"What do you mean to do?" Doña Jesuita cried, in accents of terror.
"What does that concern you, madam?" Don Ramón replied harshly; "the care of my honour concerns me alone. Sufficient for you to know that this fault is the last your son will commit."
"Oh!" she said with terror, "will you then become his executioner?"
"I am his judge," the implacable gentleman replied in a terrible voice. "Nô Eusebio, get two horses ready."
"My God! my God!" the poor mother cried, rushing towards her son, whom she folded closely in her arms, "will no one come to my succour?"
All present were moved; Don Ramón himself could not restrain a tear.
"Oh!" she cried with a wild joy, "he is saved! God has softened the heart of this inflexible man!"
"You are mistaken, madam," Don Ramón interrupted, pushing her roughly back, "your son is no longer mine, he belongs to my justice!"
Then fixing on his son a look cold as a steel blade, he said in a voice so stern that in spite of himself it made the young man start.
"Don Rafaël, from this instant you no longer form a part of this society, which your crimes have horrified; it is with wild beasts that I condemn you to live and die."