“Afterward,” cried Rita impetuously, unable to keep silent any longer, “papa had the greatest difficulty to pacify Señor Cuesta, the Cardinal Archbishop. As the Archbishop himself was so virtuous he maintained strict discipline and permitted no misconduct. If it were not for all papa’s efforts with his eminence, to-day one entreaty and to-morrow another, Lamas Tarrío would have been deprived of his license and would have been left to rot in the ecclesiastical prison. For it is one thing for a priest to commit a fault that no one knows anything about, and another to scandalize his parishioners, bringing up the child in his own house, outraging public opinion, petting and indulging her——”
“My father,” said Gabriel, interrupting his sister, “with one hand smoothed down the Archbishop and with the other hammered away at the sinner. By dint of exhortations he succeeded in having the siren sent away from the rectory; but Lamas continued to see her. At last papa took a firm stand and prevailed on him to allow the mother to be sent to Montevideo, on condition that he was permitted to keep the child.”
“Yes,” again interposed Rita, “a fine remedy that was, worse than the disease. The man became wilder and more reckless than he had been before. He spent night after night without closing an eye, crying and screaming. He had a rush of blood to the head—he was in our house at the time—so that they were obliged to apply more than forty leeches to him at once, and the blood that came was as black as pitch. We thought he would go mad; he would go about the corridors tearing his hair, calling on the woman’s name with maudlin expressions of endearment.”
As Rita said this her brother observed that the curtains of the adjoining room moved as if they had been stirred by a breath of hoydenish curiosity, and the outlines of an inquisitive little nose were vaguely defined against them.
“The outlines of an inquisitive little nose were vaguely defined against them.”
“See,” he said, “now it is you who are getting beyond your depth. All that has nothing whatever to do with the case. Let us end the story at once, and let me tell it in my own way. Poor Lamas became so ill that the Archbishop himself was sorry for him, and sent for him to cheer him and inspire him with thoughts of penitence. And in effect, in process of time he grew calmer and even behaved himself very well afterward. The only fault to be found with him was that he brought up the child with extraordinary indulgence; but as the feelings of a father, even when they contravene both human and divine laws, have something sacred, people shut their eyes to this. He introduced the girl as his niece. As such children do not inherit, the priest saved up money, ounce upon ounce, which he put into Esclavita’s own hand; but the girl, who had turned out very discreet and very devout, and, in addition to that, very unselfish, when Lamas died, gave all this money, in gold as she had received it, for masses and prayers for the soul of the sinner. This act alone will give you an idea of the girl’s character. There are not many girls who would do so much even if they had been born in a better station and in a more orthodox manner.”
“As my brother is of a romantic turn he sees things in that way,” interposed Rita.
“Señora de Pardiñas, I give you my word as a gentleman that I neither add nor diminish. That girl, in my opinion, would be capable of going bare-footed on a pilgrimage to any part of the world in order to get the soul of the rector of Vimieiro out of purgatory.”
“And well he would need it,” said Rita, “and her mother too, who, by all accounts, does not lead the life of a saint over there in America.”