"Flown!" re-echoed Monteblanco, in consternation; "Flown! And how came you not to prevent her departure?"
"Save your honor," returned the terrified Pedro, "we all thought she was quietly shut up in her chamber. She has contrived to escape, the Lord only knows how—she must have vanished through the chimney, or a key hole, like a witch that she is, Jesus me valga!"
"That she is a witch I am fully aware, and you are all her familiars," cried Don Manuel with violence. "But you shall rue the moment the hag foiled your vigilance."
Gomez Arias, who had observed a perfect silence, now ventured to remark—
"We need go no further for a positive proof of the duenna's culpability, since her guilt is rendered sufficiently evident by her flight."
"Yes," observed Don Manuel, "but that circumstance affords me little consolation. The means of ascertaining the truth are now lost, by the disappearance of the principal accomplice."
The afflicted old man again gave way to his exasperated feelings; this last stroke quite overpowered him. His pride was sorely wounded, for he was one of those old Spanish cavaliers, who, when deprived of every other satisfaction, took a melancholy pleasure in inflicting his vengeance on the object of his wrath. But even this solitary consolation was now denied him, and the idea that he had been so grossly imposed upon by an old beldame, added to the galling reflections which his misfortune had inflicted.
Gomez Arias exerted his utmost endeavours to sooth his emotion, employing for this purpose all the established maxims resorted to under similar circumstances—maxims profoundly wise no doubt, but which unluckily are often lost upon their object.
"In order then," said Gomez Arias, "to unravel this mystery, it is of the first importance to set about the inquiry from the commencement, in order to discover the authors. We have now the agent of this nefarious enterprise, but we must seek for the actual culprit. There can be no doubt that when a young girl is induced to elope from her home, there is generally a lover who prompts her to so objectionable a measure. Now, Don Manuel, is there no person on whom suspicion may attach with any probability?"
Monteblanco pondered for a while, and then replied—"Really, Don Lope, if there exists such a man, I am totally unacquainted with his person."