"Can you understand, Carmelita," doña Dolores at length said with a delicious pout, "why my cousin has not yet arrived?"
"It is inconceivable, querida," doña Carmen at once answered. "I confess that I feel very anxious, for the city is in a disturbed state at this moment, I hear. I only hope nothing unpleasant has happened to the two poor young gentlemen."
"Oh! It would be frightful if any accident were to happen to them!"
"What would become of us alone and unprotected in this house? Had it not been for their assistance, we should have been assassinated before."
"The more so, because we cannot count on don Jaime, who is always absent."
The young ladies heaved a sigh, looked at each other silently for a moment, and then fell into one another's arms with a burst of tears. They understood each other. It was not for themselves they feared.
"You love him, then?" doña Dolores at length whispered in her friend's ear.
"Oh, yes," she replied softly. "And you?"
"I too."
The confession was made; they now understood one another, and had nothing further to conceal.