He looked astounded, then he fixed his eyes on Gabriel as though he could not guess who that woman was. What joke had his brother prepared?
With a brutal impulse he tore the woman's hands from her face, looking at her earnestly; even so he did not recognise her. In the midst of a painful silence he stood a long while looking at her. Little by little, in that face so altered by illness, he began to trace the well-known features. In the tearful eyes devoid of eyelashes something reminded him of the blue eyes of the lost daughter. The discoloured lips, surrounded by deep lines, quivered painfully, murmuring always the same word:
"Pardon! pardon!"
At the sight of such a wreck the father felt his courage fail; his eyes expressed an immense, an overwhelming sadness.
He retreated backwards to the door of the "habitacion," followed by the young woman, dragging herself on her knees and stretching out her hands.
"Brother, it is well," he said despairingly; "you are stronger than I am, let your will be accomplished. Let her remain, as you wish it, but do not let me see her!—remain, both of you. It is I that will go."
CHAPTER VI
The sewing machine clicked from early morning till night in the house of the Lunas. This and the hammering of the shoemaker were the only sounds of work that disturbed the holy silence of the upper cloister.
When Gabriel left his bed at sunrise, after a night of painful coughing, he would find Sagrario already in the entrance room preparing her machine for the day's work. From the day following that of her return to the Cathedral she had devoted herself to work with sullen silence as a means of returning unnoticed to the Claverias, trusting that the people would forgive her past. The gardener's widow procured her work, and so the sound of the stitching was continually heard in the old "habitacion," accompanied very often by melodies from the Chapel-master's harmonium.
The "Wooden Staff" moved about his house like a shadow. He remained continually in the Cathedral or in the lower cloister, only coming up to the "habitacion" when it was absolutely necessary. He ate his meals with his head bent, in order not to look at his daughter, who was seated opposite to him at the other end of the table, ready to burst into tears at the sight of her father before her. A painful silence oppressed the family. Don Luis being so absent-minded, seemed the only one not to perceive the situation, and chatted gaily with Gabriel about his hopes and his musical enthusiasms. Everything seemed to him quite natural; nothing disturbed him, and the return of Sagrario to the family hearth had not caused him the slightest surprise.