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<h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> <h3>AN UNPARDONABLE WRONG.</h3> <div class="drop"> <ANTIMG src="images/t.jpg" width-obs="100" height-obs="100" alt="T" class="cap" /> The visits of Lucius to the house of Alcala were repeated on many successive evenings, to the great annoyance of Teresa, who both suspected and feared the stranger. Inez did not share the old servant's displeasure. She saw that the society of the Englishman made her brother strangely happy, as they studied together that marvellous Book, of which Alcala spoke to her so often. Inez rather regretted when she found that there would be a break in intercourse which was so greatly enjoyed, Lucius having to go to Madrid on some mercantile business in the latter part of September. </div> <hr style='width: 45%;' /> "Here, I have spent all, to the last maravedi,"[15] muttered old Teresa, as she returned one Friday from market, laden with a basket heavy with[Pg 117] various provisions for the household: some bread, a flask of oil (indispensable in a Spanish kitchen), a string of onions, saffron for soup, a melon, chestnuts, oranges, and olives. Meat was a luxury rarely tasted in the palace of the Aguileras. Wearily the old woman set down the basket on the kitchen table, on which Inez, with her delicate hands, was preparing her grandmother's cup of chocolate. "I have satisfied the surgeon, as you desired, señorita," said Teresa, "and have bought these things with what remained of the twenty dollars which you gave me." "You have laid out the dollars well, Teresa," said the maiden graciously to her ungracious retainer; "I knew that you would do the best that you could with the money." "I wish that I knew where that money came from," said Teresa, her sharp eyes surveying her young mistress with a keen look of suspicion. As Inez never quitted the house unescorted by her duenna, and Teresa had not once been asked to attend the señorita—except to mass—since Alcala had received his wound, it had been a matter of curious speculation to the old servant how the lady had suddenly become possessed of twenty dollars, which seemed to her a very large sum. Inez made no reply to the observation, but went[Pg 118] on with her occupation. This only served to intensify the curiosity of Teresa. "I hope that those dollars were not given to the señorita by that heretic Inglesito," hissed forth the old woman, as she rested her bony knuckles on the table, and leant forward to peer more closely into the face of Inez. "You know well that Spanish ladies accept no money from cavaliers," replied Inez, with a heightened colour on her cheek and some displeasure in her tone. "I had the dollars from Donna Maria de Rivas; she was here yesterday, as you are perfectly aware." Teresa did not look by any means satisfied with the reply; perhaps she was too well acquainted with the family friend to deem her capable of an act of free liberality. The old woman still sharply surveyed her mistress as she observed, "I cannot abide that Donna Maria; she speaks the thing which is false." "Teresa!" Inez began reprovingly; but the old domestic tyrant would have out her say. "I heard this very morning that Donna Maria boasts that she possesses a silver reliquary holding a lock of the blessed Santa Veronica's hair" (here Teresa crossed herself devoutly), "a reliquary once belonging to Philip the Second, our most Catholic[Pg 119] king,—the saints have his soul in their keeping!" Inez moved from the table; the flush on her cheek had deepened to crimson. The duenna presumed to lay her hand on her young lady's arm to detain her. "You know, señorita, that there is not a lock of that saint's hair to be found in all Spain, from Navarre to Andalusia, save that one which King Philip himself gave to your noble ancestor, Señor Don Amadeo de Aguilera." Inez tried to release her arm, but the pressure of the old woman's hand had tightened into a gripe as she continued, after a pause: "You would not have me imagine that a descendant of that illustrious caballero, that a daughter of the house of Aguilera, has sold the priceless relic for twenty dollars?" The question could not have been asked with more pious horror, had it regarded the tombs containing the bones of all the maiden's noble ancestors. Inez, in her position of helpless poverty, could not throw off that most intolerable yoke, the tyranny of an ill-tempered old duenna, who knew herself to be indispensable, because her place could not be supplied by another. Teresa considered that years of almost unpaid service had given her[Pg 120] the privilege of being as insolent as she pleased to her gentle young mistress. On the present occasion Teresa used—or abused—that privilege to the utmost. "I would not have exchanged that precious relic," she cried, "for the Golden Rose which his Holiness the Pope has sent to our queen! I'd have begged—starved—thrown myself into the river—before I'd have sold it for money! The glory of the house of De Aguilera is gone for ever! The curse of the saints is upon us!" And Teresa, relaxing her hold on Inez, burst into a flood of passionate tears. Inez was not herself sufficiently free from a superstitious regard for relics, not to be distressed and even somewhat alarmed at seeing the light in which her act was viewed by the old duenna. "We were in debt—in need," she said softly; "I hope that the blessed saint herself would forgive what I did for the sake of a brother." "The saint may—but I cannot!" exclaimed Teresa, hastily drying her eyes, and then bursting out of the kitchen. Her anger, if the truth must be told, sprang quite as much from her pride as from her devotion. To have it noised about in the market-place of Seville that the reliquary of King Philip, the heirloom of the Aguileras, had actually[Pg 121] been sold to purchase food,—this was even worse to the old retainer of the family than the fear of offending Santa Veronica. Inez stood for some moments with drooping head and downcast eyes. Had she indeed, the poor girl asked herself, done something that might draw down on herself and her family the wrath of the saints? "Perhaps I should first have consulted my brother," thought Inez; "though the reliquary was my own, the gift of my father. I should have done so, had not most of the money which I received been required to pay the surgeon to whose skill we owe so much. But I should not have trusted my own judgment; I am but a weak, foolish girl. As soon as I have carried this chocolate to my grandmother, I will go and confess the truth to Alcala. He may condemn my act, but I am sure that he at least will forgive it." <div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> <div class="footnote">[15] A coin of less than a farthing's value. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" />[Pg 122] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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