Raquel sat up and looked about her as one dazed. She clutched at the folds of her dress. The piece of kid lay in her hand.
"Oh, Ana!" she sobbed, "he has taken it away. All that I had. My only protection."
"Sweet," she said, "I have good news for you."
"What is it?" asked Raquel, sitting up, all interest, her dull eyes brightening.
"I crept along the hall," said Ana, "and when I reached the rum room I slipped in and closed the door softly, and listened through the cracks. When he came here, I slipped out to the kitchen, and there I have been ever since."
"But the good news," asked Raquel. "Quick! Ana, tell me."
"He was sitting at his desk, the Señor Escobeda, his back to the door, so unlike any other gentleman. If they must rage, they stand up and do it. But there he sat, swearing by all the gods at something. I saw that that man Rotiro from Palmacristi had run out of the counting-house, and was peeping in at the door; and I listened, hoping to find out something, and I have, sweet, I have."
"Well! well! Ana, dear Ana, hasten! hasten!--"
"I have found out that the Señor Don Gil asks your hand in marriage."
Raquel sank down again in a heap on the floor.
"All! And what more can the Señorita want than to have a gentleman, rich, handsome, devoted, offer her his hand in honourable marriage?"
"I only want one thing more, Ana dear," said Raquel, sadly, "the power to accept it."
"The power to accept it?" said Ana, questioningly. "Is the child mad?"
"He twits me with it. He says that I shall not accept him, the Señor Don Gil. He says that I shall go in any case to the government town. He has taken away my dagger. I cannot even kill myself, Ana. Oh! what am I to do? Gil! Gil! Come and save me."
At this heavy steps were heard coming along the corridor. The door was burst open with a blow of Escobeda's fist.
"You need not scream or call upon your lover, or on anybody else. You have no one to aid you."
"No one but God, and my dear Ana here," said Raquel.
"One is about as much use as the other," said Escobeda, laughing. "Call as loud as you will, one is quite deaf and the other helpless."
"Will you leave my room?" she said with dignity.
"I will leave your room, because I have done all that I came to do."