"It is so many months since I have seen you, Don Carlos," she said, "that I have almost forgotten the sound of your voice; but I went to see Doña Josefina last week, and she told me about you. You have been spending these last months very pleasantly, no wonder you forgot us. I did not think we should ever see you again."
"What nonsense are you talking, Chica?" said Don Alfonso.
But Don Carlos did not seem to think it nonsense, and smiled pleasantly upon her.
"There is some one who often speaks to me of you," he said. Then noticing that Magdalen looked troubled at this, he turned to Don Alfonso and spoke to him.
"To-day I received a letter from your brother the General," he said. "Every letter is more sanguine than the one before. He sends me an enclosure for you, which——"
"Go and walk in the garden, Chica," said Don Alfonso, interrupting him. Then as Magdalen left them he signed to Don Carlos to follow him to the sala, the door of which he closed before he spoke again.
Magdalen had not walked long in the garden before the gate opened and Don Ciriaco Asneiros entered. She received him with much less cordiality than she had formerly shown him. Even the name of Dolores failed to arouse her to animation, but for some minutes she walked beside him, listlessly attending to what he said, and answering his questions at random.
"And the old man?" said Don Ciriaco, tiring at length of this one-sided conversation.
"He is in the sala," replied Magdalen.
"Let us go and talk to him."