“Hold, Inez! are you mad?”

“No, Manuel, but candid; for eight years I have known that I was destined to be your wife, but I never loved you, Manuel.  I do not, and never can, otherwise than as a cousin.”

In a tone of ill-suppressed range, Nevarro retorted: 

“My uncle’s authority shall compel you to fulfil the engagement!  You shall not thus escape me!”

“As you please, Senor.  Yet let me tell you, compulsion will not answer.  The combined efforts of San Antonio will not avail—­they may crush, but cannot conquer me.”  She bowed low, and left the room.

Every feature inflamed with wrath, Nevarro snatched his hat, and hurried down the street.  He had not proceeded far, when a hand was laid upon his arm, and turning, with somewhat pugnacious intentions, encountered Father Mazzolin’s piercing black eyes.

“Bueno tarde, Padre.”

The black eyes rested on Nevarro with an expression which seemed to demand an explanation of his choler.  Manuel moved uneasily; the hot blood glowed in his swarthy cheek, and swelled like cords on the darkened brow.

“Did you wish to speak with me, Padre?”

“Even so, my son.  Thou art troubled, come unto one who can give thee comfort.”

They were standing before the door of the harkell occupied by the priest:  he opened it and drew Manuel in.

An hour later they emerged from the house.  All trace of anger was removed from Nevarro’s brow, and Father Mazzolin’s countenance wore the impenetrable cast he ever assumed in public.  It was his business expression, the mask behind which he secretly drew the strings, and lured his dupes into believing him a disinterested and self-denying pastor, whose only aim in life was to promote the welfare and happiness of his flock.

When Don Garcia sat that night, a la Turk, on a buffalo-robe before his door, puffing his cigarrita, and keeping time to the violin, which sent forth its merry tones at a neighboring fandango, Inez drew near, and related the result of her interview with Manuel, concluding by declaring her intention to abide by her decision, and consult her own wishes in the selection of a husband.

His astonishment was great.  First he tried reasoning, but she refuted every argument advanced with the adroitness of an Abelard:  the small stock of patience with which “Dame Nature” had endowed the Don gave way, and at last, stamping with rage, he swore she should comply, or end her life in a gloomy cell of San Jose.

Inez laughed contemptuously.  She felt the whirlwind she had raised gathering about her, yet sought not to allay it:  she knew it was the precursor of a fierce struggle, yet quailed not.  Like the heroine of Saragossa, or the martyr of Rouen, she knew not fear; and her restless nature rather joyed in the strife.