CHAPTER IV.
SUING OR DEFIANT?
The marquesa begged her daughter to go to bed, and María gladly obeyed, for she was very weary. She slowly divested herself of the handsome garments which had so unexpectedly resuscitated the beautiful young woman she had once been, and retired to her alcove. She was shivering with cold and had sunk into a fit of deep melancholy. After a long silence, during which she lay watching her mother with anxious eyes, she turned her face to the images, pictures, and relics which made her alcove a sort of oratory, and began to pray. The marquesa, who could also on great occasions make a due display of fervour, knelt kissing the feet of a crucifix.
“Give me my rosary, mamma,” said María; and the marquesa took her the beads which hung at the foot of the cross.
“Now you can leave me,” said her daughter. “I am sleepy, and when I have said my prayers I shall fall asleep.”
The marquesa fixed the hour at which they were to set out next day. It was agreed that they should both go and that the mother should remain in the carriage while María went in to see her husband.
“My heart tells me that we shall do great things, perhaps effect a reconciliation,” said the marquesa, kissing her daughter. “Now go to sleep and do not worry yourself with matters of conscience. You see the consequences of your obstinacy; honestly, my dear child, I put myself in a husband’s place—any husband’s; it is not that I wish to blame devotion, true devotion. Am not I a pious and sincere Catholic, though an unworthy one? Do I fail in my religious exercise? You should have thought of this mania for sanctity before you married and took up other duties.”
“One thing strikes me,” said María showing clearly that she was not worrying herself about matters of conscience, “I ought to have some jewelry to-morrow—a brooch, bracelets, earrings—you can bring me anything you think proper out of the case I gave you to take care of.”
“Very well,” said her mother with some embarrassment. “But almost all your trinkets wanted mending—I sent them to Ansorena. But I will see....”
“Rafaela tells me that you took away all the plate yesterday.”
“Yes, all of it. My dear child, I am always in a fright at your living alone in this great house. There are so many robberies.”