"What is this?"
"Nothing," cried Papa, "but Nuñez fell into the aqueduct."
On hearing these words, Emilita naturally uttered a shriek of horror, and fell senseless into the arms of several ladies. Nuñez, transformed into a hero, forgetting his own health, ran to her assistance. In a few moments the place was filled with glasses of water, and two or three bottles of anti-spasmodic appeared upon the scene. When she began to recover consciousness and the critical moment of tears arrived, her sister Micaela, no longer able to control herself, attacked her father violently:
"This has been an act of cruelty! Do you think your daughter has a heart of bronze? You must indeed be deficient in tact to hurt a poor creature like this!"
The poor creature repaid the defence with an affectionate look as she gave her her hand. The Pensioner, being then reduced to the last stage of humility, scarcely dared to murmur, that seeing that Nuñez was at her side, there was no cause for so much concern.
The ladies thought that Micaela had been disrespectful to her father, but they could not do less than admit that it had been a blunder, and they were full of sympathy for the unhappy bride.
CHAPTER VIII
FERNANDA AND THE WINE
Fernanda was not present at any of these scenes. Early in the day she had resorted to the wood, but soon tiring of playing the part of modest nymph with her friends, she wandered off to more solitary places. Her head, generally so erect, was bowed under the weight of depression or preoccupation; her flexible, supple figure moved from side to side like the body of a bedouin; those dark African eyes, the most precious ornament of the noble city of Lancia, were fixed upon the ground, and the very deep line on her forehead testified to the fixed, gloomy drift of her thoughts.
How much she had gone through these two months! The impression that her love for the count had made in her heart, checked at first by pride and the hope of having it returned, had full sway directly she discovered the secret of his disaffection, and her whole being became possessed with the passions of love and jealousy. These feelings were all the more acute, inasmuch as she clearly saw that she had long been deceived by Luis, who had feigned affection for her whilst his heart was given to another.