"In forty-hours, madam," the Frenchman answered in a hollow voice, "General Guerrero will not come to claim the hand of Doña Anita."
[CHAPTER XXIII]
ON THE ROAD.
All the scruples of the Mother Superior—honourable scruples, let us hasten to add—having thus been removed, one after the other, by Mr. Rallier, by means of the double orders he had been careful to provide himself with, the next thing was to see about getting the two boarders away without further day.
The abbess, who understood the importance of a speedy conclusion, left her visitors in the parlour, and, in order to avoid any misunderstanding, herself undertook to fetch the two young ladies, after giving a lay sister orders to call the carriage into the first courtyard.
In a religious community, one of women before all—we do not mean this satirically—whatever may be done, and whatever precautions may be taken, nothing can long be kept a secret. Hence, the two gentlemen had scarcely entered the speaking room of the abbess ere the rumour of the departure of Doña Anita and Doña Helena spread among the nuns with extreme rapidity. Who spread the news no one could have told, and yet everybody spoke about it as a certainty.
The young ladies were naturally the first informed. At the outset their anxiety was great, and Doña Anita trembled, for she believed that she was fetched by order of her guardian, and that the monk speaking with the abbess was the one sent by the general to make immediate preparations for her marriage. Hence, when the abbess entered Doña Helena's cell, she found the pair in each other's arms, and weeping bitterly.
Fortunately, the mistake was soon cleared up, and the sorrow converted into joy when the abbess, who, through sympathy, wept as much as her boarders, explained that of the two strangers, whom they feared so greatly, one was the brother of Doña Helena, and the other the Franciscan monk whom Doña Anita had already seen, and that they had come, not to add to her sufferings, but to remove her from the tyranny that oppressed her.
Doña Helena, on hearing that her brother was at the convent, bounded with joy, and removed her friend's last doubts, for, like all unhappy persons. Doña Anita clung greedily to this new hope of salvation, which was thus allowed to germinate in her heart at a moment when she believed that she had no chance left of escaping her evil destiny.