Her husband stopped her as she was leaving the room, and said in a low voice:
"Don't speak cruelly to her. Try and be prudent. It is infamous of him to have thus abused his friendship with the family. What a wretched creature!"
Ventura left the room, and repaired to that of her sister, trembling with alarm. The heroic girl was standing in the middle of the room, with her arms by her side and her eyes fixed on the ground. Ventura carefully closed the door, and embracing her, she murmured in a tremulous voice:
"Oh, my sister! thank you, thank you!"
But Cecilia roughly repulsed her with a gesture of scornful pride, exclaiming:
"I did it for him, and not for you!"
CHAPTER XXX
A FANCY DRESS BALL AT SARRIO
CECILIA would never do it again—she saw the wickedness of her conduct; she was sorry to have given Gonzalo's enemies ground for insulting his wife's honor, and she had given her word, and solemnly sworn, that those nocturnal meetings would not occur again.
Such was the message that Ventura delivered that night to her husband.
During the succeeding days he showed neither anger nor even severity against the delinquent. All his anger and ill-will were against the duke, whom he accused of having iniquitously abused the confidence of his father-in-law to arouse in poor Cecilia feelings that had hitherto lain dormant. He treated her with kindness, even to indulgence, such as he might have accorded a sick child in the desire to show her that she had lost none of his affection.