The bearer of this letter is Guadalupe, a slave of Cachita's father, Don Severiano, and she is intrusted with messages to and from the convent. Twice a week she visits the torno cupboard, charged with changes of linen and other articles for her young mistress's use. Everything is carefully examined by a nun, before being consigned to its owner; so Tunicú's ingenious notion of conveying by this opportunity something contraband to the fair prisoner cannot be entertained.
Having bribed Guadalupe with a bundle of cigars and a coloured handkerchief for a turban, I obtain from her, in return, some intelligence of her young mistress.
'Have you heard how la Niña Cachita fares?' I inquire.
'Badly,' says the negress. 'The monastic life does not agree with her lively disposition, and she yearns for freedom again, la pobre!'
'Then the nuns have not succeeded in converting her?'
'I think not, miamo. In a letter to her mother, Doña Belen, who has still a good opinion of your worship, mi amita Cachita ridicules the Monjas (nuns), and describes their strange ways.'
'Has Don Severiano expressed his intention to release la Niña at the expiration of her allotted six months?'
'I believe so; but even then, it will be nearly five long months before she can be with us again!'
The most important information which I draw from the communicative black is, that my medical friend, Don Francisco, who is a dentist as well as a doctor, is attending my beloved for professional purposes. I resolved to call upon Don Francisco, and when Guadalupe has taken her departure with a packet containing a selection from Cachita's letters, and one of my own, which I have carefully worded, in case it should fall into wrong hands, I repair at once to the house of my medical friend.
Don Francisco sympathises with me, and promises to aid me in a plan which I have conceived for communicating by letter with my absent mistress; but he warns me that there are many difficulties in the way of doing so.