"If I loved you!" he repeated, in sorrowful reproach; "but what need was there for perishing, when I saw succour coming?"
"You saw him—you saw him who saved me," continued the pitiless little beauty, with each reply planting an arrow in the heart of poor Perez.
"He saved you for the bribe of a thousand dollars!" said he, scornfully; "all on the mole heard that plain enough."
"In vain do you enviously seek to detract from him, cousin Perez. He saved me for myself—perhaps for himself too," was the still more cutting rejoinder.
"Enough, Senora de Moreno," said Perez, in a towering passion; "I shall yet unmask this piccaroon—this wretched impostor, if to do so should cost me half my fortune!"
As Perez uttered this threat, and retired by one door of the drawing-room, it chanced that the redoubtable and interesting Don Pedro Florez de Serrano entered by another, and these words, which he heard distinctly enough, made that worthy cavalier feel very much as if in a Californian vapour bath—the hottest of such contrivances; and he felt, moreover, there was no time to be lost in getting rid of Don Perez, and bringing matters to issue with Ignez de Moreno.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE DRESSING-CLOSET OF IGNEZ.
During these proceedings, Don Perez had many conferences with the two priests.
Padre Eizagiuerro, the confessor of Ignez, suspected much, but Padre Ugarte, a stern and ascetic enthusiast, suspected, and said more; for he openly inveighed against the simplicity of Don Salvador, in believing all the fine things Pedro said about his relations in Spain, and his ample possessions on the table land of Anahuac, as contrasted with his cupidity on the mole, before he would consent to save the drowning girl's life.