"What have you done to me, silly creature?" the Linda cried, bounding up like a wounded lioness, and placing herself close in front of Doña Rosario—"what have you done to me?" and then added, with a loud laugh—"Ah! ah! that's true, you have done nothing to me!"
"Alas, madam! I do not even know you; this is the first time I have been in your presence; I, a poor young girl, whose life to the present time has passed away in retirement—how can I have offended you?"
"Yes, I allow it," the Linda replied; "you have done nothing to me; and, personally, as you have just said, I have nothing to reproach you with; but, by making you suffer, learn that it is upon him I avenge myself."
"I do not understand what you mean, madam," the maiden said, simply.
"Senseless fool, do not play with the lioness who is ready to devour you, or pretend to feign an ignorance of which I am not the dupe; if you have not already divined my name, I will tell it you—I am Doña Maria, whom they call the Linda—do you understand me now?"
"Not more than I did before, madam," replied Doña Rosario, with an accent of frankness that shook the belief of her persecutor, in spite of herself; "I have never even heard that name."
"Can that be true?" she cried, doubtingly.
"I swear it is."
Doña Linda strode about the apartment with long, hasty steps. Doña Rosario, more and more astonished, looked stealthily at this woman, without being able to account to herself for the emotion which her presence, and the sound of her voice, caused her to experience; it was not fear, still less was it joy, but an incomprehensible mixture of sadness, joy, pity, and terror; an undefinable feeling, which, far from creating repulsion, drew her towards a woman whose odious projects were no secret to her, and from whom she knew she had so much to dread. Singular sympathy; what Doña Rosario felt towards the Linda, the Linda felt towards Doña Rosario: in vain she called to her aid the remembrance of all the wrongs with which she fancied she had to reproach the man whom she wished to strike in the person of the young girl; in the innermost recesses of her heart, a voice, which constantly gained strength, spoke to her in favour of the maiden whom she was about to sacrifice to her hatred; the more she endeavoured to overcome this sentiment, for which she could not account, the more powerless she found her efforts become; at length, she was on the point of being softened.
"Oh!" she murmured, passionately, "what is going on within me? Am I weak enough to allow myself to be subdued by the tears of that paltry creature?"