“And if I myself denounce the conspiracy?”
“You denounce it?” exclaimed Elias, looking at him, and stepping back. “You would pass for a traitor and a coward in the eyes of the conspirators, and for a pusillanimous person in the eyes of others. They would say that you had played a trick to win some praise, they would say....”
“But what can be done?”
“Already I have told you. Destroy all the papers you have which relate to you; flee and await developments.”
“And Maria Clara?” exclaimed the young man. “No; death first!”
Elias wrung his hands and said:
“Well, then, at least avoid the blow. Prepare yourself against their accusations.”
Ibarra looked around him in a stupefied manner.
“Then, help me! There in those bags I have my family letters. Sort out those from my father, which are, perhaps, the ones that would incriminate me. Read the signatures.”
Ibarra, stunned and overwhelmed, opened and closed drawers, collected papers, hastily read letters, tore up some, kept others, took down books and thumbed through some of them. Elias did the same, if indeed with less confusion, with equal zeal. But he stopped, with eyes wide open, turned over a paper which he had in his hand and asked in a trembling voice: