"She never does, Señor," she answered, stifling her sobs.
"And what is that?" asked Escobeda, in a grating voice. He slapped the paper with the back of his hand into the very face of Ana. "Do you think that I cannot read my enemy's hand—aye, and his meaning? Even were it written in invisible ink. 'Gil!' Do you see it? 'Gil!'" He slapped the paper again, still thrusting it under Ana's nose.
"There may be more than one Gil in the world, Señor," sniffed the shaking Ana.
"Do not try to prevaricate, Ana. You know there is not more than one Gil in the world," said Raquel, scornfully.
Ana, in danger from the second horn of her dilemma, stood convicted of both, and gasped.
"There is only one Gil in the world for me. That is Don Gil Silencio-y-Estrada. That is his note which you hold, uncle. It is a love letter. I have answered it this very day."
Raquel, now that the flood of her speech had started to flow, said all that she could imagine or devise. She said that which had no foundation in fact. She made statements which, had Silencio heard them, would have lifted him to the seventh heaven of bliss.
"He wants me to go away with him. He knows that I am imprisoned. He implores me to come to him. Be sure," said Raquel, her eyes flashing, "that the opportunity is all that I need."