his courage fail; his
eyes expressed an immense, an overwhelming sadness.

He retreated backwards to the door of the "habitacion," followed by
the young woman, dragging herself on her knees and stretching out her
hands.

"Brother, it is well," he said despairingly; "you are stronger than I
am, let your will be accomplished. Let her remain, as you wish it, but
do not let me see her!--remain, both of you. It is I that will go."

CHAPTER VI

The sewing machine clicked from early morning till night in the house
of the Lunas. This and the hammering of the shoemaker were the only
sounds of work that disturbed the holy silence of the upper cloister.

When Gabriel left his bed at sunrise, after a night of painful
coughing, he would find Sagrario already in the entrance room
preparing her machine for the day's work. From the day following that
of her return to the Cathedral she had devoted herself to work with
sullen silence as a means of returning unnoticed to the Claverias,
trusting that the people would forgive her past. The gardener's widow
procured her work, and so the sound of the stitching was continually
heard in the old "habitacion," accompanied very often by melodies from
the Chapel-master's harmonium.

The "Wooden Staff" moved about his house like a shadow. He remained
continually in the Cathedral or in the lower cloister, only coming up
to the "habitacion" when it was absolutely necessary. He ate his meals
with his head bent, in order not to look at his daughter, who was
seated opposite to him at the other end of the table, ready to burst
into tears at the sight of her father before her. A painful silence
oppressed the family. Don Luis being so absent-minded, seemed the only
one not to perceive the situation, and chatted gaily with Gabriel
about his hopes and his musical e