"Great Heaven! You terrify me, don Jaime."
"I told you, I think, that the Hacienda del Arenal was surprised by the guerilleros."
"Yes," she said, quivering with emotion.
"Do you know who commanded the Juarists and served as their guide? Don Melchior de la Cruz."
"Oh!" the two ladies exclaimed in horror.
"Afterwards, when don Andrés and his daughter obtained permission to retire safe and sound to Puebla, a man laid a snare for them a short distance from the town, and treacherously attacked them: this man was once again don Melchior."
"Oh, this is horrible!" They said, as they hid their faces in their hands and burst into sobs.
"Is it not?" he continued; "The more horrible, as don Melchior had coldly calculated on his father's death, that he wished by a parricide to seize his sister's fortune, a fortune to which he had no claim, and which the approaching marriage of doña Dolores will entirely strip from him, or, at least, he believed so."
"This man is a monster!" said doña María.
The two ladies were terrified by this announcement. Their intimacy with the de la Cruz family was great, the two younger ladies having been almost brought up together; they loved each other like sisters, although though doña Carmen was a little older than doña Dolores, hence the news of the misfortune which had so suddenly burst on don Andrés filled them with grief. Doña María warmly urged don Jaime to have don Andrés and his daughter conveyed to Mexico and lodged in her house, when doña Dolores would find that care and consolation which she must need so greatly after such a disaster.