They understood each other now. Long since had their love secrets been mutually confessed; and Luisa Valverde needed no telling who Ruperto was. Independent of what she had lately learned from the Condesa, she knew him to be a gentleman of good family, a soldier of some reputation; but who—as once her own father—had the misfortune to belong to the party now out of power; many of them in exile, or retired upon their estates in the country—for the time taking no part in politics. As for himself, he had not been lately seen in the city of Mexico, though it was said he was still in the country; as rumour had it, hiding away somewhere among the mountains. And rumour went further, even to the defiling of his fair name. There were reports of his having become a robber, and that, under another name, he was now chief of a band of salteadores, whose deeds were oft heard of on the Acapulco Road, where this crosses the mountains near that place of many murders—the Cruzdel Marques.
Nothing of this sinister tale, however, had reached the ears of Don Ignacio’s daughter. Nor till that day—indeed that very hour—had she, more interested in him, heard aught of it. Hence much of the wild excitement under which she was labouring.
“Forgive me, Ysabel!” said her friend, opening her arms, and receiving the Countess in sympathetic embrace; “forgive me for the mistake I have made.”
“Nay, ’tis I who should ask forgiveness,” returned the other, seeing the misapprehension her words had caused, with their distressing effect. “I ought to have spoken plainer. But you know how much my thoughts have been dwelling on dear Ruperto.”
She did know, or should, judging by herself, and how hers had been dwelling on dear Florencio.
“But, Ysabel: you say they made him a prisoner! Who has done that, and why?”
“The soldiers of the State. As to why, you can easily guess. Because he belongs to the party of Liberals. That’s why, and nothing else. But they don’t say so. I’ve something more to tell you. Would you believe it, Luisita, that they accuse him of being a salteador?”
“I can believe him accused of it—some of those in power now are wicked enough for anything—but not guilty. You remember we were acquainted with Don Ruperto, before that sad time when we were compelled to leave the country. I should say he would be the last man to stain his character by becoming a robber.”
“The very last man! Robber indeed! My noble Ruperto the purest of patriots, purer than any in this degenerate land. Ay-de-mi!”
“Where did they take him, and when?”