“You are a woman,” she said, softly. “In your heart there must be some sympathy for other women.”
“Not much,” Inez acknowledged. “Few women have shown sympathy or kindness toward me. I was a poor girl working on a hacienda, and listened to the lies of a handsome traveler. And when my fault was discovered it was the women who turned their backs. A woman of your class, wench, kicked me out!”
“That is the way of the world,” Lolita told her. “Still, you must have in your breast some inkling of pity. Would see the thing happen to me that is going to happen if I cannot avoid it?”
“Ha!” Inez laughed. “What would you?”
“Help me get away!” the señorita begged. “Help me to be free, and in some manner I’ll get up El Camino Real to Reina de Los Angeles. I have friends. In time I’ll send you more money than Barbados will get from Captain Ramón.”
“And Barbados would take the money from me, slit my throat, and find him another woman,” Inez replied, laughing coarsely. “I know nothing of his business deals with Captain Ramón or any other. Nor do I care to know them!”
“Have you no pity?”
“I have nothing to do with it,” the woman declared. “I have orders to give you water and food and a light, and I have done so. That is the end.”
Before the señorita could speak again the woman had gone out and closed the door. Señorita Lolita heard the bar dropped into place once more. She went slowly back to the stool, and managed to eat a few morsels of the goat’s flesh, after which she drank more of the water.
By the light of the torch she inspected her prison room. There was nothing in it except some old casks that once had contained olives and tallow. There was but the one door, and only a single window, and the window was small and had bars of metal across it.