Antonia at a distance watched the self-abasement of her
mother. She could not weep, but she was white as clay, and
her heart was swollen with a sense of wrong and injustice,
until breathing was almost suffocation. She looked with a
piteous entreaty at Isabel. Her little sister had taken a
seat at the extremity of the room away from her. She watched
Antonia with eyes full of terror. But there was no sympathy
in her face, only an uncertainty which seemed to speak to
her--to touch her-- and her mother was broken-hearted with
shame and grief.
The anxiety was also a dumb one. Until the Senora rose from
her knees, there was not a movement made, not a word uttered.
The girls waited shivering with cold, sick with fear, until
she spoke. Even then her words were cold as the wind outside:
"Go to your room, Antonia. You have not only sinned; you have
made me sin also. Alas! Alas! Miserable mother! Holy
Maria! pray for me."
"Mi madre, I am innocent of wrong. I have committed no sin.
Is it a sin to obey my father? Isabel, darling, speak for
me."
"But, then, what have you done, Antonia?"
"Fray Ignatius wants us to go to the convent. I refused. My
father made me promise to do so. Is not our first duty to our
father? Mother, is it not?
"No, no; to God--and to Fray Ignatius, as the priest of God.
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