“I know already,” returned Doña Perfecta, with a sort of bellow.
Rosario fell senseless on the floor.
“Let us go down stairs,” said Doña Perfecta, without paying any attention to her daughter’s swoon.
The two women glided down stairs like two snakes. The maids and the man-servant were in the hall, not knowing what to do. Doña Perfecta passed through the dining-room into the garden, followed by Maria Remedios.
“Fortunately we have Ca-Ca-Ca-balluco there,” said the canon’s niece.
“Where?”
“In the garden, also. He cli-cli-climbed over the wall.”
Doña Perfecta explored the darkness with her wrathful eyes. Rage gave them the singular power of seeing in the dark peculiar to the feline race.
“I see a figure there,” she said. “It is going toward the oleanders.”
“It is he!” cried Remedios. “But there comes Ramos—Ramos!”