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It is beyond a doubt that Cristobal Ramos left his house just after dark, crossed the Calle del Condestable, and, seeing three countrymen mounted on powerful mules coming toward him, asked them where they were going, to which they answered that they were going to Senora Dona Perfecta's house to take her some of the first fruits of their gardens and a part of the rent that had fallen due.
"But I hope that you will both forgive me. Your mamma was so kind to me a little while ago." Dona Perfecta's voice suddenly vibrated through the dining-room, with so discordant a tone that her nephew started as if he had heard a cry of alarm. The voice said imperiously: "Rosario, go to bed!"
When he was called to supper Dona Perfecta, who was already in the dining-room, went up to him and said, without preface: "Dear Pepe, don't distress yourself, I will pacify Senor Don Inocencio. I know every thing already. Maria Remedios, who has just left the house, has told me all about it." Dona Perfecta's countenance radiated such satisfaction as an artist, proud of his work, might feel.
Suddenly the "Ave Maria Purisima" of some drunken watchman would be heard, like a moan uttered in its sleep by the town. In Dona Perfecta's house also silence reigned, unbroken but for a conversation which was taking place between Don Cayetano and Pepe Rey, in the library of the former.
Don Inocencio, the priest, whose control of Dona Perfecta's conscience has vitiated the very springs of goodness in her, is by no means bad, aside from his purposes. He loves his sister and her son tenderly, and wishes to provide for them by the marriage which Pepe's presence threatens to prevent.
Before the canon and Dona Perfecta had had time to exchange a word, an elderly woman, Dona Perfecta's confidential servant and her right hand, entered the dining-room, and her mistress, seeing that she looked disturbed and anxious, was at once filled with disquietude, suspecting that something wrong was going on in the house.
"It is not to Dona Perfecta's she wants to go," said the priest, "but to the hotel of the widow De Cuzco. She was saying that she does not dare to go alone, because she is afraid of being insulted." "By whom?" "It is easily understood. By that infernal engineer. Last night my niece met him there, and she gave him some plain talk; and for that reason she is not altogether easy in her mind to-night.
Those gentlemen imagine that here we are all fools, and that they can deceive us with fine words. He has come to marry Dona Perfecta's daughter, and all that he says about coalbeds is only for the sake of appearances."
"Yes; and you, I take it," answered the traveller joyfully, "are Dona Perfecta's servant, who have come to the station to meet me and show me the way to Orbajosa?" "The same. Whenever you are ready to start. The pony runs like the wind. And Senor Don Jose, I am sure, is a good rider. For what comes by race " "Which is the way out?" asked the traveller, with impatience.
Perfecta's gratitude was so profound that in writing to her brother from Orbajosa, where she determined to reside until her daughter should be grown up, she said to him, among other affectionate things: "You have been more than a brother to me, more than a father to my daughter. How can either of us ever repay you for services so great?
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