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“I always told Doña Isabel,” interrupted Feliz, “that such freedom of intercourse between youth and maiden would but lead to weariness on one side or the other. But she was a hater of old customs. She said there was more danger in two glances exchanged from the pavement and the balcony than in hours of such youthful chat and frolic.”

“Yet this freedom was designed to bind our hearts together,” said Vicente. “The wish of Doña Isabel’s heart for years was to see us one day man and wife. Yet she changed as suddenly—more suddenly and completely than Herlinda did. What is the secret? Is not Tres Hermanos productive enough to provide dowers for two daughters? Is all this to be centred on Carmen? Rich men have immured their daughters in convents to leave their wealth undivided. Can it be that Doña Isabel—”

“Be silent!” interrupted Doña Feliz, as she might have done to a foolish child. “Let us talk no more of Herlinda, Vicente; it makes my heart sore, and can but torture thine.”

“No, it relieves me; it soothes me,” cried Vicente. “I have longed to come here to talk to you. Doña Isabel is unapproachable. She has relapsed once more into the icy impenetrability that characterized her in that terrible time so many years ago. I can just remember—”