"It was Crowninshield's fault!" I cried.
"No, it was mine," she answered.
And here is what had happened, as I learnt it afterwards. All had gone well until the train reached Las Cuevas. There the police were on the look-out for her. The Padre Antonio, however, excited no suspicion, and very likely Sister Pepita would have passed unnoticed too. But as she stepped down from the carriage on to the step, and from the step to the ground, an officer was startled by the unexpected appearance of a small foot in a white silk stocking and a white satin slipper. Now, the officer had seen nuns before, old and young, but never had he seen one in white satin shoes, to say nothing of the silk stockings. He became more than curious. He pointed her out to his companions. Sister Pepita was deftly separated in the crowd from the Padre Antonio--cut out, to borrow the old nautical phrase--and arrested. She was conducted towards a room in the station, but the steamer's siren hooted its warning to the passengers, and despair seized upon Olivia. She made a rush for the gangway, she was seized, she was carried forcibly into the room and stripped of her nun's disguise and coif. She was kept a prisoner in the room until the Ariadne had left the Quay. Then she was placed in a carriage and driven back, with an officer of the police at her side, to the garden door of the President's house.
Something of this Olivia told me at the time, but she was interrupted by the return of the officer and a couple of Juan Ballester's messengers.
"His Excellency will see you," said the officer to her. He conducted her through the garden and by the private doorway into Ballester's study. I had followed behind the servants and I remained in the room. We waited for a few minutes, and Juan himself came in. He went quickly over to Olivia's side. His voice was all gentleness. But that was his way with her, and I set no hopes on it.
"I am grieved, Señorita, if you have suffered rougher treatment than befits you. But you should not have tried to escape."
Olivia looked at him with a piteous helplessness in her eyes. "What am I to do, then?" she seemed to ask, and, with the question, to lose the last clutch upon her spirit. For her features quivered, she dropped into a chair, laid her arms upon the table, and, burying her face in them, burst into tears.
It was uncomfortable--even for Juan Ballester. There came a look of trouble in his face, a shadow of compunction. For myself, the heaving of her young shoulders hurt my eyes, the sound of her young voice breaking in sobs tortured my ears. But this was not the worst of it, for she suddenly threw herself back in her chair with the tears wet upon her cheeks, and, beating the table piteously with the palms of her hands, she cried:
"I am hungry--oh, so hungry!"
"Good Heavens!" cried Ballester. He started forward, staring into her face.