ves?"

"I have thought about it, Isabel; but what would you have me do? They
threaten me, too, with excommunication."

"And you do nothing but distress your daughter! Aren't you the friend
of the archbishop? Why don't you write to him?"

"The archbishop is a monk, too. He will do only what the monks say. But
don't cry, Maria; the governor-general is coming. He will want to
see you, and your eyes will be red. Alas, I thought I was going to
have such a good afternoon! Without this misfortune I should be the
happiest of men, with everybody envying me! Be calm, my child, I am
more unhappy than you, and I don't cry. You may find a better fiance;
but as for me, I lose fifty thousand pesos! Ah, Virgin of Antipolo,
if only I have luck tonight!"

Salvos, the sound of wheels and of horses galloping, the band
playing the Royal March, announced the arrival of His Excellency the
governor-general of the Philippine Islands. Maria Clara ran to hide
in her chamber. Poor girl! Her heart was at the mercy of rude hands
that had no sense of its delicate fibres.

While the house was filling with people, while heavy footsteps,
words of command, and the hurling of sabres and spurs resounded all
about, the poor child, heart-broken, was half-lying, half-kneeling
before that picture of the Virgin where Delaroche represents her in a
grievous solitude, as though he had surprised her returning from the
sepulchre of her son. Maria Clara did not think of the grief of this
mother; she thought only of her own. Her head bent on her breast,
her hands pressed against the floor, she seemed a lily broken by
the storm. A future for years caressed in dreams, illusions born in
childhood, fostered in youth, grown a part of her being, they thought
to shatter all these with a word, to drive it all out of her mind
and heart. A devout Catholic, a loving daughter, the excommunication
terrified her. Not so much her father's commands as her desire for
his peace of mind demanded from her the sacrifice of her love. And
in this moment she felt for the first time the full strength of her
affection for Crisostomo. The peaceful river glides over its sandy bed
under the nodding flowers along its banks; the wind scarcely ridges
its current; it seems to sleep; but farther down the banks close in,
rough rocks choke the channel, a heap of knotty trunks forms a dyke;
then the river roars, revolts, its waters whirl, and shake their
plumes of spray, and, raging, beat the rocks