Agueda arose and dropped the linen from her lap to the floor. She had never been taught careful ways. All that she knew of such things had come to her by intuition, and her action showed the dominant strain of her blood--not the exactness of a trained servant, but the carelessness of a petted child of fortune. She stepped over the white mass at her feet and went to the door that led from her room to Beltran's. She walked as one who has come to a sudden determination. Of late she had not been there, except to perform some such service as the present moment demanded. She seized the knob in her hand, and turned it round, pressing the weight of her young body against the door. Instead of bursting hurriedly into the room, as was her wont, she found the door unyielding. Again she tried it, twisting the knob this way and that.
She was about to call upon one of the men to come to her aid, as the door had stuck fast, when suddenly she stopped, standing where the exertion had left her. Her colour fled, her lips grew bloodless, she leaned dizzy and sick against the door. On the floor, at her feet, she had caught sight of a small shaving that had pushed itself through the crack underneath. She put her hand to her side as if a physical pain had seized her. She ran to the door of her room which opened upon the outer and more secluded veranda. Passing through this, she walked with trembling steps to the doorway of Beltran's room. She could hear his gay badinage down at the end of the house, where she knew that Felisa was sipping her chocolate inside her room, while he called impatiently to know when she would be ready for the excursion of the day.
Agueda entered Beltran's room and walked swiftly to the communicating door. Ah! it was as she had feared. Some shavings upon the floor, and a new bolt, put there she knew not when, perhaps when she was up in the field on the previous day, attested to the verity of her suspicion. What did Beltran fear? That, remembering the old-time love and confidence, she should take advantage of it and of her near proximity, and when all the coloñia slept, go to him and endeavour to recall those past days, try to rekindle the love so nearly dead? Nearly dead! It must be quite so, when he could remind her thus cruelly, if silently, that a new order of things now reigned at San Isidro.