SCENE II
The orchard of San Miguel the following evening at nine o’clock. Near the postern stands Don Manuel de Lara, motionless, his arms folded, his cloak drawn round the lower part of his face. Towards him hurries Sister Assumcion.
Sister Assumcion: Good evening, friar trovar ... and can you not come forward to meet me? I can tell you, sir, it needed all Trotaconventos’s eloquence to send me to the tryst. Never before has her pleading been so honeyed.... Why....
Don Manuel de Lara: I am not the trovar, lady.
Sister Assumcion (starting back): Holy saints defend me! Who, then, are you?... And yet your voice....
Don Manuel de Lara: But I bear a message to you from the trovar.
Sister Assumcion (sharply): Well?
Don Manuel de Lara: His words were these: ‘Tell her the dead grudge us our joys.’
Sister Assumcion: What meant he?
Don Manuel de Lara: I am a messenger, not a reader of riddles.