" Isabel's voice had gone flat with consternation.
"Rich? Well, not exactly, but comfortably well off." Cueto
actually smiled again. "No doubt my frankness is a shock to you.
You are angry at my proposition, eh? Never mind. You will think
better of it in time, if you are a sensible woman."
"What a fiend! Have you no sentiment?"
"Oh, senora! I am all sentiment. Don Esteban was my benefactor. I
revere his memory, and I feel it my duty to see that his family
does not want. That is why I have provided for you, and will
continue to provide--in proper measure. But now, since at last we
enjoy such confidential relations, let us have no more of these
miserable suspicions of each other. Let us entirely forget this
unpleasant misunderstanding and be the same good friends as
before."
Having said this, Pancho Cueto stood silent a moment in polite
expectancy; then receiving no intelligible reply, he bowed low and
left the room.
To the avaricious Dona Isabel Cueto's frank acknowledgment of
theft was maddening, and the realization that she was helpless,
nay, dependent upon his charity for her living, fairly crucified
her proud spirit.
All day she brooded, and by the time evening came she had worked
herself into such a state of nerves that she could eat no dinner.
Locking herself into her room, she paced the floor, now wringing
her hands, now twisting in agony upon her bed, now biting her
wrists in an endeavor to clear her head and to devise some means
of outwitting this treacherous overseer.
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