“The Duke de la Torre, Victorina,” suggested her husband.
“It is the same thing!”
“Shall I find Father Dámaso at his pueblo to-day?” Linares asked Brother Salvi.
“Father Dámaso is here, and may be with us at any moment.”
“I’m very glad! I have a letter for him, and if a happy chance had not brought me here, I should have come expressly to see him.”
Meanwhile the “happy chance,” that is to say, poor Maria Clara, had awakened.
“Come, de Espadaña, come, see Clarita,” said Doña Victorina. “It is for you he does this,” she went on, turning to Captain Tiago; “my husband attends only people of quality.”
The sick-room was almost in obscurity, the windows closed, for fear of draughts; two candles, burning before an image of the Virgin of Antipolo, sent out feeble glimmers.
Enveloped in multiple folds of white, the lovely figure of Maria lay on her bed of kamagon, behind curtains of jusi and piña. Her abundant hair about her face increased its transparent pallor, as did the radiance of her great, sad eyes. Beside her were her two friends, and Andeng holding a lily branch.
De Espadaña felt her pulse, examined her tongue, asked a question or two, and nodded his head.