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.  But mere thought of the law frightened her; the longer she pondered her situation the more she realized her own impotence.  There was no doubt that the courts were corrupt:  they were notoriously venal at best, and this war had made them worse.  Graft was rampant everywhere.  To confess publicly that Esteban Varona had left no deeds, no title to his property, would indeed be the sheerest folly.  No, Cueto had her at his mercy.

Sometime during the course of the evening a wild idea came to Isabel.  Knowing that the manager would spend the night beneath her roof, she planned to kill him.  At first it seemed a simple thing to do—­merely a matter of a dagger or a pistol, while he slept—­ but further thought revealed appalling risks and difficulties, and she decided to wait.  Poison was far safer.

That night she lay awake a long time putting her scheme into final shape, and then for an interval that seemed longer she hung poised in those penumbral regions midway between wakefulness and slumber.  Through her mind meanwhile there passed a whirling phantasmagoria, an interminable procession of figures, of memories, real yet unreal, convincing yet unconvincing.  When she did at last lose all awareness of reality the effect was merely to enhance the vividness of those phantoms, to lend substance to her vaporous visions.  Constant brooding over the treasure had long since affected Dona Isabel’s brain, and as a consequence she often dreamed about it.  She dreamed about it again to-night, and, strangely enough, her dreams were pleasant.  Sebastian appeared, but for once he neither cursed nor threatened her; and Esteban, when he came, was again the lover who had courted her in Habana.  It was all very wonderful, very exciting, very real.  Dona Isabel found herself robed for him in her wedding-gown of white, and realized that she was beautiful.  It seemed also as if her powers of attraction were magically enhanced, for she exercised a potent influence over him.  Her senses were quickened a thousandfold, too.  For instance, she could see great distances—­a novel and agreeable sensation; she enjoyed strange, unsuspected perfumes; she heard the music of distant waterfalls and understood the whispered language of the breeze.  It was amazing, delightful.  Esteban and she were walking through the grounds of the quinta and he was telling her about his casks of Spanish sovereigns, about those boxes bound with iron, about the gold and silver ornaments of heavenly, beauty and the pearls as large as plums.  As he talked, Isabel felt herself grow hot and cold with anticipation; she experienced spasms of delight.  She felt that she must dance, must run, must cast her arms aloft in ecstasy.  Never had she experienced so keen an intoxication of joy as now, while Esteban was leading her toward the treasure and wooing her with youthful ardor.