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.A proposal to do so had been met with a storm of angry amazement.And steam and electricity had not then annihilated distance and abolished suspense.She could but wonder and hope, and try to read the truth from a covert inspection of the face and words of Fray Ignatius.Between this monk and herself the breach was hourly widening.With angry pain she saw her mother tortured between the fact that she loved her husband, and the horrible doubt that to love him was a mortal sin.She understood the underlying motive which prompted the priest to urge upon the Senora the removal of herself and her daughters to the convent.His offer to take charge of the Worth residencia and estate was in her conviction a proposal to rob them of all rights in it.She felt certain that whatever the Church once grasped in its iron hand, it would ever retain.And both to Isabel and herself the thought of a convent was now horrible."They will force me to be a nun," said Isabel; "and then, what will Luis do? And they will never tell me anything about my father and my brothers.I should never hear of them.I should never see them any more; unless the good God was so kind as to let me meet them in his heaven."And Antonia had still darker and more fearful thoughts.She had not forgotten the stories whispered to her childhood, of dreadful fates reserved for contumacious and disobedient women.Whenever Fray Ignatius looked at her she felt as if she were within the shadow of the Inquisition.Never had days passed so wearily and anxiously.Never had nights been so terrible.The sisters did not dare to talk much together; they doubted Rachela; they were sure their words were listened to and repeated.They were not permitted to be alone with the Senora.Fray Ignatius had particularly warned Rachela to prevent this.He was gradually bringing the unhappy woman into what he called "a heavenly mind"—the influence of her daughters, he was sure, would be that of worldly affections and sinful liberty.And Rachela obeyed the confessor so faithfully, that the Senora was almost in a state of solitary confinement.Every day her will was growing weaker, her pathetic obedience more childlike and absolute.But at midnight, when every one was asleep, Antonia stepped softly into her sister's room and talked to her.They sat in Isabel's bed clasping each other's hand in the dark, and speaking in whispers.Then Antonia warned and strengthened Isabel.She told her all her fears.She persuaded her to control her wilfulness, to be obedient, and to assume the childlike thoughtlessness which best satisfied Fray Ignatius."He told you to-day to be happy, that he would think for you.My darling, let him believe that is the thing you want," said Antonia."I assure you we shall be the safer for it.""He said to me yesterday, when I asked him about the war, 'Do not inquire, child, into things you do not understand.That is to be irreligious,' and then he made the cross on his breast, as if I had put a bad thought into his heart.We are afraid all day, and we sit whispering all night about our fears; that is the state we are in.The Lord sends us nothing but misfortunes, Antonia.""My darling, tell the Lord your sorrow, then, but do not repine to Rachela or Fray Ignatius.That is to complain to the merciless of the All-Merciful.""Do you think I am wicked, Antonia? What excuse could I offer to His Divine Majesty, if I spoke evil to him of Rachela and Fray Ignatius?""Neither of them are our friends; do you think so?""Fray Ignatius looks like a goblin; he gives me a shiver when he looks at me; and as for Rachela—I already hate her!""Do not trust her.You need not hate her, Isabel.""Antonia, I know that I shall eternally hate her; for I am sure that our angels are at variance."In conversations like these the anxious girls passed the long, and often very cold, nights.The days were still worse, for as November went slowly away the circumstances which surrounded their lives appeared to constantly gather a more decided and a bitterer tone.December, that had always been such a month of happiness, bright with Christmas expectations and Christmas joys, came in with a terribly severe, wet norther.The great log fires only warmed the atmosphere immediately surrounding them, and Isabel and Antonia sat gloomily within it all day.It seemed to Antonia as if her heart had come to the very end of hope; and that something must happen.The rain lashed the earth; the wind roared around the house, and filled it with unusual noises.The cold was a torture that few found themselves able to endure.But it brought a compensation.Fray Ignatius did not leave the Mission comforts; and Rachela could not bear to go prowling about the corridors and passages.She established herself in the Senora's room, and remained there.And very early in the evening she said "she had an outrageous headache," and went to her room.Then Antonia and Isabel sat awhile by their mother's bed.They talked in whispers of their father and brothers, and when the Senora cried, they kissed her sobs into silence and wiped her tears away.In that hour, if Fray Ignatius had known it, they undid, in a great measure, the work to which he had given more than a month of patient and deeply-reflective labor.For with the girls, there was the wondrous charm of love and nature; but with the priest, only a splendid ideal of a Church universal that was to swallow up all the claims of love and all the ties of nature.It was nearly nine o'clock when Antonia and Isabel returned to the parlor fire.Their hearts were full of sorrow for their mother, and of fears for their own future.For this confidence had shown them how firmly the refuge of the convent had been planted in the anxious ideas of the Senora.Fortunately, the cold had driven the servants either to the kitchen fire or to their beds, and they could talk over the subject without fear of interference."Are you sleepy, queridita?"—(little dear)."I think I shall never go to sleep again, Antonia [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]