"I can excuse Marcelino for that," said Doña Constancia. "Don Alfonso was very good to him when he was wounded."
"Don Alfonso is a physician, and found good practice in his broken ribs. He was well paid for his trouble."
"I did not know that you paid him," said Marcelino; "he refused any acknowledgment from me."
"You cannot think that I would accept a favour from a man like him. I can assure you he was ready enough to take my gold."
"I have no doubt he deserves his imprisonment or the Viceroy would not have put him in prison, so do not trouble yourself any more about him, Marcelino," said Doña Constancia.
"It is not about him that I trouble myself," replied Marcelino. "If he were justly imprisoned I would not say a word for him, but we have made enquiries and can hear of no accusation having been brought against him, merely suspicions. And men say——!"
"Who are we that have made those enquiries?" asked Don Roderigo.
"My grandfather and Don Fausto as well as myself."
"They were with me to-day. In future you had better leave such enquiries to them."
"But, father, have not you heard how people talk about it all over the city? It has brought discredit upon the Viceroy, and upon all those who act with him. We all thought that the days of arbitrary imprisonments were gone by."