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In a voice rendered unusually shrill and querulous by vexation at having her rest broken, she demanded who it was thus disturbing the slumbers of the sisterhood. "I come," said Baltasar, "to speak with your lady abbess, Doña Carmen de Forcadell, upon matters of the utmost importance. Admit me instantly, for my business presses."
"Something I know," said he, when Herrera paused, "of the convent you mention, and still more of its abbess. Carmen de Forcadell was long celebrated, both at Madrid and in her native Andalusia, for her beauty and intrigues. Her husband was assassinated by one of her lovers, as some said, and within three years of his death, repenting, it was believed, of her dissolute life, she took the veil.
It revived her, she opened her eyes, and by a convulsive movement assumed a sitting posture, but instantly fell back again. She glanced at Herrera's uniform in seeming surprise, and gazed around her with a haggard and terrified look. "Have no fear," said Herrera; "you are in safety. Do I mistake, or are you Doña Carmen de Forcadell?" The nun's lips moved, but no sound escaped then.
'I hate him, were your words, as I sat at your feet in yon sunny Andalusian bower 'I hate him, and in proportion to my hatred should be my gratitude to him who rid me of his odious presence. That night the serenos found the body of Don Fernando de Forcadell stiff and cold upon the steps of his villa.
The convent has since been abandoned and partly pulled down; but the chapel still stands, and on its paved floor may still be read inscriptions recording the date and manner of the death of Baltasar de Villabuena and Carmen de Forcadell.
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