Doña Maria, who seemed absorbed in secret thoughts, started, and hurriedly answered—
"Oh! I am well now; quite well, thank you."
"In what a way you say that, Maria! What is the matter? You are quite pale."
A short silence followed this appeal. The young ladies took each other's hand, and waited to see which would be the first to speak.
Maria and Rosita, who were nearly of the same age, loved each other like sisters. Both novices, and destined to take the veil at the same date, the identity of their position had produced between them an affectionate sympathy which never failed them. They placed in a common stock, with the simple confidence of youth, their hopes and sorrows, their plans and dreams—brilliant winged dreams, which the convent walls would pitilessly break. They had no secret from each other, and hence Rosita was grieved by the accent with which Maria had answered her when she asked her how she was. The latter evidently concealed something from her for the first time since she had entered the convent.
"Maria," she said to her, gently, "forgive me if I acted indiscreetly in asking after your dear health; but I feared, on noticing the pallor of your face—"
"Dear Rosita, how kind you are!" Maria interrupted, embracing her companion tenderly; "and how wrong I am! Yes, I am suffering, really; but I know not from what, and it only began just now."
"Oh! accursed be the wicked man, cause of so much terror!" Rosita continued, alluding to Leon the smuggler.
"Oh, silence, Rosita! Speak not so of that cavalier, for he has on his face such a noble expression of courage and goodness that—"
"So you looked at him, sister?" Rosita exclaimed.