Luiza heard the outer door close noisily behind her.
“My God! what an expiation!” she exclaimed, dropping into a chair and bursting into tears.
It was almost ten when Joanna returned.
“I have not been able to find out anything, Senhora,” she said. “No one knows anything about her.”
“Very well; bring the lamp.”
And as Joanna left the room, Luiza murmured to herself,—
“That good girl has some love-affair, and she has been enjoying herself with her sweetheart.”
CHAPTER XVI.
A REPRIEVE.
WHAT a night of anguish Luiza spent! No sooner did she fall asleep than she awoke again in terror. She opened her eyes in the half-obscurity of the room, ever conscious of the same sharp anxiety that rankled like a dagger-thrust in her soul. What was she to do? How should she find the money? Six hundred thousand reis! Her jewels, at the utmost, were worth some two hundred thousand; and besides, what would Jorge say if he found she had parted with them? She had some plate, but the same thing was true of that.
The night was warm, and she felt restless and suffocating. At times, through fatigue, she fell into a light sleep, haunted by dreams. She saw before her mountains of gold, and bundles of bank-notes flying around her in the air. She sat up in bed to seize them, and the coins rolled away from her on the floor, and the bank-notes flew away with a mocking sound of wings. Again it was a man who entered her room, and bending before her respectfully, took off his hat and drew from it pounds and pieces of five thousand reis without number, heaping them in her lap. Who it was she did not know; he wore a red cloak and had an insolent air. Could it be the Devil? And what if it were? She would have the money; she would be saved. Then she began to call to Juliana, running after her along a road without end, that grew narrower and narrower, until at last it became a cleft through which she dragged herself, out of breath, clasping to her breast the money, which struck a chill to her heart. She awoke in terror; and the contrast of her actual need with those imaginary riches augmented the bitterness of her situation. On whom could she call for help? On Sebastião. Sebastião was rich and kind-hearted. But to send for him and say to him,—she, Jorge’s wife,—“Lend me six hundred thousand reis!” “What for?” “To redeem some letters I wrote to a lover.” Was it possible to say this to him? No; she was irretrievably lost, and nothing remained for her but a convent.