"I ... I don't know, señora!"
The old woman gave up her dusting and came nearer, so she could talk in a whisper.
"You don't think—you don't believe i-it could h-have b-been—?" She gasped and cut off her sentence.
"You mean...."
She nodded mutely, with a terrified expression in her old eyes.
"Why, no, Doña Consolacion, I am sure it was not ... not your grandson!"
But Doña Consolacion was peering at him, and his face was too full of apprehension to reassure her. On the contrary, with the suspicion of the aged she read tragedy there. She suddenly dropped her duster and her face screwed up into the tearless grimacing which stands for weeping with the aged.
"Oh, Dios mio! my Josefa, my poor little Josefa is gone!" She rocked to and fro with her hands crossed over her dried breast. Suddenly something flared up in her and she pointed at Strawbridge: "And you did it! You killed him! It makes no difference to me if it was all a part of a plan to free this country. I would rather have my little Josefa than free a thousand countries!"
Strawbridge made a gesture.