"And has he spoken about me?"
The young man bit his lips.
"He spoke to me about you very little," he said; "but I in revenge, said a good deal about you, which re-established the balance: I even believe that he granted me the leave I asked in great measure to free himself from my chattering."
Doña Clara hung her head without replying, and her brother fixed upon her a glance full of tender pity.
"Let us talk about yourself," he said.
"No, no, Sancho; we had better talk about him." she replied hesitatingly.
"Of him!" he said in a hollow voice, and with a groan; "Alas, poor sister, what can I tell you? All my efforts have been vain; I have discovered nothing."
"Yes, yes;" she murmured, "his measures were well taken to make him disappear. Oh, Heaven! Heaven!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands wildly, "Will you not take pity on me?"
"Calm yourself, I implore you, sister; I will see, I will seek—I will redouble my efforts, and perhaps I shall at length succeed—"
"No," she interrupted him, "never, never shall we be able to effect anything; he is condemned, condemned by my father; that implacable man will never restore him to me! Oh! I know my father better than you do; you are a man, Sancho, you can try to struggle against him, but he has crushed me, crushed me at a single blow; he broke my heart by a deadly pressure in making me the innocent accomplice of an infernal vengeance! Then he coldly reproached me with a dishonour which is his work, and at the same blow eternally destroyed the happiness of three beings who would have loved him, and whose future he held in his hands."