The two ladies whom we see in the room that we have described have just come back from hearing mass.  They are dressed in black, and each of them carries in her right hand her little prayer-book, and the rosary twined around her fingers.

“Your uncle cannot delay long now,” said one of them.  “We left him beginning mass; but he gets through quickly, and by this time he will be in the sacristy, taking off his chasuble.  I would have stayed to hear him say mass, but to-day is a very busy day for me.”

“I heard only the prebendary’s mass to-day,” said the other, “and he says mass in a twinkling; and I don’t think it has done me any good, for I was greatly preoccupied.  I could not get the thought of the terrible things that are happening to us out of my head.”

“What is to be done?  We must only have patience.  Let us see what advice your uncle will give us.”

“Ah!” exclaimed the other, heaving a deep and pathetic sigh; “I feel my blood on fire.”

“God will protect us.”

“To think that a person like you should be threatened by a ——.  And he persists in his designs!  Last night Senora Dona Perfecta, I went back to the widow De Cuzco’s hotel, as you told me, and asked her for later news.  Don Pepito and the brigadier Batalla are always consulting together—­ah, my God! consulting about their infernal plans, and emptying bottle after bottle of wine.  They are a pair of rakes, a pair of drunkards.  No doubt they are plotting some fine piece of villany together.  As I take such an interest in you, last night, seeing Don Pepito having the hotel while I was there, I followed him——­”

“And where did you go?”

“To the Casino; yes, senora, to the Casino,” responded the other, with some confusion.  “Afterward he went back to his hotel.  And how my uncle scolded me because I remained out so late, playing the spy in that way!  But I can’t help it, and to see a person like you threatened by such dangers makes me wild.  For there is no use in talking; I foresee that the day we least expect it those villains will attack the house and carry off Rosarito.”

Dona Perfecta, for she it was, bending her eyes on the floor, remained for a long time wrapped in thought.  She was pale, and her brows were gathered in a frown.  At last she exclaimed: 

“Well, I see no way of preventing it!”

“But I see a way,” quickly said the other woman, who was the niece of the Penitentiary and Jacinto’s mother; “I see a very simple way, that I explained to you, and that you do not like.  Ah, senora! you are too good.  On occasions like this it is better to be a little less perfect—­to lay scruples aside.  Why, would that be an offence to God?”

“Maria Remedios,” said Dona Perfecta haughtily, “don’t talk nonsense.”