Gabriel’s ill-health awoke in her the deepest compassion, but all the same not quite free from malicious suggestions.

“How much you must have amused yourself about the world, eh, nephew?  But that war was your perdition; without it you would now have had your stall in the choir, and who knows if you might not have come to be another Don Sebastian.  The truth is, that from his childhood no one spoke half as much about him in the seminary as they did of you, and he certainly was no prodigy of learning.  But you saw the world, and you took a fancy to those countries where they say the ladies are very pretty, and wear hats as large as parasols.  You are a monster of ugliness now, but you were very smart, though I, who am your aunt, say so.  And now you have come back so lean and suffering!  You must have lived very fast; who knows what you have done in the world—­sly boots!  And your poor mother, who thought you would be a saint!  God have mercy on us!  Don’t deny it; you have done no good and I hate lies.  You did right to enjoy yourself and to take advantage of every opportunity, but the misfortune is that you should have returned as you are, for it is pitiful to see you, but I have known a great many like you.  I don’t know what evil spirit possesses people belonging to the church, but once they throw themselves into life, they don’t know where to stop, and they burn the candle at both ends till there is next to nothing left; many of them, like you, have passed through the seminary.”

One morning Gabriel asked a question of his aunt that he had been long thinking about, but that he had never before dared to put into words.  He wanted to know all about his niece, Sagrario, and what had happened in his brother’s house.

“You who are so kind, aunt, you will tell me; everyone seems afraid to speak about it; even my nephew the Tato, who is such a chatterer and skins everyone in the Claverias, is silent when I ask him.  What happened, aunt?”

The old woman’s face grew very sad.

“A great misfortune, my son, such as was never known before in the upper cloister.  The madness of the world came into the Cathedral, and made a nest in the most honoured, most ancient, and most respectable house in the Claverias.  We are all good people, though we have never seen as much of the world as can be seen from a skylight, and live here as though wrapped in cotton wool, but you Lunas have always been the best among the best, to say nothing of us Villalpandos, who come close behind.  Ay! if your mother could raise her head!  If your father were alive!  But I lay all the blame on your brother, as being weak and a simpleton, having that cursed blindness of all fathers, who ignore the danger in the hope of marrying their daughters well.”

“Well, but how was it, aunt?  What passed between my niece and the cadet?”