The girl told the servant to drive her to Don Rudesindo's house, as she was on rather intimate terms with his wife. There she remained until two or three days after the event, when her father took her to Madrid, and from thence to Ocaña, where she was shut up in a convent by the joint arrangement of Gonzalo and Rosendo. The great patrician, as we know, was not much in favor of positive religions, but "as long as society provided no other coercive measures for certain moral transgressions, he was perforce led to look for them from old social institutions, deficient and vitiated as they might be."
We must now return to Gonzalo. He passed the whole day locked in his room in a state of agitation approaching madness. The only person who ventured to enter his room was Don Rosendo, who talked to him in a kind and dignified style, adorned with periphrases and florid periods befitting his character as a writer. He took a seat by his side and cursed his daughter, "whose inexpressible conduct, defying [Don Rosendo had lately taken a great fancy to this verb] at once morality, law, and social practise, had placed her beyond the pale of all legal and family protection."
It was he who suggested shutting her up for a time in a convent. Poor Gonzalo, overwhelmed and distraught, never answered a word, but listened to him while walking backward and forward across the room with his hands in his pockets and his eyes wet and gloomy. Once only he raised his head to say with firmness:
"Take her where you like--but don't let her see my children. I do not want her lips to touch them."
At dusk a servant came to tell Gonzalo that two gentlemen had arrived in a trap, who wished to see him on urgent business. Guessing immediately the import of the matter he said at once: "Show them in."
Two gentlemen from Nieva then entered. One was the Marquis of Soldevilla, a middle-aged man, quite bald, with a complexion marked with erysipelas, and black teeth. He talked in a loud tone to seem at his ease. The other, named Golarzo, was old, gray, and a man of few words or friends. They came on behalf of the duke to arrange a serious matter that had happened the previous night--about an affair of honor. The duke did not wish to rob the Señor de las Cuevas of the reparation due to him. To run away on such an occasion was not according to his habits nor his character, neither was it befitting his social status. But at the same time, in the interest of Gonzalo and himself, he expected that all would be executed with as much privacy as possible.