Fernanda, a sudden prey to overwhelming curiosity, insane curiosity that urged her on, agitated and breathless without her knowing why, bent again towards Maria Josefa, and putting her mouth to her ear, she asked in an agitated voice:
"But who is its father?"
The old maid turned towards her, and fixed her eyes upon her with an expression of surprise mingled with the aforesaid indulgent compassion.
"But don't you really know?"
The girl made a sign in the negative, and at the same time she felt overwhelmed by terrible emotion. A cold chill swept suddenly through her inner being. Pale as death, she hung on the lips of Maria Josefa as if her sentence of life or death depended on them. Her excitement was quite evident to the lady, and after looking at her fixedly for a minute she said:
"No! I won't tell you. What is the good? Perhaps it is all a calumny."
Fernanda instantly regained her self-possession.
"All right!" she returned, with a gesture of displeasure; "be silent, for after all what has all this to do with me?"
This gesture wounded the old maid, who quickly returned with a malicious smile:
"But it is precisely because it does concern you that I am afraid to tell you."