"What is this wound of which I have heard?" he asked him in great agitation.
"Less than nothing, father," the young man replied, exchanging a meaning glance with his sister, who entered at the moment. "Clara is a foolish girl, who, in her tenderness, wrongly alarmed you."
"But, after all, you are wounded?" the father continued.
"But I repeat that it is a mere nothing."
"Come, explain yourself. How and when did you receive this wound?"
The young man blushed, and maintained silence.
"I insist on knowing," Don Miguel continued pressingly.
"Good heavens, father!" Don Pablo replied with an air of ill-humour, "I do not understand why you are alarmed for so futile a cause. I am not a child, whom a scratch should make frightened; and many times have I been wounded previously, and you have not disturbed yourself so much."
"That is possible; but the mode in which you answer me, the care you seem trying to take to keep me ignorant of the cause of this wound—in a word, everything tells me that this time you are trying to hide something grave from me."
"You are mistaken, father, and shall convince yourself."